Fogged In

I am so thankful to all of you who have sent your kind thoughts and wishes for peace my family's way. If my presence has been lacking, if you haven't seen my comments popping up on your blogs, it's not because I'm not reading, it's not because I don't care.

It is because I am so fogged in by my own emotions that I can't see any others. I am wandering through my life in a daze, walking into rooms and not remembering why I'm there. Putting Grasshopper in the car to take him to school and then doubting whether it actually is a school day. Crying in the pet food aisle because I see a bag labeled Large Breed Formula and it reminds me of B's treasured Great Dane and Irish Wolf Hound.

My sister-in-law is holding up, but looks like the slightest breeze will shatter her into a million pieces. My brother-in-law is behaving stoically, but is so drawn into himself that I fear he will never hold his shoulders back again. My husband, who was 12 when his nephew was born, who was his primary babysitter when he was small, who was his roommate for 3 years when he wanted to move to the Big City at age 17 and his mother said, "Only if you live with your Uncle JR." Well, he isn't admitting to his pain yet, so there doesn't seem to be a lot that I can do to help him.

We will be burying our nephew tomorrow, and I hope after the weekend to wrestle our life back into a shape similar to the one it held before, even if there is a B-shaped hole in it.

The healing process is beginning, with an almost infinitesimal start, but it is beginning. I have to believe that.