they say grief is like drowning

...I guess they're right. And what really gets me is how totally inadequate anything I say or write sounds. I've got all these feelings that just keep bouncing off the sides of my brain and can't get out, it's very much like drowning in a pool. Why is it I feel like I just did this? September seems so close. I just end up reverting to lyrics. It's so cheap and senseless. But what can I write now? It's enough to ruin a man. Graham spoke of some people that you meet and you can tell, you can read in their face that sometime ago they had an experience - broken heart, divorce, death - that changed them and a piece of them died on the inside, and they were never the same.
How many pieces of me must die? How much is enough? Bad things come in threes, who's next? If it's me, I want it to be quick, and I want you all to know I love you so very very much. Both Alina and Jason were close to all of us and I hope I've made half the impact they have. Thanks for being there for me tonight.

So my life has been demarcated twice by death. They were 7 months apart.

And all I can think of are flags at half-staff and roses on embassy gates, starry skies and bloody asphalt. Screams and gallons of thin blood on a cold february morning, training for multiple trauma car crash response and being the victim of a head injury unable to move or speak. My left femur had a compound fracture. I think two teams killed me (neck injuries). It was so cold... I shiver at the memory. I tell you, you don't ever want to survive a car crash. We might think of them as lucky? It's little solace so few hours out.

And all I want to to is call Lindsey out in PA and tell her I love her. I've never done it - never dared. Sooo dangerous and suddenly so necessary. Because now I wonder if I'll ever get the chance. Considering how little we see eye-to-eye lately, it's something she probably needs to hear. Or maybe just something I need to say.

What the hell is going on
The cruelest dream, reality

Chances thrown
Nothing's free
Longing for what used to be
Still it's hard
Hard to see
Fragile lives, shattered dreams

How can one little street
Swallow so many lives

cold brains

and leftovers, always worse the second day...

I've got to get some kind of extension on my math quiz... there's no way I'm going to finish that this morning in 10 minutes. I think Melissa will understand that I couldn't really focus yesterday. I only need a couple hours. I hope. *SIGH* such is the realities of mourning: it takes time. Lots of time.

Josh said it well:

FUCK YOU TWO THOUSAND AND TWO

you know the truth, and the truth shall set you free

John 16:17-33 (NIV)

Some of his disciples said to one another, "What does he mean by saying, 'In a little while you will see me no more, and then after a little while you will see me,' and 'Because I am going to the Father'?" They kept asking, "What does he mean by 'a little while'? We don't understand what he is saying."
Jesus saw that they wanted to ask him about this, so he said to them, "Are you asking one another what I meant when I said, 'In a little while you will see me no more, and then after a little while you will see me'? I tell you the truth, you will weep and mourn while the world rejoices. You will grieve, but your grief will turn to joy. A woman giving birth to a child has pain because her time has come; but when her baby is born she forgets the anguish because of her joy that a child is born into the world. So with you: Now is your time of grief, but I will see you again and you will rejoice, and no one will take away your joy. In that day you will no longer ask me anything. I tell you the truth, my Father will give you whatever you ask in my name. Until now you have not asked for anything in my name. Ask and you will receive, and your joy will be complete.
"Though I have been speaking figuratively, a time is coming when I will no longer use this kind of language but will tell you plainly about my Father. In that day you will ask in my name. I am not saying that I will ask the Father on your behalf. No, the Father himself loves you because you have loved me and have believed that I came from God. I came from the Father and entered the world; now I am leaving the world and going back to the Father."
Then Jesus' disciples said, "Now you are speaking clearly and without figures of speech. Now we can see that you know all things and that you do not even need to have anyone ask you questions. This makes us believe that you came from God."
"You believe at last!" Jesus answered. "But a time is coming, and has come, when you will be scattered, each to his own home. You will leave me all alone. Yet I am not alone, for my Father is with me.
"I have told you these things, so that in me you may have peace. In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world."