A special welcome to anyone who is new to The Grieving Room. We meet every Monday evening. Whether your loss is recent or many years ago, whether you have lost a person or a pet, or even if the person you are "mourning" is still alive ("pre-grief" can be a very lonely and confusing time) you can come to this diary and process your grieving in whatever way works for you. Share whatever you need to share. We can't solve each other's problems, but we can be a sounding board and a place of connection.
A link to all previous Grieving Room diaries
In the darkest days, it doesn't seem possible that life will ever be good again. There is that voice telling you there is no point - there can be no future. When you are in that place, hang onto this thought – that voice is lying. There is a future out there, you just have to hang in there to get to it.
It's been almost five years since Karl died. I've rebuilt my life and life is pretty good right now. I have three wonderful doggies, Rusty, Christopher and Tina. Rusty is my faithful companion, the one who has been with me through the grief and the tears. He;s getting old now and slowing down but we like to sit together at the top of the stairs and just be there for each other. Christopher is my rescued Puppy Mill dog Once he didn't now anything but the inside of a cage, no grass to romp on, no interesting new smell to sniff, no medical care, and most importantly of all no love or caring. Three years after his rescue, he is finally starting to bloom a little and I don't see that sick fear in his eyes all the time. Adopting him was the thing I most proud of in my life. And finally our new family member is Tina. Tina is all about Joy. She loves her new family, she plays with Christopher (who is befuddled by this, as a Puppy Mill breeder, he never had a chance to learn to play), she goes on walks where she leads the way with great excitement, she comes racing to greet me when I come home, she snuggles and reminds me many times a day that “hey mom, aren't I cute?”
On the work front, life is good, I work with some of the best folks of my entire career, I have a great boss, interesting work and recently got a big award. And I just went to the SQL PASS conference in Seattle which reminded me of how much I love to travel. Soon I'm moving on to a new and challenging project. And just to stretch my work skills a bit, I'm currently studying R programming language and will move on to a couple of Big Data classes.
I've been slowly redoing parts of the house. Planning to paint the bedroom turquoise soon and then maybe later in the year, I will replace one of the many floors that need redoing.
I thnk that this will be last diary you will see from me for awhile. Time to pass the baton to others whose grief is fresher. Writng these diaries has helped me to process the greif and I hope that for those of you who are new to grief that it will help you as well. But please rememeber that no matter how bad it gets,things will get better amd don't listen to that voice that tells you there is no hope.