Lessons from a Cell Phone About Grieving (Kitchen Table Chat - Aug 13 2021)

99 of the time. I'm pretty good at keeping my cell phone charged. Last night, not so much. I woke up at the usual time, grabbed my phone off my pillow like I always do, headed off to make my coffee, and that's when I noticed it was dead. And I mean dead. You know how you put push the button to bring it to life and nada happens? I plugged it in and waited. Nothing and nothing and nothing. And then finally you see that. That picture of the battery that tells you it's dead. Wait, wait, wait. And then finally my icons come back and life returns to normal. Did you hear the teaching in that? I realized right after my phone came back to life that what I just described was the grieving process. When you first lose someone, they're just gone and nothing works, right. You can get angry, you can get frustrated, but nothing changes that fact. You just have to accept out all of your normal routines are upset and you can't do what you normally would do because you can't get past this fact that they're gone. But eventually, with enough time, and we all know the waves of grief, just when you think you're healed, poof. You get hit by another one. And a commercial comes on, or you see a sign, or you have a memory, and all of a sudden you're a ball of tears again. But eventually all you have are those memories. You have the stories, you have the laughs, and suddenly you can share those. And it doesn't hurt anymore. In fact, it brings you joy. Just like when all the icons come back, eventually you return to your routines and you can function and you can enjoy your life again. You can be productive with all those amazing memories right there for you to hang on to.