Difficult Days.......

Thank you, my dear friends, for all your phone calls, cards, and prayers over the last month. God has truely blessed me with the best of both family and friends! The poem on my previous blog was the poem that we had printed in my Daddy's funeral service pamphlet. We had the same poem printed in the pamphlet for my father-in-law, who passed away just 12 days after Daddy. It just seemed to fit both of them so perfectly, and I think they would both be pleased.

So where do I go from here? This journey has been and is going to be a long one, full of every emotion I've ever known, and some new ones I've never had before. And even though Beryl and I are sharing this journey together, they are each going to be quite different from one another, and this is another challenge for me. I have always been the one to lean on, the "rock" in the family, and now I need my own "rock", who for a long time now has been Beryl, but he simply can't be right now. There have been times already that I've felt a big meltdown coming on, and thinking I could have a good cry when he gets here, and then he gets here, and he is already in the middle of his own meltdown, so I suck it up, and try to help him through it. Then he leaves to go back to work, and I'm still struggling with my own emotions, which makes me angry, which makes me feel guilty, and, well, you can see the pattern for yourself. And before you ask, let me answer the obvious question: I'm scared to let myself cry when I'm alone. I'm afraid I'd never stop. The timeline for me is the most difficult, I think. Max (my father-in-law) entered the hospital the night before Daddy died, and so I literally went from Daddy's funeral to Max's bedside, and stayed with him until he passed. I never got to "let down" in between. Don't get me wrong, I am so blessed to have been there for Max, and am SO pleased that Beryl decided to bring his Dad home with Hospice, too, and was honored to be his caregiver in his final days, but somewhere in the middle of it all, I feel like I lost a part of who I am, and how I approach and handle my own personal grief, and now I don't know where to find "me" again. And I'm terrified to know that the "me" that once was is changed forever. All I can do now is to pray for God to give me the strength (again), and have faith that He will.