“One day you wake up and find your life is like a blank book with no characters and no words just you on every single blank page. It’s the same page after page after page. Blank, lifeless and meaningless. Then one day God reaches down and begins to place pictures and people and a story in your new book of life.” – Mal Moss

I wrote this in 2008, just two years after the unexpected death of my only child, my daughter Brittany. I’m fairly sure I was feeling I had lost my way, yet finding it necessary to move back into the lane of life. I felt I had no other choice but to figure it out.

Day by day I did. I worked very hard at starting over. It’s something I’d experienced a lot in my life, it wasn’t a new concept to me. But this type of starting over was very different. Not how I played it out in my head after having a daughter. Not after being so happy with the love I had for her. Where in the hell would that go now? All that love and light I exuded regularly, snuffed out in a moment.

Starting over was hard. I did it kicking and screaming the entire journey. Funny thing is I still do. I get uncomfortable when things get comfortable. Life has taught me that when things get comfortable and happy; things happen. Life dishes out a reminder that “oh wait” “it’s time to shake it up” Like a magician’s trick of removing a table cloth with dishes on top without upsetting or breaking a dish. But where it’s different is it didn’t go as planned; it didn’t go smoothly; in fact, it all broke into a million unrecognizable pieces. The life I once knew.

There is a tiny piece of me that feels a constant state of being unsettled. Grief does that. Anticipatory grief is real. And when you have had so much grief, loss and trauma in your life; well you learn to live with anticipatory grief. It might stay buried somewhere deep in your consciousness; but it is there. Waiting.

Back to my blank book. It is filled with so many good things now. People who are a part of my life now, who love me unconditionally and want the very best for me. I have a few long time friends who have stayed with me through thick and thin. My family who while at times tumultuous; has been there and supported me when I needed it. I know it wasn’t easy.

I keep adding new chapters to my book of life and I’ll keep trying to write a different story. But Brittany will always have that special chapter in my book. Always.

Until next time,

M