07/27/2015

   How does a man learn to deal with grief? It's been almost a year since I posed that question at the end of my last blog entry. I'm again not sure why I have not been writing for so long, except to say that I was so focused on work and other issues that I just didn't have the energy to write. Oftentimes, my writing about grief takes me back in time to those first horrible days following Curtis's death, dredging up emotions and memories I thought were long gone. I realize at such times that there are still residual issues with which I am not finished dealing or now may need to deal with in a different way. I also understand that it is ultimately to my long-term benefit to face such things as they arise. Even all these years later, there are still ways I can help myself continue to move forward with my life. This situation again points to one of the most difficult aspects of grief-its unpredictability. I think as human beings (especially as men) it's this characteristic of grief that is so maddening-the uncertainty of it all. We may realize intellectually that each person involved in the same situation will grieve in their own way and follow their own timeframe, but emotionally, men find this to be a most frustrating factor of grief. We like to know how long something will last. We like to know how much time and energy we need to invest in this whole process. We don't like to think there may be no end to this entire thing. We don't like to think there may be times when we believe we have reached some kind of ending only to have to deal with the same things over and over again. The thought that we may never feel "normal" again terrifies us. We begin to feel paralyzed and hopeless that we will ever feel anything close to normalcy again. Why can't we fix this? Why can't we just make it all go away? Where is the magic spell or magic fairy dust that could make me feel like myself again? Dealing with grief may be the most emotionally, spiritually, and mentally challenging thing we may ever face in life. It can even leave us physically drained years after the initial event. So, after all these months between posts, the question remains: how does a man learn to deal with grief?