A chill winter mourning

Hullo to one and all!
 That looked incredibly peppy and enthusiastic, didn't it? But I'm afraid I'm not. As you may or perhaps may not know, this week has been my Grandpa's funeral as well as a memorial for my Grandmum who passed this spring. Three days of prayer, tears, laughing with family, and moments of lonely silence. Longing for some normalcy,  a sense of stability, amounts to nothing more than a heavier blanket of grief.
 Grief cripples me.

 I cannot function under it. It's like I need to be perpetually happy and light hearted. Or at least have control over what I call excess emotion; anytime I feel overly - perhaps even vulnerably - angry or upset or excited, I can take a walk or a ride, or even just write in order to get a grip and stabilize my feelings. Maybe that's why I'm writing now.
 But I just cannot fix grief. And it frustrates me. {I suppose its my German engineer side coming out.} Yet it fascinates me and compels me like no other emotion. {If that confused you just now, don't worry, I'm a bit lost my self.} Of all the blithe jigs and reels in the history of Celtic music, it's the heartbroken songs of mourning and loss that I love the most. All the tales of adventure and bravery are lost on me unless there is a great and beautiful loss in it. Something that makes the characters vulnerable; their world fragile. Yet I hate being there myself.
 The majority of my own characters have incredibly sad or at least stirring backgrounds. And if they don't, they soon will. *insert evil laugh here*
 I'm strange, I admit it.

 Right now I'm mediocre. Neither glad nor sad, stuck instead in a sort of limbo between them.
 I am glad my grandparents are together again, as they always were, and now it's even better with no pain and with Jesus. Can you even imagine what that must be like? Right now, the same Grandmum and Grandpa that watched my soccer games are now viewing the heavenly throne!
 At the same time I am acutely aware of the fact that they are no longer here, no longer touchable. It takes time to heal wounds, and prayer and petition to heal the heart.
 Mum says times like these, when grief is near and the stress of musical performances is hovering with certain doom, build character - and they do. But to me they are more faith-builders. Without them I would still be the same stubborn daughter of Eve trying to piece and patch together everything herself. I am in no way saying that I'm no longer stubborn - heaven knows far better than that! - but I am growing. And learning.
 It will take more than a lifetime to learn, I'm sure. But you must start sooner than later, right?
Hmmm. I feel infinitely better, now that I've wrote this. Even if nobody reads it all the way through :)

The pictures are from our Christmas tree hunt.

Until next time {hopefully then we can begin the giveaway!},

-Gwyn