by Greg Lincoln
When you are deep in thought about something that is perturbing to you or it is a thought of something that takes all your focus you may find your mind traveling through the vast annals of your thoughts and your eyes are glued open but you don’t see what is in front of you because of the thoughts that you are thinking.
During this time you may not even hear sounds or if anyone is talking to you, you won’t hear them because your mind is a million miles away in those concentrated thoughts that you are having.
This can last for seconds. Your eyes lose focus and then you come out of it and your breathing returns, maybe fast at first and then it goes back to normal. Your pupils go back to focusing on what is front of you.
Sometimes you will see it in children and you wonder what they are thinking about when you see them staring off into space and you know that they are thinking.
These journeys through our minds are like flashbacks where you relive those moments and it can be an event that you experienced some time in the past.
In grieving, in rejoicing, in suffering, and in happiness this is what we seem to tend to do. In some ways it could be like daydreaming, like having a dream but you’re still awake.
If you are grieving and have lost someone untimely or tragically, those moments can be like nightmares all over again. How often do they come? Do you fight them or do you allow them to run their course?
Once you start grieving, you may find yourself questioning reality because to you it should not be true. And when you are in that battle in your mind between the truth and trying to understand why is when you feel those strong emotions that come with bereavement.
We have seen the compassion and empathy shown by others to us that have experienced this kind of a loss. Grief opens your eyes and you begin to understand what others have felt but you had never known until now.
Thanks for bearing with us as we philosophize upon the many chapters of our grief. It is our own and you have your own also. Yet we share many of the same sorrows. Your prayers have sustained us through these many months and days, quyana!