Just thinking about all the loved ones I’ve lost…beginning as early as 5 yrs old when my sister died. Then 15 yrs old when my grandpa died. And 27 yrs old when my Momma died.

In the last 4 yrs alone, I’ve lost the sweetest sister-in-law, 2 sisters, a favorite cousin…and finally the hardest of all…the Great Love of my life.

But let me tell you this story about when my brother died about 15 yrs ago. It hit me hard, overwhelming my emotions. So, I went directly to a chair on the deck because it was obvious I wouldn’t be able to handle anything that day. I sat there almost the whole day crying and sobbing.

I could see the mountains, which weren’t far away. They usually comforted me in my troubles because they’d been standing unmoving for centuries watching every kind of human malady.

But they were no help this day.

The pain in my heart was so excruciating that by early afternoon, I was searching my mind for something to make it stop. Several things came to mind along with the thought that all of my solutions taken together at one time just might do the trick.

I realized too that if I kept thinking this way, I would be going down a path that many didn’t survive. Is that what I wanted?

No. I couldn’t do that. There were too many people in this life who would be hurt.

Suddenly, I saw this overwhelming grief as a personified enemy. A dark, hideous Being who was bigger than the mountains and it was sitting over there on a foothill with its legs crossed, snickering at me. A demon of sorts, if you will and it WANTED me to think this way until it destroyed me, or at least my sanity for the rest of my life.

Well, that began slowly pissing me off. This “thing” wanted me dead. And I stared at it hard for several minutes. Its eyes were red hot, trying to burn into me. Reminding me over and over that my brother was gone. And snickering about it.

As the stare-down continued, my anger toward it turned into a kind of unmoveable resolve. And finally, after some time, I spoke out loud toward the mountains.

“I will cry as long and as much as I want to, but I will never give in to you. You have lost this battle so you might as well move on and leave me to heal. Because that is what I choose.”

The stare-down continued for several more minutes. But I was unflinching. I would NOT lose this battle.

Eventually, it was late afternoon and the war was over. I was spent and exhausted. It was time to leave this battlefield and get on with the business of healing. The enemy was gone.

My story may sound a bit nonsensical to you in the way I used visualization. But it worked. My intense emotions were allowed to play out in a way that I could confront the constant loop of destructive thoughts in my mind. And gave me the stage to make a decision and state my conviction firmly.

I didn’t realize it at the time, but this experience was like a personal show-down with Grief that prepared me to handle future losses.

Reality is…Death is going to hit our lives. And the older we get, the more of it we will experience. At some point, we make the decision to learn how to deal with it, or we let it take a pound of our own flesh each time it passes our home. I simply don’t want to let it diminish me each time until there’s barely anything left of me.

The damage to us physically from intense grief is well documented if you care to research online.

The point of my experience is simply to choose Life. And then take an active part in learning to pursue it effectively. But also remembering that pieces of ourselves we lose along our path of Life, are always capable of healing.

I choose Life…and healing. It’s The Way of my Father’s Love.

Faith