Lots of words.

Yesterday was a weird, hard day full of three funerals including our sweet Andrew's. I go back and forth between feeling angry (at who? or what?) to just feeling kind of numb. My Grandma's funeral was this morning, and although it was horribly sad, I feel much more peace with her passing. She was 93 and ready. She didn't suffer a long, drawn out illness or end her life after weeks or even months of pain. She was in hospice for two days and passed away surrounded by family, holding her hands. But Andrew? He was taken. And I have all of these emotions swirling inside of my head and heart, mad at the world because it's just not fair, so so sad for Juliann and their kids. But there is no one to blame, no one to channel these feelings towards. And I think that this is part of some sort of grief cycle I'm going through. I think about when we lost Kendall, who was truly a little brother to me, someone we spent so much of our time with, a every-single-day part of our life. And when he died six years ago it was easy for me to be angry, and easy for me to be angry at the people who irresponsibly had a hand in all of it. I'm not saying it was right, but that anger was a huge part of my grief process and in this...there's just sadness.

Andrew's funeral was heartbreaking. All of our friends sat in a huge group, and it dawned on me that this happens far too often. This is the second dear, dear friend we've had to bury, and two of many young people we've been close to that have passed away from this circle of friends. I'm not sure if it's because we live in a small town that these losses seem more profound and connected, or if maybe it's that all of our friends are risk-takers and adventurers, but it just seems like it's way too much tragedy under strange circumstances. The service itself was so nice though, as nice as a service could be- so, so many firefighters and Hot Shot crews there to pay their respects, and all of Andrew's friends and family filled the entire floor seating area of our local arena. Lots of love. The other funerals we attended were the same, full of love and respect for the men who lost their lives. I found so much inspiration and like many funerals do, all of them left me with a huge reminder to really live my life to the fullest and to the very best of my ability; to "be good," in my own way.

I've had a heavy heart lately, but surprisingly I found some comfort in the last place I thought I would find it- at my Grandma's Catholic mass this morning. I was raised Catholic so that setting is very familiar to me, but it wasn't even that which made me feel at ease. It was when the priest stepped down and came to stand in front of the rows full of my family in the middle of my Nanny's service, and talked about her, and what kind of woman she is. It was weird- I had gone into the whole morning thinking that I would of course be thankful for one last chance to say goodbye, but I was not expecting to be moved by a Catholic priest's words. But I was. He didn't speak about religion much as he addressed all of us, and instead talked about my Grandma's life, and how these moments now, are for us. That what you believe in the afterlife is your reality, and because my Grandma believed that she would be greeted at heaven's gates by her late husband and God, that that's where she was. And I loved that. It made me happy to feel like even though I don't believe in that, she did, and she died with such a feeling of peace and joy with that as her reality. Our reality is what we believe.

Lots of sad talk on the blog lately, and if you've been sticking around to read it all, thank you. I promise things will turn around soon and happy days (and posts) aren't far away.