Depths of Feeling

We like to believe that we mature as we get older. I think that I've become a better, more considerate man as I get along. But we generally aren't the best judges of our own character either.

Still, experience does - or at least ought to - lead us to a greater understanding of ourselves and others. I can't recall ever feeling at all lost until the last few days. The feeling of aimlessness, of drift, is much more pervasive than I'd have guessed.

Monday, Tuesday I simply had no strong feelings about doing anything at all. I asked me son Charlie to handle the petitions during Mom's funeral Mass because I didn't think I could. It wasn't about not caring that she have a proper send off. I simply felt that the strength, the will, wasn't really there. I described the feeling to one person who asked as not having any 'giddyup'. I didn't want to move.

Of course I moved about a bit. You have to, to one degree or another. Things were easier to handle when I did, and as the days unfolded. But yesterday, Wednesday, I woke again with no honest desire to attempt anything. I managed to answer some emails and phone calls, and do a few small repairs at the Shop. That helped, yet each time I stopped I had to bull through the malaise all over.

Grief seems to have many and varied facets. I'm certainly and profoundly sad - at moments on the verge of an emotional collapse - but the very depth of feeling lost; I believe I can appreciate it all the more with the next person who tells me they are dealing with it.