When Friday wasn't so good.

Generally Friday is considered a happy day, the beginning of the weekend, the icing on the cake that was the week. But this last Friday, January 18, was not so good, it was the first birthday my sister was not at the end of a phone, not waiting for the lovely cake or pie her hubby would make her.

Grief seems to be the gift that keeps on giving, keeps on surprising, keeps on jumping out in front of a person and going "ooga booga!" so you pee a little. Friday's date, my sister's birthday, was tucked away there in a corner of my brain. Every so often i'd peek at it out of the side of my eye and watch it getting close and wonder what it had planned for me.

Friday after i woke up i thought "maybe magically the 18th has slipped by me and was yesterday and i can just sigh and go 'oh! My sister's birthday was yesterday, look at that,'" but no. Friday's Grief was just waiting to jump out from that corner in my brain and yell "ooga booga!" And it did.

All day long i fought my emotions. Mostly my eyes leaked and my heart hurt. The hubby was kind enough to let me snot on his shoulder a bit. i just couldn't grab hold of Grief and tell it to stop, it wanted to visit and sit a while.

But like i've learned, sometimes you just have to give in and have that chat with Grief. It can be mighty insistent.

Then her husband called and WE chatted--about Grief, about Patti. About missing her, about funny things she said. About what it's like for him to get up every day alone when he'd spent the last 40 years getting up with her.

"When I was having a hard time getting up for my 8 a.m. class in college, my grandpa told me, 'When the alarm rings I know it's easy to think how nice it'd be to just lay there longer, but when it rings, don't think. Just get up."' Then Keith continued, "So that's what I do. When the alarm rings I don't think. I just get out of bed and get going, take care of the cats, get to work."

And i guess that's what life is and how we keep going forward in the face of days that are not so good: we don't overthink it, we just do it. But some days Grief just grabs ahold of us and gets in our faces, and makes us think, makes us remember.

While i felt like Friday wasn't so good, it ended up good--remembering Patti, remembering things she'd say, things she'd do, laughing together and honoring the loss and the memories. As much as it hurts to do, looking Grief in the eye can be healing.

Skimmer's Recap: Grief is not unlike visiting the gynocologist: not anyone's favorite, but necessary and sometimes even helpful.