A Friend, Twelve Years In The Making

It is 12:32am November 8th as I write this. In just 6 1/2 hours it will be twelve years since I heard the words, “He’s gone” after waiting and hoping and praying for 32 hours my brother would be found – missing in the Montana mountains on a hunting trip. (I wrote about it HERE: “Before and After, Day 3: Lost, Found and Gone”)

Remembering Gordon Eugene Longenecker
January 6, 1956 – November 8, 2005

It has taken a long time, but I have come to see grief as an uninvited guest – one who continues to show up. Sometimes I expect her. Other times she comes when least expected. She’s not someone to get rid of. We have become friends. After all, she is here, because the one who is missing was deeply loved

It is apparent we are meant to be lifelong friends until we arrive at the time and place where tears are wiped away and there is no more death or dying. Those I have grieved will be with me. Grief’s work will be done, for the missing and the grieving is for those I have lost and now found.

I will joyfully release her to befriend another who needs her.  It will take a while for them to be friends. I wish I could tell them they will find her patient and kind, even though she will insist they pay attention to her, for embracing her is the way to peace in the losing.
(written February 2017)

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“Yes. Loss is always with us. Sometimes more than others. I live with it comfortably most of the time, and long for what might have been when these days roll around.”
(Laura Landgraf– childhood trauma survivor, author, speaker and writer/blogger)\

This is one of those days.
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