Sick, and tired of it.

It's exactly one week until I become a married person. I've been doing a lot of prep work, which you can read about on the wedding blog (link at right). It hasn't helped that I've been sick with an intestinal bug since late Wednesday night. It's kept me awake on the hour these last four nights and I'm a bit drawn. If things don't clear up by tomorrow, I'm going straight to the doctor. Enough is enough. Today I really wanted my mother here, and not only because I'm sick. It's just too strange to be heading into marriage without my parents. My dad I'm accustomed to having lost. I miss him, but I'm used to it. I'm still not used to being without my mom. It's helped immensely that since July I've been seeing a counselor at Kara, a non-profit grief support organization based in Palo Alto. If not for that, I'm certain I'd still be really deep in the weeds. I go weekly. After I'm done and have been away from it a while, I'll go back, get training, and become a peer counselor myself. It's something I feel a strong pull to do. In this world, grief is not given its due. It's weird enough that nobody talks about dying and death. But it's even stranger that those of us who are grieving are pretty much doing it alone. And we're expected to do it quickly--at least here in America we are. Six months is considered the outer limit of time allowed. Mention any feelings of loss after that, and we're considered mentally ill and in need of medication, or at best self-indulgent. And so you swiftly learn to just not talk about it. Not even with family and friends, at least not in any detail. And so thank God for Kara. I think every town and city should have one.