The life I used to have passed when you passed.  Never again will I feel that life is good without the need to qualify.  You no longer exist where I can touch you, see your face, listen to you speak, watch you breathe, and that is my one and only exception to the perception.  I had always felt my life was blessed, with no qualifying, no quantifying.  I expected it to be.  Life should be good.  When you died in the early morning hours of December 7th, the world as I knew it ended.  I now live in a new world where I better understand that life is good, but not for everyone and not all the time.  It’s all a matter of perspective.

I’ve spent weeks now trying to come to terms with why this happened to you.  My grief has been all-consuming and I have let it run its course.  Only recently have I begun to realize that it’s not for me to question why this happened to you without also being willing to look at all the suffering in the world and feel saddened and in need of answers. Poverty, disease, war, death, hunger and hoplessness exist and continue on a daily basis for so many people who have never had the opportunity to feel that life is good.

Right now I feel very small and very self-involved.  Yes, I grieve, and yes, I am sad.               But I’m also blessed, no qualifying, no quantifying. It’s time for me to look around instead of within.

“We are healed of a suffering only by experiencing it to the full.” – Marcel Proust