Grief: Monster or Rainbow

Grief - wikipedia defines grief this way. The article entries also has a great entry on stillborn children. Seems to work for me but it only begins to stratch the surface. Last friday we went to see a grief counseler -- interesting. Everything we talked about with her seemed to re-enforce that we "where doing everything right and to keep going." How I longed for her to say - "You are doing it all wrong - do it this way it will be faster/easier/less painful". But alas all normal - just keep doing what you need to do and this will heal.

So is grief a monster or rainbow. Well I bring up the subject of a rainbow only because it seems to be in the forefront of my thinking. This evening as I got home from a long day at work - 11 hours - we needed to go see Ryan at the cemetary. Well with purplish clouds and green hues to them - it was the better thought to wait until the storm clouds had pushed passed before going to the cemetary. Clouds pushed by and behold a rainbow! Ryan you did a great thing - what a beautiful rainbow. Okay so grief as a rainbow. We all know that the rainbow brings fun happy memories - a money pot, some little green guy running around giving away wishes. Well I wished on that rainbow today...can't tell but family and friends will come very close to the wish. Grief and a rainbow - first the differing colors of the rainbow should remind us that there are different stages to grief. Each color could even give a mood to grief - red -> anger, orange -> the place between anger and sadness, yelllow -> feer/loathing, green -> the place between fear and sadness, blue -> sadness, indigo -> a color so deep that it intensifies the feelings, violet -> a flower/sense of hope. My rainbow is my wife, my son, my future children, my friends, my relatives, my God, and my hope for the future. Maybe not the order or whathaveyou, but at least they are all there. Each of them brings a sense of happiness and longing.

Grief as a monster. No matter what people say about grief - it is not a monster. It is a large dragon with 3 heads, a sword, and flys away when you finally understand the weekness of grief. Weekness might see like a word that I would apply to myself - but that is not what I mean - I mean grief is week it eventually gives up and only comes back for short bursts and small battle. My monster currently appears to have retreated into the cave - to brood and not present itself. I hope that I can start to grieve again - it feels really good to cry some nights. It just feels like the weight of the situation is lightening. But maybe my grief monster is slowly finding that the cave is more confortable and I may not need it so much. Well maybe so - but I am not putting my shields up and facing the grief monster is task that needs to be done.

So those are my rather deep thoughts - but it certainly feels good to say all of this.

Rainbow stay with me - monster stay with me.

Me...