"The mystery of tomorrow is always worth discovering."

I am healing. That’s what I want to tell you. Anyone that reads this, you might be wondering, “What is she healing from?”

GRIEF This word doesn’t make sense in America. In a society where grieving should be done in less than three days after the funeral and the wake is over, I am proud of my own self in knowing how to “Go within” and stay away and until my heart healed from losing loved ones in 2010.

When you lose someone you love, especially a very close friend or wife, a child or a relative, it’s almost as if you have been stricken with  a disease. Those that normally loved you or adored your normal “Aura” may fade back into the recesses of your past, just like a childhood friend. Maybe it could be YOU that’s changed after this traumatic loss and others sense the change and follow your vibrations. Whatever it might be, just know that grieving is natural and it’s not something that is finished in one week.

My own personal experience with grief in 2010 taught important lessons and also showed relative flaws in our natural acceptance of others feelings. What I miss about living in Hollywood and being an actress is the sensitivity level most of the core group of individuals I hung out with there had naturally.

Actors/Actresses/Artists/Musicians, you name it, they are looking to feel, and that includes pain and sadness as well as the peaks of sheer joy. Feeling gives us a rare perception that without our emotion we could not decipher or recognize important moments or thoughts we might miss, if we just numbed ourselves to the ups and downs.

Albeit with that out and my big stamp of approval for artists out there, I found myself completely collapsed from the inside-out last year during the holidays with others merely looking at me wondering, “Hey, where’s that party girl that knows how to set up the parties?” That party girl, fun loving social friend found herself in 2010 watching a good friend die in a hospice at the age of 37 from pancreatic cancer. That girl found herself wondering why that happened. With a sense of dread that something awful can happen outside my door that year, I began to say a prayer for my husband each day before he left to go anywhere because I had grown so hypersensitive to death.

Only a few short months later, another wonderful friend of my committed suicide. An unexpected shock for most that knew this person. His life had resembled no outward signs or signals to this ending. With only a few short months  in between these two events, I found myself going within, and avoiding the normal life I had because there was nowhere for THE NEW emerged me to be in my suddenly changed world.

Everyone kept expecting that fun loving girl once again…

What can I tell you? After one year, I actually truly laughed a real zany laugh the other night! I was startled by the freedom in such a raw hearty laugh. The sky was dark as my husband, son and I were driving over Del Dios Highway next to Lake Hodges, as the stars twinkled across the water.  I had a glimpse of the regular “Me” again. I was becoming the girl I was once was, you know, the believer in dreams. The person that loved to socialize, see friends and find new things to write and talk about. I was on the mend…finally.

After one year, this is my story to you: Those that are grieving, feeling, wishing that unbearable pain of loss will subside. If you don’t run from you emotion but truly go through it–I mean cry all you can, be sad alone, tell the friend that truly will listen, surround yourself with a support group, but also protect your soul in the meantime–there will come that day for you when you can reach up and find a glimmer of your soul that you once were before you lost that person you cherished so much. It will happen. I didn’t think so, but yes, with time, we can rebuild our hearts and minds.

Grief is a natural process in life. There is nothing wrong with feeling pain or for being sad or wanting to stay close to what you lost. But just know that with time, action and truly dealing with your what you feel, that day will come when you will be surprised to hear yourself laugh again. There will be a glimmer, a small light that ignites your soul. You will then find the courage again to dream and to believe in miracles after the sadness washes away with your own ability to make sure you take care of yourself, your health and anything else before moving forward.

Because what we leave behind, stays with us and who we are today is up for us to decide. Grief is real and so are our souls. We can endure so much, rebuild nations, lose, love, and find a new hope still exists in the dark mystery of tomorrow.

Books that I read that helped me with GRIEF: “Up from Grief,” by Bernadine Kreis and Alice Pattie and “Good Grief,” by Lolly Winston. (The first book is a nonfiction and the second a fiction book. Both deal with grief and how to survive it.)