Grief

I called the hospice bereavement counselor this morning for an appointment, she had an opening for this afternoon so I took it. I asked her where to meet her and she said "Peppi's House." Well I didn't expect to ever go back there! Needless to say, I was in tears by the time I walked in the front door. I looked at the calendar and realized that it was only 2 weeks ago that we moved Larry to Peppi's House from the hospital. Two weeks isn't very long but to me it seems like a lifetime ago..... I just can't believe that so much has happened in 2 weeks! Anyway, we talked a lot about grief - how people react differently, things to definitely do (such as don't fight it), how it affects people differently, how people expect us to react, etc. A wise person said "We grieve for someone as deeply as we loved them." Wow! Another wise person said that the 4 phases of loosing someone are "(1) Accepting the reality of what happened (2) Feeling the pain (3) Reorganizing your life and (4) Living your new life." I think I'm 95% in the first 2 phases and maybe 5% in the 3rd phase since some things were necessary for me to start doing such as filling my own pill box, writing checks out of Larry's checkbook, being trained by Morris, etc. I really like both of those quotes and they hit home. She is very interested in how I'm using the blog - not only as a journal for me but as a means for others to follow me on this journey which is, as we know, One Day at a Time....