Learning to Live Again

Dear Caleb,

I have while in this past month of many broken/ falling/unstable emotions learned a lot about many things in and of myself.

I have put together Steps in Cultivating Grief.

Step 1: Recognize That You Are Grieving (This starts after the denial phase wears off)
.It's okay to grieve.
.Let yourself feel all angles.
.It is a must, to allow all ends to be opened in order to begin to heal.
.So let yourself Feel.
(No matter what everyone is saying about you feeling so deeply; especially family, they are not you, they do not know.)

Step 2: Find A Healthy Outlet
.Grief is/can be an overwhelming burden to carry.
.If no outlet is found the weight of the pressure can easily and quickly pull you down.
(Find the right outlet for you: Counseling, Online grief groups, Reading, Writing, Starting a new hobby, Picking up an old cherish hobby, Go where you feel the most alive to feel revived when you need to be uplifted and surrounded by a positive and safe environment.

Step 3: Allow Yourself To Feel Again
.Grief has a way to make one feel numb to the world.
.If we stay in the numb phase for an extended amount of time, it can place one in a world of oblivious.
(Our eyes turn inward and we are unable to see the needs of those around us, especially those in our care.)

Step 4: Live With Heart
.We are all in the act of "living," but if our heart is not in it and we are just going through the emotions of "living," then we have already admitted defeat.
(If anything is worth doing, it is worth doing it with heart.)

Step 5: Learning To Live Again

* This is where I am at now!
 I do not know how to exactly do this. I feel like I have come back from the dead myself. I do not know how to do so many things, I feel like I am a baby trying to walk, talk and read again.
I do not know how to carry on a conversion with those that do not "feel."
I do not know how to walk, move and run without being so winded and joints yelling at me to STOP.
I do not know how to read people's everyday in's and out's without saying, "Gosh I would switch trials with them in a heart beat."
I do not know how to do things that I used to do with that same intensity.

There is so much to living, of which I haven't been apart of for so long, that I feel very handicap and inadequate with trying to live again. I am in my 30's and people would perceive me as having lived my life up until this time, but I have been frozen and have tried to make life stand still. I am not my age, I am behind, though my body with all this weight makes me feel that I am much much older.

I have been trying to "FIX" our family, feeling that it was because of me and on my watch that things changed for us.  Using the grief to keep me: eternally focused, working hard to never fail our family again, trying to serve in ways to connect with you and support you on your mission... so that we would be guaranteed our Eternal Family and to be with you again. However, as righteous as those desires and focuses were and are, that direction wasn't exactly they way I was suppose to keep using my energy to "save" our family. I am not suppose to be our family's savior. We already have one Jesus Christ. If I really want to help our family, I need to allow the real Savior to mend what is broken, for he knows what to do. And I need to use more of the energy and time that I have been using with my grief work, to focus more on "living with heart" and trying to "be" in the moments with our family, now that, that is truly what our family has been needing. And remembering what started this family first of all? ....Your Daddy and I fell in love.  If we can keep this commitment and bond staying strong, then we have got a fighting chance of our goal in being together again. Our Eternal Family is hinged upon Daddy and I. It is not up to me to "FIX" our family, but up to Daddy and I to step up to the plate together to secure our family's dream, to be an eternal family.

I know that as time continues to past by we will continue to heal, but it is NOT a cure. We anxiously wait for the cure as we continue to try to take steps of healing here in mortality.

We LOVE you our sweet K-Bub!
Love Always, Your Mommy