Flu Season Approaches

Very soon after my last blog entry I caught a flu bug that held on for a good three weeks and is still making me cough - enough of that, but it did impact my getting back on line here. I have also noticed that there are a great many typos and other grammatical and spelling errors I have not yet corrected in many of my blog entries, for which I apologize. I will try to rectify the situation as soon as I am able to, but it may not be for awhile yet.

That said, I would like to put in a positive vote for group therapy/discussion groups. Although I missed the first of eight sessions, the people moderating the group were kind enough to call and ask if I still wanted to participate. It is a group for people who have experienced the recent (or fairly recent) loss of a loved one. I'm not sure just what I was expecting; perhaps more people or perhaps a different format. Whatever my preconceptions may have been, the reality is simpler and more organized. There are only two others participating in the group with me, as well as the moderator/psychologist, and there is plenty of time for each of us to participate and talk about the loved ones we have lost and how that loss has impacted our lives. Because of confidentiality issues I will not attempt to reveal anything about anyone else's struggles with grief other than my own, but my heart goes out to both of the others in that they are less than a year away from their losses while I have had some time to heal, even though the first anniversary of my sister's death was a very difficult time for me emotionally. Even though I still miss her desperately, my grief is no longer so raw and painful as that of the others. They are just starting to emerge from their pain, while I have had a year to get back up and moving again, albeit with a lot of help from the medications, my boyfriend and family, and now this group. I am still hoping to be able to eventually manage without the medicines for the depression and such, but also realize that may not be possible if I want to maintain a certain quality of peace of mind in my life. Time will tell.

It is a good thing, though, to hear what others are going through, how they are handling their grief, and how they feel - the sense of loss, the unreality of feelings that those we have lost can't possibly truly be gone, the realization that this grief has been such a shock to our systems that it does take recovery time to get back into life again. I hope the others are able to make it back, too.

In the interim, we have adopted another cat - my boyfriend's sister's cat - and she will hopefully be able to integrate successfully into our cat family. Her name is Samantha and she is really a very sweet and funny kitty. She is also very happy to be in a home with people again, as she had to be left in a house without her owner present for quite awhile. Although fed and checked on regularly, she was a spectacularly lonely pussycat and is really enjoying having company again. We are trying to follow some advice given to another person by the SPCA, which was to keep the new cat seperate from the others for the first two weeks and then introduce them into the household. The two weeks will be up this Friday. I look forward to the introductions with some interest and not a little trepidation. I'll try to keep you posted.

I have also given the group leader (the group discussed above) permission to use my blog if she thinks it might help the others as it covers a time span from before we knew of my sister's illness until after her death and into the present. I told her it needed to be "vetted" however, because it discusses things such as the suicides of my two cousins and some other family tragedies which I find it difficult to believe would be beneficial to two people so recently berieved as the other two in the group are at this time. Since I started my blog in the hopes of connecting with, and possibly helping, others, if the group leader can use any of what I have written or shared to help someone else get through their own grief, it would mean a great deal to me to think that somethin good had come out of all of the pain.

May most of you have happier times and less difficult lives than my family and may you know peace of both mind and heart for all of your years.

Love, Izzlebug