Hello everyone,

As most of you know, this year has been difficult for Berdell and me. Beginning with losing our 14 year old Schnauzer, Kiefer, to old age, we were to experience several other losses throughout the year. Eleanor, my mother's best friend, and who was a second mom to me growing up, lost her battle with cancer. Following that, our 14 year old Yorkie, Mikki, joined Kiefer over the Rainbow Bridge. Throughout all of this, we tried to be constantly available as my brother, Vic, was battling his own bladder cancer. During this time, we moved my mother, Libby, into an assisted living facility, and then in August, Vic succumbed to his cancer. In December we lost Berdell's father to Parkinson's Disease.

It's easy, when one lives a life of faith, to think that our faith should overcome our grief. It doesn't. Faith has little to do with the human experience of grief. Faith helps us to move on, to make lemonade out of the lemons, to become greater in our lives, and spiritually stronger. Perhaps as the result of our grief, faith gives us opportunities we would normally ignore. But grief is about the loss on this plane of companions, and even things, that interact with us actively; we have considered them when we make decisions, take actions, and even dream, and without them, everything is different.

One of the worst things to say to someone who has lost a loved one and is grieving is, "He's in a better place now...blah blah blah." Though the sentiment may be spiritually correct, it does little to relieve the grief of a griever. Grief after loss is a selfish thing. To be honest, at this point, I am no longer suffering with worry over my loved ones' suffering. Their suffering, at least as far as we know, is over. I am suffering from what their departure has meant to my life.

When we are faced with loss, we are personally forced to change, and change can be resented or appreciated; but change, no matter what, is difficult. Instead of two dogs, we now have two cats; this was actually a positive change since cats are much easier to care for; and so I feel guilty that I feel freer! We call my mother more because we know she no longer has that nightly phone conversation with her life-long friend; sometimes I'm not in the mood to talk, or listen to her common aging complaints, so there can be added angst to my evenings. And when I see something amazing in nature, my immediate habit of calling my brother to tell him about it catches me up short, as if I've just run into a wall, and once again I am reminded of the loss of his physical presence. We were not around Berdell's father very much, and their actual phone conversations and visits were few, so the grief she feels is more about what could have been, had he been a different kind of father, rather than a feeling of loss. However, the woman who cared for him daily for the past 8 years is the one who experienced several losses. She was used to the routine of driving to his home every day. He became a friend. She had a regular salary from taking care of him. She communicated with all of his family about his condition and needs, and we became her responsibility as well. A well-established routine is now uprooted for her and she must decide what she wants to be now that she's grown and graduated, to use a familiar experience.

We who are left must look in new directions, begin new experiences, dream new dreams, and do the best we can to create good from the grief. But grieve we must. This entails acknowledging our feelings, reaching out to other grievers, telling our story again and again, crying until we are finished crying, and eventually coming to the point where we can find a seed of good, a miraculous opportunity, or a better life that has come to us as the result of our loss. To me, there could be no greater honor than to know that the people I love and care for have benefitted from my departure. This in itself justifies our lives and our deaths. So the greatest justification of a loved one's death happens when we have created a greater life as the result.

My plan this year is to be more cognitive of manifesting my short-term dreams. Take that weekend up at Mt. Hood in the lodge with my wife. Learn more about how to use my laptop for fun by taking lessons from the place that sold it to me. Get back involved with my music performance. Write a new song. Re-do my office by changing rooms, furniture, routine and such. Actively support a candidate for public office. Get in touch with someone I haven't seen for 30 years. Heck! even find a way to change my hair (now THAT would be a real achievement!). Join me this year in a quest for the little things that make life great.

Blessings & Hugs,

Casey