Grief Seattle Style

Grief has a way of sneaking up on you and biting you in the ass when you least expect it. I had an experience like that today. Without any warning I felt the spirits of all my many departed relatives in Seattle and suddenly I felt a fountain of tears springing down from my eyes. I find this kind of grief where you wish you could be with spirits that wish you well really healthy. So, my response is usually to just put on some dark glasses and let the tears run down my face while driving or something. However, I try not to be around people much if and when this happens. But, I don't try to stuff my feelings because that is how you go insane, get cancer and/or die. So, the right kinds of grief is very cleansing for the soul. I greatly miss all my relatives because I was taken away from them when I was 4 and some I only saw a couple of times after that, like when my cousins and I 5 to 7 years older than I almost drowned at Zuma Beach in California together when I was 8 before I learned to swim. But I survived because of the air mattress I was on and the life guards who took about 1 hour to rescue us from the rip tides as we were washed about 1/2 mile out to sea.

So, missing them is a good thing. They are all together now on the other side and doing there own thing. But I miss them all. Family is something you can't ever replace. Not really.

P.S. I still have one of my cousins alive who is a lawyer in southern California. Often I go sailing with him on his 25 foot sail boat (I think it is a Catalina) when I'm down there. He and I used to sail Starting in 1968 when he first graduated from Law School and passed the bar when he bought his first New Columbia 22 then. We sailed many times to Catalina Island to snorkel and Scuba dive with girlfriends back then before we both got married  within about 5 years time and started having kids.