Chapter 2

H Norman Wright's Experiencing Grief: Pain and denial. Well the pain part is easy to identify and obvious. A choir friend's mother died 2 months after mom and she summed it up with, "When your mom dies you're instantly five again." Talk about childlike. There is no processing that loss. You have to get through it until the pain eases a bit.

Denial. I feel like I've been in an imposed denial. At first I was tired of crying but quickly realized putting that aside wasn't helping me. Going back to work, getting back into routines right away. I think that was a mistake. I think our corporate expectations of getting right back in are a mistake. I don't know how to change that but to encourage others to take whatever time they might need. I also think that once I realized the imposition I should have taken another week or so off work. I'm not quite sure how I could have done that given the insane schedule I had but had I put more thought into it I could have made it work.

So, there you go. Yes, pain, yes denial-whoever's denial you wish to define. I'm glad to be in education to have the summer off. It looks busy when I start listing what I've got coming up but I've intentionally kept the list to only things I really want to do. No doing things because I always have or that they're expected. I am jealously guarding my time as mine.

Next chapter: Grief is so disruptive.