The manifestations of grief...

The manifestations of grief...  Years ago I took a management course, one segment of which dealt with handling the grief of employees who had had some tragic experience.  Probably the most important thing they taught us was this: that everyone has their own way of dealing with grief, and that you might find some of those ways surprising, odd, out-of-character, or even inappropriate.

I had a small experience of this myself earlier today, of the out of character kind.

This morning I visited our favorite grocery store to pick up a few items we needed.  As I was loading fruity sparkling water into my cart, a woman I didn't know came up to me and asked, very gently, “Are you ok?”

I had no idea why she was asking me this, so I asked her.  She said “Because you’re crying, and you look so sad.”  Only then did it dawn on me that I was crying; tears were streaming down my cheeks and into my beard.  Until that moment, I had had no idea at all.

So I told this kind woman about my mom's death yesterday, which was why I was crying.  She gave me a big hug, talked with my a bit about her own experience losing a brother (to a drunk driver), and left me feeling better.