What happens when life takes your breath away.

When the worst thing you can imagine happens.

You’re stunned. You’re lost. You don’t know up from down.

You thought you were doing everything right.

You were doing the next right thing…

Then bam the universe throws you a curveball. Forget a curveball. The universe strikes you out in the bottom of the ninth with the winning run on third.

Now what?

It’s logical that you will feel sorry for yourself. That you will mourn the you that was before the world changed.

But for how long?

Seneca writes to his mother in On the Shortness of Life, “With this in view our ancestors allowed widows to mourn their husbands for ten months, in order to compromise by public decree with the stubbornness of female grief.”

Harsh? To say the least.

Who gets to put a time clock on grief? No one.

Grief is real and powerful, and no one can tell another person when, where, and for how long to grieve.

Unfortunately life will continue around you. How do you balance the need for time and the need to move on?

Can you do both? Can you grieve the life that was and live the new life you have?

I would say you have to.

As much as we would love to curl up in a ball and stop the pain. Life still happens.

How do we keep going?

That’s the real question.

One day at a time. If you can’t do a day at a time do 10 minutes at a time.

Reach out to a friend, a loved one. Someone you can tell how you feel, so that you are not dealing with it alone.

Don’t get upset (or recover as fast as you can). Keep going.