A tsunami of pain

Almost four years later and I am still surprised how grief can jump up and cloak my family. I found my son Jake sleeping last night with two scrap books on his bed, a box full of tissues and kleenex laying on his bed. He didn't call out to me or his dad, he didn't tell me he was grieving, he didn't say anything. He just stayed up late and looked at pictures of him and DJ alone. Grief is something that is done alone. You can cry with your family, you can cry with friends but the grieving is something you always end up doing alone. Again, it is something that is playing in your own memories, in your own mind. It can be pushed aside, it can be forgotten for a short while but it can come back full blast with power. It can come back like a wave, slow and rolling with emotion or it can come back fully like a tsunami strong and scary and all you can do is hang on for dear life, hang onto your life and ride it out. It leaves you drenched, it leaves you soaking wet with emotion, it leaves you drained and it DOES NOT give you anything back but pain. It steals time, emotion, relationships, drive, passions, love, energy, memories, happiness, life, it takes and takes and does not give. It took my son's sleep, it took his peace, it took him away to a lonely place and today I have to help him find some of that back. Four years later and we have a tsunami.