Grief and Harry Potter

Today was pretty good. I got up and stumbled to the computer to check on things and got in a conversation with Kara that lasted approximately 1 minute before she told me to come meet her for lunch (Weird sleep schedule). So I got dressed and out the door really quickly, and had a lovely lunch... and then came home and planned out the evening... and by "planned out" I mean "decided which movie we were going to go see." We settled on Harry Potter, - at the cheap theater!

I am not convinced that Harry Potter was the best choice. I wanted to see it and I probably would have regretted not seeing it, but it was a little hard. It's only the first half of the book, so it's not as though there is a satisfying conclusion or anything... and there is a lot of death... and death of the good guys. In fact this movie was bookended with the deaths of some major supporting characters... I'd forgotten. So it was hard... especially right at the end.. I don't want to spoil anything, but suffice it to say that Harry holds a character as he dies... I cried far more than I would have under normal circumstances... cause I wasn't really crying for Harry... Grief is so sneaky.  It just comes up and hits you when you least expect it... and you forget death in books and movies cause it isn't really real... until you have an experience that makes it real and then you wonder how you could have ever forgotten. Why am I not more sensitive to this until I'm already in the midst of it? You'd think that of all the people in my life I would be the most aware of the possibility... but I'm totally oblivious until I'm crying because Harry is in the cemetery where his parents are buried.

More and more I think that I'm handling grief in an unusual way. (I think it is safe to say that it is in part due to my incredible self-less support system, and in part due to the tremendous prayers that I know are going up for me constantly.) I don't think that my way of handling all of this is bad or wrong... (Honestly, I don't think there are very many way to handle grief that are bad or wrong) but I don't feel like mine is a "normal" experience, either. If I went through the "5 stages" I feel like I went through them when Nathan was diagnosed, or very quickly... and I miss him intensely, and there are so many experiences I wish that he could have had, or we could have had together. (He would have been such an incredible dad.) But at the same time, I know he's happy now... I know he's pain-free. And I even know that their are some babies up in heaven who he can be a daddy to. Everything on Earth... it's all me stuff... It's how I'm doing, what I'm feeling, how I'm coping... and that's not really what matters most to me. What matters to me is that he's doing ok, and I know that he is. It's not a matter of my strength.. it's a matter of trust.

It helps too, that I have a blog on which to pour out my feelings. And friends who talk to me until far past when they should go to sleep. And people who have never even met us who send me sweet facebook messages and cards and comments. And a God who has been right by my side giving me exactly what I need to get through. If you can't see His hand in my life, please ask me, and I can give you example upon example.

So basically, yes, I cry more than I ever have before... But I have no regrets about my life with Nathan. I loved him as hard and as much and as well as I could, and he knew it and reciprocated. There was nothing unsaid, there were no secrets and no doubts, so maybe that all makes this a little easier in the land of not-at-all-easy. Or at least that's what I'll try to keep on telling myself on the days when it gets harder... I certainly know my life is still going to be a rollercoaster for a while... but I also know that someday I'll be able to write a post that doesn't revolve around grief... and Harry Potter.