I remember the early days after Nick passed away.

Nothing really mattered anymore.

Bad news.  Good News.  It all seemed insignificant in light of the truth that Nick was gone.

How do you measure life’s ups and downs from a foggy cavern where nothing seems lower and you can’t imagine anything higher?

I lived life with this hazy, cavern view for a long, long time; and honestly, it was safer there.

Safer because I had an excuse for feeling numb and not caring.

Safer because there were very few people in the same cavern, so I didn’t have to deal with much.

Safer because people knew I was in the cavern, so they didn’t expect a lot from me.

I’d have a visitor from time to time, but no one stayed long enough to expect me to be here or there at a certain time.

But over the past almost-four years, God has been helping me find my way up the steep rocks around me; and now I’m pulling out of the haze again just like I pulled out years after Adrienne died.

And even though the numbness seems to be going away, I sometime think slipping back down into the cavern would be easier than finishing the climb to the top.

Feeling things like anger and hurt from silly earthly situations wasn’t an issue in the depths of my grief, because truly, I didn’t care.

And suddenly I’m feeling intense emotions again about life, and it kind of scares me.

Grief is such a complex part of life; and if you have ever walked the road, I think you’ll understand.

It’s a daily choice to realize you are on a different road than anyone around you; and at the same time, the longer you’ve been on the road, the less the people around you remember that your road doesn’t look just like theirs and it never will.

Today, I’m praying that if you are on the road of grief you will know that you are loved, understood, and accepted just as you are.

And I’m praying that if you walk near someone on this road, you will let them know that even though you don’t “get” them all the time, you love them anyway…..from the hazy cavern to the steep climb up to the sudden view of light that sometimes pushes them down again.

I love you all so much.

Summer has nearly ended here, and I promise to be more faithful with my blogging.

Thank you for loving me through a nearly-wordless season.