A Time for Grief. Understanding. Learning.

I am grieving a death in the family. Yesterday we had a great birthday party for myself and my father-in-law Jack. All the Gilmore's on the front range were there and it was great fun. We looked at pictures from John's cousin Sara's wedding in Honduras last month. We baked pizza all hot afternoon in my kitchen with the air conditioning not working. We ate carrot cake in the basement where it was cool and opened presents. It was so good to be together as family and enjoy each other's company. I love this family I've married into. So it was with tragic shock that we received the news at the end of our party from my Mother-in-law Virginia. Pamela (one of our Richmond cousins) killed herself a couple days ago. Pamela! Oh how we'll miss her so much! And so I cry now as I go through the process of wondering what I could have done more. I know it was her decision, but I also know that over the last year we had distanced ourselves from her. She had begun acting strangely and was then diagnosed with schizophrenia. I know she was not in her right mind when this happened. But that doesn't change the things I didn't do to reach out to her over this last year. I feel a need to know better and care for my extended family in a way that I have not felt in a long time. Pamela's death is a shocking reminder of how fragile life is. I do not know my own family well enough. I know that I love them, and I would be pained to lose them. But I do not want to regret that I didn't keep in touch better. That I didn't get to know them and love them for who they are. That I allowed the busyness of my life to interfere with the relationship's which are most precious to me. There are so many people in the world to care about, but if we can each care for our own families first, it would go a long ways toward alleviating pain and loneliness and despair. It hurts me so much to think that Pamela was in so much despair and I didn't even know what state she was living in! I wasn't there on the phone to listen to her. I wasn't even remembering her in my prayers! I do not feel that all is lost for Pamela. I have great hope for her spirit, and a desire to live my life in such a way that she can find the hope she needs to move on and know the love of God. But I also feel a lesson to be learned. I need to spend more time with our families. I must not leave our encounters or relationships to chance any longer. There is too much love to keep it to ourselves. Selfishness kills love. Sharing it creates more of it.