“See grief, it’s just like glitter
It’s hard to brush away
Bright light and it still shimmers
Like it was yesterday.
And it falls like confetti, all of the memories explode like a hand grenade”…

Thank you, Patrick Droney, for expressing in lyric and song some of what grief is like.

A damn glitter bomb!

“Sweet and bitter”. Oh, what a mess it makes”.

I’ve experienced a significant amount of grief this year. I was going to say “more than my share”…but I guess truly it is just my share. Some of it beyond my control, some of it directly because of my own choices. So many feelings. Some expected, even comforting. Some jump out of the shadows and assault me uninvited like stealthy ninjas. And of course, at the worst possible moment! Then there’s just this heaviness that comes and goes like a teenager trying their wings but still ends up back home…eventually.

Remember the old “tube” type TVs? Remember what it looked like when they would turn off? Sometimes I think this is what grief does to a person. Slowly causes us to fade to the smallest dot and then we just disappear.

And what’s with the world around? Going on as if NOTHING has changed. How can that be? Don’t we all experience it, sooner or later? Or maybe all the time? We’re all the rude drivers that just keep driving during / right through the middle of / the funeral procession. And we’re all the drivers in the procession, angry because they don’t notice. Hurt. Justifiably so.

Thank you, Rachel Joy Welcher, for putting some of your experience with it into a sketch, and into words. It’s not lost on me that your middle name is Joy! I almost want to come out of hiding from the socials just to post on your twitter page or comment on your insta post. I see you. Expressing. Enduring.