April 21 of this year marked one year mark for me since my beloved husband Chuck died.  It wasn't harder than any other day has been since he died-just more concentrated as far as impossible memories.

I'm in Arizona with my kids.  Our younger son and his lovely girlfriend came from Connecticut to join me and another son and our younger daughter in a remembrance of love. My niece came in from a trip through Southeast Asia.  So I had lots of family around.

You know how suddenly the feelings will just not be contained any longer?  And they spill out in tears and shakes and moans and horror?  Yeah, that was me on the 21.  Which is something we've all experienced but maybe you haven't experienced the beauty of how it happened for me.

So often, people stumble to say and do the right thing when someone they love is grieving.  They try to fix it, to make them feel better.  It doesn't work but they don't know what else to do.  So, let me share with you how the young people around me were the perfect picture of compassion as I lay there on the floor, almost but not quite in a fetal position, the grief overpowering my body and mind and heart and soul.

My sons and my soon-to-be daughter-in-law and my niece sat with me on the floor as I sobbed out my agony.  They didn't sound off with cliche's, they didn't try to make me stop crying, they didn't try to talk me out of it.

Here's our hope for the future of grieving that these young people in my life are already practicing.    They pressed kleenex into my hand not for stopping the tears but for mopping the tears.  They put a glass of water on the floor next to me and reminded me it was there to replenish my body so that I could cry the necessary tears.  They helped me steady the glass as I drank because my hands were shaking so.  They gently held my hands which were covering my head as I tried to squeeze the pain out.  They quietly leaned into me as the pain poured from my eyes and spoke how cleansing it was for me to be letting my soul bleed in such a way and they were envious of my ability to do so.  They asked me if I would like a pillow to rest my head upon as I cried.  They sat with me.  They touched my back or my hair or my arm, so gently.  They listened to me as the grief spewed from me and their love for me became tangible and got caught in the corners and crevices of pain and overwhelmed it.

This, I say to everyone out there who wonders what to do and how to do it...this is how to be with someone in grief.  Even in the midst of my grief, I recognized the gift they were giving me.

Since my husband's death, I've striven to keep grief and love balanced.  On the one year mark of his anniversary, the bucket of Love could no longer be contained and it tipped into the bucket of grief and mingled with it and became more than.  More than.

I don't know how this next year will play out.  Honestly, I don't see even into tomorrow.  No expectations.  But this I do know.  Whatever grief there is will always, always, always, be balanced by the hugeness of the Love that is in my life and the love that continues to grow.

Grief and Love and Compassion and young people who instinctively know how to be with all three.

Our future is in very good hands.  Because these young people know Love~