3. ALLOW FOR NUMBNESS

We often think, “I will wake up and this will not have happened.” Early mourning can feel like being in a dream. Your emotions will need time to catch up with what your mind has been told. (Alan D. Wolfelt, PhD, HEALING A PARENT’S GRIEVING HEART, 2005)

I am not in “early mourning” and I never thought, consciously, “I will wake up and this will not have happened.” It has been more than eleven years; and, I still have difficulty with the idea that Joseph is gone. My mind was not “told” of his death. I found him. In that horrible moment, I screamed and became detached. My mind, protecting itself, knew that was not him. The cold, stiff body was not my Joseph. He was not in it.

Eleven years later, he is still alive to me. Ever present. I just cannot see him, hold him, or hear him. 

And so, I am taking this time, working through this book, to feel my grief, to turn it into mourning,  move through it, externalize it.

I wonder what I will find on the other side.