GRANOLA NAZI! I am screaming! 🤣😂😂🤣

Dead ahead, you'll start to meet the people who want to put a clock on your grief...for their comfort, no matter what they say. Ignore them, and know that you aren't alone. No one is in control of that ball, not you, not relatives, or friends, or counselors.

Grief is the price paid for love. 6/6

...balls aren't designed to be still.

Year 3 might be calm, while year 5 might feel as bad as year 1. (Affected by things out of your control, like that first grandchild, or having to teach your 15-year-old to drive.)

Grief, therefore, is not linear. No two people grieve the same. 5/?

There is no time limit, but the fact that the ball gets bounced around doesn't interfere with the shrinking. These things happen simultaneously.

Eventually, the ball (And I say this at 24 years, ok?) is pea-sized and it sits in a corner, mostly still. But, it's a ball, and... 4/?

There are a ton of 'firsts'. First grandchild w/o him, first (holiday). You feel like a seesaw--and people start tot ell you you 'need to move on'. (You absolutely do, you need to move on from these assholes who try to put a time limit on your grief).

But every day, the ball gets smaller. 3/?

Once the ball has shrank enough to not touch four walls, perhaps in a corner touching 2 walls, you start to feel like you might can bear the loss. But, then come the anniversaries...first birthday w/o him, first anniversary w/o him...etc. Those days, the ball is bouncing, eliciting more grief. 2/?

Most useful image (for me): Visualize your grief as a box. Inside the box is a ball that, right now, is just small enough to fit inside the box. Everywhere the ball touches the box elicits grief. The ball diminishes in size, but not right way, not on a schedule of any kind, but it does shrink. 1/?

The good days are over the horizon from where you are now. At 1 month, you're still in shock. Maybe you know the stages of grief: denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance.

Acceptance doesn't mean the grief will stop, it only means you accept the loss.

Lost my husband 24 years ago.

Strays of Our Lives. Omg, sign me up. How cute.

Bastion says "Hi, cuz!"

I see these posts and wonder, do they not take his calls?

My first and second reaction to this clip was: Let them eat each other.

I just wanna whack them all with the heaviest dictionary I can find.

The organ was a better hidey hole than our main fear, which was that he'd climbed up the inside of the chimney (where we found several silky, long, white hairs) and gone onto the roof. It was an insane four days, I tell you. 😸

Hope you enjoy this story as much as I did. I went on to read everything I could get my hands on by Amor Towles.

My mom had a cat that jumped out of the carrier and vanished. Searched the house for four days before we found the cat in the back of her organ. Had to take the back off to retrieve him. RIP Melek, you gorgeous jackass of a Turkish Angora.

The real crime is how that bit of food added up to $160.