Yesterday my wife and I found out that our sister-in-law, in her mid-20’s, has some form of bone cancer. She is a fitness instructor, elementary teacher, photographer, and just all around a great lady.

What didn’t surprise me last night was our tears, our prayers, our conversations. We grieved, and we continue to grieve.
We may fly down there (it’s across the country) in a few days.

What surprised and confused me was this: life kept on rolling. Time kept moving forward like it always does. And at a certain point you kind of get cried out, or talked out, or whatever, and then you start to think about dinner. Or the mattress you were thinking of buying. My wife later wanted to play MarioKart.

What?

It’s weird: we’re grieving, and still are. It keeps sneaking up on us and hitting us, and it’s fair to say that today has been pretty crappy. But we got up. We went to work. I had stuff to do, and I am doing it. How does that work? It’s like life is way too big to just stop for one sick woman and one family in pain. And then I think that all around me are people joking, sleeping, worrying, relaxing, making love, playing board games. And somehow that’s OK. It’s supposed to be that way but I don’t know how to deal with it. Even weirder is the fact that we’re moving on, too. I have seen those people that are acquaintances but not quite friends today, and they ask me how it’s going, and I say “fine”, because I don’t want to talk about it. And then I am working and catch myself not thinking about it and feel bad. Our life continues. And our sister’s is, too. She is still eating and talking and tying her shoes, and seeing people who are outside of it all.

Maybe some of it is our modern ADD and shallowness. But I get the feeling that this weirdness might be universal. When you read a story or watch a film about people grieving, it’s like the sadness is all there is. But life is too big for that; films and books are flat that way. It goes on, and we go on, and I’m not having a problem going on. I am having a problem with how I am able to go on, at times almost uninterrupted.