Everybody grieves differently. There’s no right way or wrong way. It turns out that we’re all pretty great at feeling terrible. It just comes naturally, like breathing air, and at the same time, we instinctively know that that’s the most important thing–to just keep breathing.

Some people need to be around other people, some people need to be by themselves. Some people cry every day and others keep it all bottled up inside. Some of us experience the whole Kubler-Ross stage thing, but we all experience it differently in our own particular order, and that’s if we even experience it at all. Some of us need constant distractions while some of us just want to stay in bed under the covers with a Family Size box of Cheez-Its.

The good thing about grief is that you can’t really fuck it up too badly because it’s already fucked you up worse than you’ve ever been fucked up before. There are only two things that we sad sacks share in common:

1) You have to go through grief. There are no detours.

2) The pain is unbearable yet you must bear it.

This is all my way of leading into something Caryn sent me yesterday morning.

***

So Larry asked me if I’d like to write something for his Sand and Water blog.

I said yes–but there wasn’t one idea about this tragedy in particular that stood out for me.

It’s all been one big blur of an unbelievable reality.

So he sent me a few suggestions that resonated with him, but they were things that happened to me after Robbie’s passing.

So they are mine, and I realize they will remain mine. I will not share them with anyone because that is not how I am able to grieve or heal or move forward or any other synonyms you’d like to use.

I will hold on to my experience with this in a way I was not able to hold on to my son.