Where am I in my grieving journey and how do I practice gratitude each day?

I am at the beginning, this is all I know. I do feel at times I am in totally uncharted territory. Grief is a deeply personal journey in which you have to allow yourself to go down deep into your emotions in order to find your way out.

I do have days when I think avoiding pain would be easier. But then I also know that I am only cheating myself. Pain is there and avoiding it will only make the outburst more violent, as pain was not meant to be held in. Pain was not meant to be. Full stop.

So I try and grieve a bit each day. Release those pent up emotions as they surge. Talk about them. Cry about my loss. Write a blog post. Shout at God.

It feels almost like looking for the pain in your heart, pulling it out from where it is hiding, the dark corners in which it is most comfortable, and bringing it to light. So that I might live. So that I can learn to live with it, exposed and raw and ugly as it is.

And I am grateful each day. For sunshine. For coffee. For friends. For family. For seasons. For change. For Heaven. For Jesus.

Some days, I need to look for those reasons to be grateful, along with the pain. Drag them out into the light as well.

Some days, even being alive and breathing is reason enough to be grateful.

Some days, it is hard, almost impossible to see any good in the day.

But then, I see Emma. I remember Georgie’s smile. I find the strength to decorate the house for Halloween.

And life carries on.

In its tangled mess of emotions, of pain and sorrow and gratitude and joy, all rolled up together in a big, huge ball of…me.

                                                 The light and dark coexist in a grieving parent’s heart.