A grief hangover...

is not a real thing. At least I don't think that it is. Nevertheless, it is what I'm going to call the last couple of days.

Typically leading up to a milestone of hurt, the days before The Day are the worst. The anticipation that just possibly your heart will not be able to process the immensity of hurt on The Day can put all sorts of pinch into your margin. The mere idea of sorrow's depth threatens to drown you before there is even the first real sprinkle.

Then when The Actual Day does happen and life's blessed normality continues: the sun comes up, stupid cat vomits, meals must be made, traffic lights still work, laundry has to be rebooted, and so on, you realize that the milestone of hurt was really only within your perspective. No one else is walking around waiting for the tsunami to occur.

And that is pretty much the cycle for the rest of your life and for all of the milestones of hurt. But everything that has been building inside of you and your perspective for however many days preceding has to go somewhere. Usually some benign event lances the boil and allows the tears that are always there to flow.

However, if there is no lancing, no release of the pent up-ness, it is like a grief hangover. Ever so slowly the weight in your heart and head dissipates but life's gravity is greater in the days after. Sensitive to sounds and sunshine and even smells, you wish for a dark room to allow "it" all to go away. But there is no dark room of solitude so you walk and think and talk more slowly. You process thoughts at a modem dial up speed. If you process thoughts at all.

And then it is over. It is gone. And you have almost 365 days before that milestone looms again.

Constantly I explain and hear from people in the midst of grief this process. It is confusing and distracting and distancing for many of us. Our lives are continually intertwined with those who did not know the one we miss, the one we grieve, and not wanting to be the Downer Debby, we do not always do a good job of explaining just why we are, well, lacking in those days.

Those who grieve, who mourn, who weep, all struggle for the words that describe it and even when another's description is sorely lacking, we somehow manage to understand. We meant what they knew. The indescribable has a tactile reality in our lives.

Reading Revelation's promise of God the Father saying that "It is done," in reference to how He will wipe every tear and there will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain, never more do I understand that sweet promise than in the days of grief hangover.

I have reason to keep walking, to keep living the days from now until then, so that I will hear Him say, "It is done."