Parkes Family

Grief is not what you think it might be. If you haven't expereinced true loss, you may have watched a movie or read a book where a character grieves the way you anticipate you will too. For the sake of time, movies and books often speed through and miss those everyday moments of mourning. The story line may not include the non-Hallmark moments that bring you to your knees. I hope that this resonates with someone and that you can stop feeling guilty that you don't or didn't handle the loss of someone the way mainstream media says you should. For me, grief is not: best done with others, crying all day, resenting other people for still having the relatives that I have lost, avoiding pictures, videos, messages and cards from that person, drinking myself into oblivion, sleeping the day away, waiting for someone else to do the dirty work, angry outbursts or being in complete and total disarray. **DISCLAIMER: There is no wrong way to mourn a loss. I share this to merely con

Wednesday 1/19 He's gone. My dad is gone. I cannot believe it still. I kept clutching my heart between sobs after finding out yesterday. I contined to do so all day, behind a mask at the airport, trying to get to him. I was too late. Thank God, my stepmom was there with him. I'm glad I did not learn of his passing alone in an airport. Instead I fell to my knees, with my hand over my heart and folded myself up into the fetal position with John's arms wrapped around me. In all my experiences of loss my cousin Jeff, my mom and now this I have always reverted to this position upon tragic news. It's such an instrinsic response. Not allowing your body to be vulnerable and exposed but protected by your own limbs and sometimes those of others. My dad's throat cancer had come back even after the laryngectomy and chemo/rad treatments in November. The absess in his neck led to him losing too much blood. From what I know, he was not in pain. He actually stood up with indign