Keeping Perspective

I had a rough day on Friday.  Emotionally, I mean.  My mother’s ashes and urn are here, and in taking a look at it, everything just hit me.  WHAM!  In the last 6 months I have lost my mother, and gone through my husband’s sudden illness and double lung transplant.  He was on life support for almost two weeks before lungs were available.  It has been a very intense few months, to say the least, with little relief. Watching my children suffer was harder than my own feelings. So…looking at mom’s urn made me feel guilty that we had to cancel her memorial service because of Randy’s illness, and that made me think about how close it came to arranging a service for my husband.  It was so close.  And so I just came unglued.  Crying so hard I could barely breathe, and thinking ridiculous things like “I wish I could go home and be a child again”.  I think we all need to release pent up emotions like that once in a while, clearing our heads and our hearts of detritus and debris.  Mine lasted 10 minutes or so, but it physically wore me out for the rest of the day.  I was just exhausted, and limp, and wanted to sleep.  A very tough day.

But, grief is relative, isn’t it?  I mean, these events were extremely difficult for me, but everyone goes through losing those they love or watching loved ones suffer. It is just a part of life, so I’m no different than anyone else.  There are many lenses to look through when life isn’t exactly the way you want it.  When I turned on CNN and saw that there were possibly 10,000 dead in the Philippines because of a terrible storm, I reminded myself to keep my perspective.  Those people had lives, families, loved ones, and joys and sorrows, just like I do. It is terrible, looking at the photos, and trying to imagine the grief of those who survived.  They lost friends, moms, dads, children, siblings…they lost their homes and their livelihoods and their community.  I am so fortunate, so lucky, and I am so grateful for the incredible life I have.  Yes, things have been a little tough, but many, many people have it so much worse.  So I tell myself it’s okay to cry, but it is not okay to cry for long.  Shake it off, buck up, and get on with it.  Perspective and balance are important.

Want to help those in the Phillippines?  Here’s a great link:  http://news.yahoo.com/how-to-help-donate-to-victims-of-super-typhoon-haiyan-195111618.html