A Grief Observed- Part 1

   "They say an unhappy man wants distractions- something to take him out of himself. Only as a dog-tired man wants an extra blanket on a cold night; he'd rather lie there and shiver then get up and find one. It's easy to see why the lonely become untidy, finally, dirty and disgusting." (Pg. 5)

   It was my junior year in high school and we were just about to get the basketball season started. The team was looking good and our chances at winning the state championship were even better. It was looking like the perfect year. We had most everybody coming back, and after a summer of working out and hanging out, the time was approaching us. The Season opener; the first game of the season. Everyone knows how important the first game is. It's like a first impression on the season. It's what says, "We're the team to beat." As a Junior and co-captain, I was in the starting line up; I had worked a lot over the summer trying to make sure I didn't take any steps back.  But that night was one of the roughest nights I had in high-school. We get a call at about 9pm-10pm. It's my Aunt Tricia, who is my dad's younger siser,... It's about my Grandma... she just passed away after struggling only a few months with breast cancer. Devastated I failed to sleep that night, and as I went to school the next I found myself in the same isolation the C.S. Lewis put himself in after the death of his wife. Even though the relationships are different, I still felt the same things he felt.

   I grew up not knowing anyone in my mothers family, for clearly obvious reasons, and the only distant relatives I knew were, my Aunt Tricia and her family, and my dads parents. Only my aunt lived in town so it wasn't very often we got to see them. But them were all the family I had, and I loved them. But this is not the end.

   The very next year, I find out my Aunt Catherine (my dads aunt) just passed away with breast cancer also. Granted I did not really know her except for when we took a vacation down to Florida one year and stayed with her for a couple nights, I wasn't affected as much.

   "Cancer, and cancer, and cancer. My Mother, my father, my wife. I wondered who is next in the queue." (Pg. 12) Cancer, and cancer, and cancer. My Grandma, my Aunt Catherine, and then my Aunt Trica. The very one who called us to tell us about Grandma was now diagnosed with breast cancer, my sophomore year in college. It's never an easy thing to hear, someone you love and hold so dear has now got a disease that has no real cure. Times can be hard. In relation to, at least the first two chapters anyway, I find it hard to disagree with Lewis. Sometimes you really do have to ask the tough questions, because sometimes you just really don't know.