LIFE | LOVE | LOSS

“No winter lasts forever;

No spring skips its turn.” 

– Hal Borland

LOVE and FIGHTING

“Grief, I’ve learned is really just love.  It’s all the love you want to give but cannot. All of that unspent love gathers up in the corners of your eyes, the lump in your throat, and in that hollow part of your chest.”

– Jamie Anderson

Happy February!

I am an eternal optimist at heart, and I do love me a month that has a day dedicated to spreading and sharing love!  Many think it must be romantic love shared but that is silly.  You can show extra kindness and love to anyone in your life.  My husband of close to three decades and I do not give gifts for Valentines; we don’t go out on the town.  We love each other deeply and completely every day of the year, so we don’t need the calendar to tell us to do that.  I am happy this day exists to help those who DO need a reason to express something more!  So, love a little more, give a few more smiles, hug a little longer this month, why not!

Now let’s talk about fighting.  This sounds contrary to discussing love.  Any of you on a grief journey know it’s riddled with dichotomy of opposites.  Great joys and pains deeper than you could imagine.  Humbling times of appreciation and crippling sorrow.

I am a strong minded, direct opinionated lady.  I am very comfortable speaking my mind or telling others what to do.  I honestly came this way!  I love my family and country.  I am grateful for the freedoms I enjoy and understand the price that has and is being paid for them.  I pray for peace.  I seek resolutions when problems arise.  I don’t enjoy confrontations nor will I back down if one arises.  I know how to have tough conversations and end them with love and acceptance.

No matter if you are open and direct or prefer to be reserved when it comes to sharing your thoughts and feelings we all have to fight sometimes.

Early in our lives many of us fought our parents.  We fought against their views, beliefs or rules that didn’t match our own.  We grew into young adults and needed to fight to understand ourselves, our swirling thoughts about life, love, school and who we ‘should’ be.  Then we had to figure out who we were going to be as a ‘grown up’. 

When Trace and I got married it was a new fight to blend my single mom’s life with new strength, love and understanding.  I learned new things about acceptance and compromise.  Trace walked into a wife and child overnight which took some adjusting on all our parts.  This has been and is still one of the most rewarding fights of my life.  Being in a serious committed relationship takes effort, patience, forgiveness, respect and loyalty.  We have been married for 29 years this April now and have had way more good times than bad.  I can honestly say we truly enjoy being together.  Any ‘real’ fights have happened with an underlining desire to make us work.  Being happily married is worth all the effort or ‘fight’ needed.  I am so deeply grateful for the love and friendship Trace and I share.  It is one of life’s greatest gifts to me!

Now, going into my 9^th year after my sweet Joey chose to take his life, I find myself in a different kind of fight.  At first, I was in a fight through and inside of grief and pain deeper than I have ever felt.  I had to fight to find balance in the despair over what I lost while feeling gratitude for all I DO have.  I fought to learn what my life would be like without my baby, without a child who still needed ‘raising’.  I had to learn to appreciate having new time and money freedoms.  I found ways in my own grief journey to also support Trace, Carlie and TJ inside their own journeys of grief in losing Joey.  I fought with and for Joey’s friends, for their peace and lasting balance.

I continue to seek peace.  I look for light in the heavy thoughts and feelings that come. I gather love for myself and others.  I keep living, loving and giving as I know Joey would want me to do.

I invite you to keep fighting.  Even when you’re tired.  Even when it feels like it isn’t worth it.  Even when you think it doesn’t matter.  FIGHT!

Life is precious!

Time is short.

Love is real!

All my best,

Genna

Mental Health Moment:

“The reality is that you will grieve forever. You will not ‘get over’ the loss of a loved one; you will learn to live with it. You will heal and you will rebuild yourself around the loss you have suffered. You will be whole again but you will never be the same. Nor should you be the same nor would you want to.”

–Elisabeth Kubler-Ross and David Kessler

This month is heart health month, how great is that!  Do something good for your ticker!  Make it simple, do one thing less and one thing more, you pick!

For example, if you are a sugar lover and don’t move much.  Pick 2 days a week to eat less sugar and two days to move more this month! 

If you are a super achiever and see the list below and think, “I am doing all this already!” High five yourself and then take time to send out 12 notes, text, or e-mails sharing heartfelt thanks, love or appreciation to those in your life!

Make a plan that is achievable!  Take care of you, you matter!!