Allison,

I just want to say, as I sit here reading and weeping and wondering where the hell that box of tissues that's supposed to be down here has gotten to...your open sharing of your grief process is a gift to all of us who are open to receive it.

My mother died 5 years ago Oct. 22 and grieving her has been very difficult. She was mentally ill and it was very scary to care for or about her in life. It is only after her death that I've felt safe enough to have compassion for her and begin to understand the personal hell she must have lived with in her illness. My middle sister's grief and inability to cope somehow has displaced itself so that she stopped talking to me a few months after our mother's death. I miss my sister more than I miss my mother -- I suppose, at least in part, because she's alive but refuses to be in my life.

Grief takes its own strange twists and turns; for each of us a little different. Thank you for allowing me to share vicariously in your journey and thereby further my own.

Peace,

JudyO