Dear Friends,

If you are still out there, please continue to pray for me. Most of the time now I just want to run away and hide. Perhaps it is a natural phase of grief or my imagination, but I get the feeling that people think I should be "over it" by now and are annoyed by my continuing sadness. Some people won't look me in the eye anymore, like they've lost respect for me. I know I'm never going to get over this, so everyone will be disgusted by me eventually, I guess. I wish I could disappear. I wish I could stop waking up. Morning is just a time to figure out how to cope with a walking nightmare for another day, to figure out how to pretend there's not a knife in my heart, so I won't make everyone else uncomfortable.

The other challenges of life: paying bills, keeping up with home-improvements, dealing with the boss, etc., are just too much. It seems like the universe is trying to snuff me out. The IRS is coming after me unjustly, the mortgage company is threatening to foreclose justly, Grace is applying to college and I can't even give her the application fees (it's somehow wrong that TEACHERS can't send their own kids to college, isn't it?) I feel guilty that I'm not more help to my other kids now. It even seems like they are avoiding me. Do they think I don't love them as much as I love David, since I'm so preoccupied with losing him? I should be able to help them cope right now, but I'm too sad and they seem to wish I would just stay away from them. They don't even want to talk to me lately.

People say God will never give you more than you can handle. I used to believe that. I used to believe it was my guarantee that I'd never lose a child. Obviously, I was wrong. Maybe I don't understand anything about God. Maybe what I thought I understood was all a fabrication of my own ego and imagination. Maybe God willingly gives some people more than they can handle. Lot's of people lose their minds with pain and anguish, don't they? Maybe He's made it so that I will "handle it", as in, it won't physically kill me, even though it would be easier for me if it did. Maybe He just makes some of His children suffer so others will be grateful it's not them and praise Him. Whatever. I just know that I don't really know anything and was a fool to think I ever did. Maybe God's just showing me how ignorant I am and is punishing me for ever thinking I knew Him at all.