May 9

It's been such a busy week that I had to remind myself more than once that today was only Wednesday. (And that's kind of important since the kids' school hours are different on Wednesdays!) I haven't had a lot of time to think about much of anything, so when I looked down at the door handle when I was getting out of the car this afternoon and saw this, I figured it was time to process this past Sunday morning.

Our pastor was out of town, so an absolutely lovely woman from the congregation gave the sermon about prayer. She hadn't gotten particularly far into the message when something unexpected happened: she said something about how hard it is to have a child with cancer die despite the fervent prayers of many. It struck a nerve, and I was out of there like a pebble propelled by a slingshot. I don't even remember making a conscious decision to get up and leave; my body just moved while my brain struggled to catch up. Then I sat outside by myself and cried.

Grief is weird like that. It's unpredictable and sudden and overwhelming. And frustrating. And annoying. And painfully real. I'll think I'm fine and then something will happen and I'm suddenly just... not. But as a meme I've seen a bunch of times recently says, grief is love with nowhere to go. And somehow, equating grief with love makes it a bit less difficult to manage.