grief...

Grief is one of those things that everyone deals with differently; it's part of our own personal make-up and sometimes it's harder to decode than a lot other emotions we experience with other people. I know for myself, I'm guilty of bottling it all up inside until it overwhelms me at the most inopportune times (most often when I'm at work). On more than one occasion, my husband will find me in our bedroom crying or realize in the middle of the night that my pillow is wet with tears. I think it stems from feeling like crying is a sense of weakness combined with my own vain knowledge of how horrid I look after a good cry - the puffy red eyes, runny nose and overall disheveled result doesn't really look good on anyone. I know for myself, though, that if I've reached that breaking point, I just want to be able to cry it out.

Being the comforter instead of the comfortee comes with its own challenges, though. In most cases, when it comes to grief, there's really nothing anyone else can say to take away the pain; it's something that can't be fixed and if it can, it's not by you. It's such an entirely uncomfortable place to be to know that you are completely incapable of doing anything to make this person's pain go away. Especially when you've never been in that place before and you can't pull from your own experience. It's at that point, that you'll literally do anything to bring a smile back to the face of the one you love.

I have been here and my instinct is to just be close - hug, rub their back, kiss their cheek, offer up a prayer. It's my hope that this somehow makes a difference.