Anyone who has suffered the loss of a loved one knows about the subject with which I will deal in this post.
The “firsts” are on their way for my family members and me. Indeed, my granddaughter’s upcoming birthday will be her first birthday without Grandma … my beloved bride Kathy Anne.
More such firsts are going to follow and I am preparing to deal with them as they arrive. The first Easter, my bride’s first birthday, our first observance of our wedding anniversary (which will be No. 52), our first Thanksgiving, first Christmas … and on it goes.
You get my drift, correct?
As I have noted already on this blog, I am far from the first and far from the last person who undergo this level of grief. I am reading some books on how to deal with it. Part of my therapy is writing about it, as I am doing with this post.
Indeed, I am preparing a lengthy feature for KETR-FM radio’s website that will publish soon. It deals with grief and mourning and I look forward to completing that task. Heck, I even look forward just to performing the task, as it gives me a measure of relief as I continue along this dark journey.
That journey is going to contain is occasional gut checks along the way. Those are the firsts I have mentioned.
Most of you have been through it already. So have I, with the loss of my parents when I was a younger man. I remember sitting on my living room floor in late 1980 and tearing up when I realized it was the first Christmas without Dad, who had succumbed a couple of months earlier.
This one, however, is dramatically different, to be sure.
I’ll need to be ready.