Keep Trying!

guest post and artwork by Ari

While walking today I noticed a little squirrel way up high on the branch of a tree. It ran
to the tip of the branch, which swayed under it's weight, then back tracked, then again to
the tip of the branch. It looked like it wanted to jump to the next tree but was too afraid.

I watched it for about ten minutes, silently cheering it on. Go little squirrel, go! Don't be
afraid.

Finally it took a running leap and flew into the next tree, happily running down
into it's branches where I lost sight of it. But it had made it! It tried and made it.

Much like that little squirrel I, too, have tried to “jump” forward away from the grief of a
great loss. I get closer every day to moving on into a new phase of a life without my lost
one, only to halt the progress I make each day, and bury myself again in the grief.

The next day, or even the next moment, I again try and try, and maybe someday I will get
there. Time helps, but even more does my capacity to own my grief journey, to keep
trying to better my days, to not stay focused on how much I miss him, how much it
hurts.

I will jump into the future, and I will be okay. Some day. Just have to keep trying.

We can mourn, and remember them, and also move forward, bringing them forward with
us.

​Keep trying!