Days after my sister passed away, I suffered from a horrible panic attack.  In those days following my sister’s sudden death, I was so shaken that my body involuntarily trembled for days.  I laid on my dear friend’s couch – a friend who had also suffered the type of loss I was suffering.  I sobbed and sobbed, asking her when I would feel better.

“Six months?” she honestly offered.

It sounded like a lifetime away.  Surely I could not survive six months of this.

Today I woke up to six months since the morning I got that earth-shattering phone call.  The day feels heavy to wake up to, a reality I have been forced to carry, but each night I hope it floats away in my sleep.

I think back to that day I lay trembling, tears streaking her beautiful white couch.  Six months later, now.  I have survived somehow, and I realize that my dear friend’s words were honest.  It’s taken about this long for some days in a row to resemble somewhat of a normal life.  Six months of a reality I have been forced to accept, though I never wanted it to be mine.

These six months my writings and communications of all kinds have been quiet.  Texts have gone unanswered, email boxes full – just living life and surviving each day has been a feat in itself these past six months.  A reality I have hated, and struggled with.  I haven’t wanted to feel this way.  I have wanted to feel good, and happy, and upbeat, and capable, and motivated, and driven, and excited.. like my normal happy self.  But instead my mornings are dreadfully heavy, my days are long and strenuous, there is beauty sprinkled in the quiet of the day, and that is where I find my solace and my drive to keep pressing forward.  To quiet down, and heal in my home.  In a world I created possibly for this very purpose.  It has been enough for me, and I am grateful.  And even though it’s been hard for me to accept this quiet season of healing, I hope that by embracing it, I can move to a season of more in the days and months and years to come.

I am still standing after six months, and I hope six months more leaves me feeling that much stronger.