Time Takes Time

A friend of mine recently lost her only brother to a drug overdose - he was a young guy when he ODed.  Recently  her sponsor told her that she should be moving on as far as her grief and depression is concerned.  I would never get between someone and her sponsor - who knows far, far better than I do - but I take some mild exception to this comment.  I get the sponsor's point - after all alcoholics are pretty good at wallowing in misery and self-pity.

That being it's a mistake to think everyone can be put in a neat little box as far as grief is concerned.  There are a million different kinds of people who have experienced a million different kinds of loss.  To assume that it's going to take a fixed amount of time to heal is ridiculous.  It's going to take as much time as it takes.

I was one of those people who didn't feel very much grief right away.  I had been hoping for Ken to die - as had he - and I was happy that my ailing mother died quickly and painlessly - avoiding her greatest fear: The Nursing Home.  I sort of enjoyed her funeral, catching up with old friends and neighbors, many of whom I hadn't seen for years.  Denial, I guess is the first of the five stages of grief.  Now I'm kind of treading water, not drowning but not getting closer to dry ground very quickly, either.

So be it.