Growing Pains

pain-of-blooming
Originally uploaded by {♥} Lady Georgia Sakura {♥}

It's been a very busy day, and an equally busy night. I find myself completely exhausted, but needing to fulfill my commitment to write a post each day.

My thoughts right now are on my family. It seems that we are going through a bit of a growth spurt. Of course this is not too surprising. You can't go through a significant loss without experiencing some growing pains. Growth is not always easy, but I have to believe that end result is worth the pain.

I don't know if I believe that something good always comes out of something bad, but it is certainly true that the kids and I are being forced to look at our lives a bit differently than prior to Michael dying. How can we not? What we are already learning, is that life is just too precious to waste.

For some reason thinking about this makes me think of the old saying," you can lead a horse to water, but you cannot make him drink." Oh, yeah? Sometimes the horse doesn't know that he is thirsty, and that he is in serious jeopardy unless he drinks some water. Waiting for the horse to realize this on his own can lead to horse's demise. I figure, lead the horse to water, and you have improved the odds that he will drink. Of course I'm not comparing the kids and I to a bunch of horses, but if the horse shoe fits, well, you know.

It seems that as the 6 month anniversary comes near, we are challenging each other to examine how we are handling our lives individually, and how we are responding to each other as a whole. I think that when push comes to shove, we will come out of this with a better appreciation for each other. As the dad, I am trying my best to not get too caught up in the small details of our dysfunction, rather looking at the larger themes we can improve on. The challenge is to maintain this perspective, so life will feel manageable. If we can do this, if we can keep growing, then I can feel that Michael's early departure was not in vain.