Forgotten Staircase- Digital Art by Tracey Grumbach

Forgotten Staircase- Longwood Gardens- Digital Painting by Tracey Grumbach

It's so difficult watching your children and your friend go through unimaginable pain and not be able to help them. This weekend we said goodbye to my daughter's friend and classmate and my friend's son as he was laid to rest.  I felt so incredibly helpless and inadequate. As if the weather was mourning with us, it was cool and damp and rainy for most of the two days the services were held. In late July in Maryland, the weather should almost certainly be dry and hot.  But, it wasn't and somehow it felt right that the warmth should slip away and the heavens should rain.

The parents and sisters of my daughter's friend were simply incredible. I just don't how else to put it. They stood for hours upon hours greeting countless hundreds of people that came to pay respects. Whenever a friend of their son would approach and have a difficult time, they would wrap them up in their arms, comfort them and tell them they loved them. My friend gave the eulogy for her son in the most eloquent and classy way never stammering once in her loss. At the gravesite, after the service, the father stood out in the rain hugging and thanking every single person who came. It truly was an incredible experience and inspiration to see these parents and sisters handle this tragic event with such grace. This young man was so loved by them and his friends and his community that we will all be off-kilter for a long time to come. But none so much as his family...the family that reached out to the community that supports them and comforted us.

It's sad in its own way that it takes a horrible event such as a death to remind us how important community is. We should be this supportive of each other every day, no matter what. But life, petty arguments, past grievances, and other negativity gets in the way. I hope this is a stark reminder that we all need each other, we all have in impact in raising our children, caring for our elderly, and comforting those experiencing pain. This weekend I was reminded that out of pain blossoms great beauty. Sometimes that is so difficult to see and find in today's world.

Have a loving Monday, everyone.

A Letter to My Father After a Dream

I woke with a shortness of breath that you had stolen from me in my dreams. You were sitting at a cafe table across from me, al fresco, in the middle of a lush green field. The metal table and chairs where white and fragile. The sun was shining warm on our skin and you were smiling. You were younger than when I last saw you, healthy with no signs of illness. Your form was still broad and tall, but you were much thinner and more comfortable in your body than you were in those last years. We were talking comfortably and you were giving me advice and inquiring about everyone. I had a feeling of contentment and although it should have shocked me you were there, it didn't.

I woke up slowly, suspended between consciousness and a dream trance, and I remember thinking...wait, what are you doing here? You are gone from me. You are gone from this world. You have passed to the other side of forever while I am still here on this side. As I became more aware of my waking, you smiled warmly and waved. Vapor and air and fog filled in where you were sitting and left me there alone again, the sun behind a cloud and a chill in the air.

I wish I could remember our conversation. I am certain this was an encounter and not just a dream. You were there, I am certain of it. Until our next visit, I will hold on to the warmness you filled me with. It was healing and reminiscent of the days you used to wrap me in your huge arms when I was scared as a child. Always there to protect me, watching over me.

Until next time, Dad...

Battleship- The First Anniversary of My Father's Death

One year.  Today marks the first anniversary of my father's death.  I have lived an entire year without seeing his face, hearing his voice, or feeling his hugs.  I have lived an entire year without his encouragement, his tough love, his support.  How?  How is that possible?

That day, June 9, 2014 is forever engrained in my mind, blazoned in my memory like a hot branding iron.  The minutes that ticked by like days, weeks...the sound of my mother's voice as she told me he was gone; the long journey to my parent's house in Lynchburg, Virginia. How can a year have passed already when the first 24 hours felt like a year in itself?  How could I have not died of heartbreak during these 365 days?  Some days it seemed inevitable that I would. The struggle to remember to breathe, the pain so deep in my gut, my heart, my chest, that all I can think about is the empty hole there in my soul and I would forget to breathe.  It would be too painful to breathe.

And yet here I am.  One year later.  They say time heals all wounds, but twelve months into grieving and the pain is still there.  I can't imagine it will ever go away.  Yes, it isn't all I think about every minute of every day like in the early months.  But every day I do think of him and all he has taught me.  I wonder about him...where he is, what he is doing, what he knows, when I will see him again. And it is still painful...that raw feeling of having just lost him.

The other day I was playing the game Battleship with my youngest son and it made me think...yes, Battleship, that is exactly what this past year has felt like.  Not only losing my father, but also fighting Lyme disease, Bartonella, Ehrlichea, and C. Pneumonia.  Battleship...with it's white misses, red hits, and sunken ships.  I've had white misses where the day has gone well, nothing blowing up my life that day; red hits where my heart and body are broken and life seems so very difficult; and sunken ships...days that just seemed better off if they had never happened.

So, as I often do these days, I created a digital art piece to represent this Battleship game I've been playing for the last year.  Hoping I can put more white pegs on the board this year than red.  Hoping there are less sunken ships in the coming months, and hoping I ultimately win this game of Battleship.

Please say a quick prayer for my family today for continued healing during this on-going grieving process. Please include my father in your thoughts and meditations today that he is at peace.  Thank you to all my amazing friends and family who have been there on the sunken ship days and have thrown a life-ring to me as I've drifted aimlessly in the ocean of sadness this past year.  You are not taken for granted or forgotten.