I received the most incredible email from my daughter today. It affected me to my core. I want to share it with you because indeed it has helped me see good in the bad. Here is what she wrote:

"Hey there,

Good to hear from you! Sorry to hear that you are having a hard week.
Hang in there though. It has to get easier. It's hard enough when you are already hurting from the loss of mom and then to have other things kind of go wrong too makes it even harder.

The other day I was looking at this puzzle my friend is working on when we were up at their house. I had this thought that our lives are kind of like one big puzzle...

Sometimes our puzzle is put together and looks all pretty.. those are times like when you get married.. or have your kids.. or walk your daughter down the isle.. and see your grandkids for the first time..

And at other times we might be missing a few pieces here and there.. i think teenagers are probably a good example of those times.. both when you are going thru them and when you are raising one..

Or when a corner piece falls off or you can't find the two pieces that are under the couch... when you change your job or try and make new friends or move across country.. or when you have a newborn that is waking up in the middle of the night or a puppy that peed on the floor.

But then there are times when something comes along and just knocks over the entire puzzle... and all the pieces fall on the floor and you just have to start all over again.. i would say mom's death is a good example of this. it's when you wake up and it's a beautiful day outside but there are tears running down your face.. and you feel hopeless and can barely find the strength to get out of bed. This is when there are a million little pieces of your puzzle scattered all around you but you can't find the right pieces to even get the puzzle started all over again. you can see the pieces; you just can't pick them up. at times you don't want to pick them up. it's like you are broken....

It's ok to be broken, but I have a hard time because i want to help fix you. but there is nothing wrong with you. what you are feeling is completely normal!! and i realize all i can do is encourage you to try and move forward. it's ok to hurt.. it's good. it's normal. it's hard though. and there are people who will help you thru this. and it is during those times when you need to call your friends in the middle of the night just to hear their voice tell you it's going to be ok.. and that tomorrow will get better. just sit in a room and talk with someone.. even if it seems you are rambling on and on.. Go to the support group at the hospice for survivors of a suicide. I know that would mean admitting that it was a suicide.. and yes, that is very hard.

but it would be kind of like admitting mom was an alcoholic.. and that was a huge step for you. but that gave you freedom to start your recovery. there will be people there that will help you understand the feelings you are having.

But you see, slowly you can start picking up the pieces, one piece at a time... just pick one up and put it on the table.. then you will look at it for a little while .. the next day pick up another piece.. then you will have two pieces on the table.. pretty soon you will have a handful of pieces and one will fit into another. and maybe a friend will come by and put a few pieces up there for you. pretty soon your puzzle will start looking like a picture again.. this time though there may be a few big sections missing... but it will still be together .. and with your friends and family .. and a little glue .. it can stick together. and then you are no longer broken."

Some time ago there was a commercial on television that featured a little old lady who had fallen, and who couldn't get up. The commercial promoted some remote contraption with a button you could push to summons help. The commercial made popular the phrase "I've fallen and I can't get up!"

I am now four and a half months out from my wife's death. In recent weeks I had seen a healthy healing where I was slowly standing on my feet again. But suddenly I'm that little old lady on the floor crying I've fallen and I can't get up. I am so hurt and broken. I just feel like I can't go on.

Over the past year and half while attending Al-Anon meetings I have made some very good friends. One in particular, a lady, helped me in the healing process. About a month ago we sat down and had a heart to heart and discovered that we had a mutual interest in developing a closer relationship. She is a doll, and the honesty we shared was incredible. She's been in program a lot longer than I have, and she knew her way so well.

This past weekend she told me she was backing away from me. I am uncertain what she said, but I am quite sure what I heard. Sadly I know what was said and what I heard were two different things. But what I heard cut me to the quick. It was as if she pulled out my heart and handed it to me while it was still beating.

When it happened I simply thanked her for her honesty and we parted quietly. But the day that followed in my life was anything but quiet. There is a good reason that so many writings and teachings on grief tell us to stay away from important decisions or romantic relationships during the season of grief. But somehow I thought I had gotten enough healing, and that I had come far enough from the funeral, that I could safely move closer to a dear friend. I was wrong.

For some reason I still make daily trips to the cemetery. There is a magnetic pull that leads me there. I sit in the grass beside my wife's grave. Some days I talk to her, and God. Other days I just cry, or meditate, or just sit. As a man of reason and intelligence this activity makes no sense to me. I know she's not there. And I know I cannot have her back. But when I'm sitting there I am safe, alive, and ok.

My lady friend was troubled by my grieving process. She can't understand my need to return so often to the cemetery. She doesn't understand why I can hurt in my loss when I have the joy of this new friendship. She can't compete with a ghost, and that really says it all. She is afraid to love me because I am still so terribly broken.

I struck out at my new companion last night. I lashed out with a toxicity that she didn't deserve. I destroyed any hope of a continued relationship with her. It isn't her fault. She is truly an amazing person. But I hurt her back with some of the awful pain I am feeling.

Then I saw it. Underneath a thin veneer of healing turf there still lies a cesspool of raw, ugly, unmitigated pain. I have a whole treatment-plant worth of shit inside of me just waiting to get out. I am really a toxic person.

So how will I heal? How will I love again? How will I ever get up from this place I have fallen?

This morning during my trip to the cemetery what had been safe suddenly scared me. As I sat there crying I looked at the plot beside my wife, the one I purchased for myself, and wondered. I am so tired of hurting. I am all cried out. Just when I thought I was healing I fell, and I fell badly. Would it be better to just join my wife?

That moment scared me enough I called a grief counselor. She told me it isn't uncommon to have thoughts like this, but that wasn't all that reassuring to me. But, I do know I want to be okay again. I want to love and be loved again.

I think maybe I'm just in too much of a hurry. I need to be more careful with my fragile self, distancing myself from situations where I can hurt another person so much, and in so doing hurt myself again.

Although I am laying here on the floor hurting so much, unable to get up, once again I need to summons the courage to push the damn button on the remote to call for help. "Help me God! I've fallen and I can't get up!"

There are hundreds of books about grief and mourning. Contemporary writers often list the steps or stages someone goes through following the death of a loved one. Seminars are held, meetings gather, and counselors are trained apparently with the hope that if we all know the script it will somehow be easier to follow.

Arguably there is some healing that takes place in the grieving process because these theories and stereotypes are discussed. The human lot is usually afraid of the unknown. So as we stand terrified, trembling with our tears, we lose our grip on tomorrow and have trouble taking our next breath. Reading the show's program to see what lies ahead quiets our minds and lessens our fear, but there is also the potential that the expectations created by these future-telling lessons may bring more sorrow, or even resentment.

My own grieving process has, for me, debunked the books. In fact as I cried out in absolute pain or struck out with a primal anger, having someone pat me on the back saying this is all "normal" did anything but offer familiarity or comfort. There is positively nothing about grieving that is normal. It just sucks.

Most common day approaches define 5 stages of grief: Denial, Anger, Bargaining, Depression, and Acceptance. There is an approach that lists 4 steps: Shock, Denial, Anger and Resolution. Another approach that is probably more apt has just 3 steps: Numbness, Disorganization, and Reorganization. But if I was to define the stages of grief based on my own experience right now it would be something more like the 3000 stages of grief. That's because there have been about 3000 hours since my wife died and every hour has been a different, unique, unexpected, and completely consuming step in my mourning and healing process.

There is some comfort in listening to those who have gone before to know that it is possible to survive this terrible time. But there is no comfort in having your messy, excruciating, breath-robbing experience of grief categorized neatly into a few stages that allow someone else to calmly say they understand. They don't understand, and neither do I. It is beyond comprehension and it defies any stereotype.

Every grief that appears in our lives is the culmination of a bazillion events and issues. Losing a child is no doubt different than loosing a spouse. Facing one's own demise is different from losing another. Then there is the timeline involved; different in each case. There is the intensity of the loss that is intertwined with the degree of love we have for the one we are losing. And there is a library of recorded memories in our head that would fill every library on the face of the planet if they were committed to paper. Every grief is specific and individual.

I think the only common ingredient is that it hurts. And it hurts a lot. In the hurt my world becomes more unpredictable for a while. I know less, I feel more, and I cry a lot. I am more reckless because my prior restraint was contained in the relationship with the one I lost.

My own experience found me writing these words in my diary: "A wide, black hole of matter has opened up in my core sucking all of the light and life out of any place I walk into. But at the same time in the overwhelming darkness my eyes adjust to see extremely faint rays of light slipping in under the door that has slammed shut. For a time it is indeed a dark, scary place.

Sometimes there is a knock at the door and someone, or something, comes in for a while. I am instantly blinded while the door opens letting the light from outside in. But as it closes again I reach to see if I am alone or if someone, or something, is there in the darkness with me now. The most warmth comes when I find the welcome hand of a friend now sitting with me in the darkness - a friend that has had enough sense to close the door and be quiet after entering my dark place.

As I sit holding hands with my grief-partner my mind sometimes shows me a brighter, warmer, day in the future when my friend walks me to the door and waits for me to open it. But for now I am strangely comfortable as my salty tears fall over my lips and the one I am with offers no consolation other than to be there with me. There are no stages of grief. Nothing is predictable. The psychology books lay useless in the dark room. The one sitting with me doesn't pretend to know what I am feeling. It is enough that I am hurting and there are no words to fix that. My friend just hurts with me."

So with those writings and these ramblings I understand more from my journey. And interestingly enough... I understand less about grief in the process.

A few certainties for me have surfaced: there is no wrong way for me to grieve. It is certainly not a predictable path. Others have hurt before me but no one can know exactly what I am feeling or going through. Nevertheless, I must take the hand of anyone who sits in grief with me and be completely grateful for their effort and concern. More importantly, when the right moment comes along I will need to walk with a friend to the door, pull it open, and see what lies outside.

I often hear a phrase in recovery that empowers me to get up again, brush myself off, and walk on. It says: "Pain is inevitable, suffering is optional." After a major emotional injury, there comes a moment where I make a choice to become a victim or a victor. It may not be an easy choice, and at first it may feel completely unfamiliar, but if I make the effort there will come a change.

For me, however, feeling the pain without surrendering to the martyr role takes determination and practice. And for me it requires a crucial ingredient: friends. My recovery, indeed my very survival, relies on a network of friends. So my program, working the steps and embracing my Higher Power (or perhaps I should say surrendering myself to His embrace), is done most effectively when I have recovery friends around me sharing my journey.

Fortunately this is a natural development of my 12 step program. Where I live a typical weekly Al-Anon meeting has 15 or 20 regular attendees, or members. As I "keep coming back" week after week to each meeting I begin to grow my family by 15 or 20. Actually, for the past year I have been attending 4 or 5 meetings every week. So my 12 step family has grown very large.

I didn't pay attention to this phenomenon early on because my reason for attending so many meetings wasn't to make friends, it was to survive. I had no idea how the program worked but my sponsor, my literature from Al-Anon, and the people at the meetings all told me to "keep coming back." One of their slogans said "It works if you work it."

Another paradox I heard from my very first meeting is written in the final reading as each meeting closes. It says that although I may not like every member there, in time I will love them, the same way they already love me. Talk about a conundrum. How can I love someone I don't like? Today, in my recovery I completely understand that statement. Indeed I have a large "love family" that has shown me a different love than I've ever known in my "blood family."

So why is this my topic on the 4 month anniversary of my wife's death? It is because this past week I have been intimately embraced by my love family. And I am quite certain I owe my life and recovery to these dear friends. In fact there are a few of these friends, both men and women, who have found their way into my very soul.

When I sit in the cemetery visiting my wife I tell her about my closest friends and what we are walking through. My memories of my wife's younger, healthier years paint an image that assures me she would like my recovery friends. And I feel her handing me a tissue to dry my eyes, lifting me to my feet so I can brush myself off, and releasing me to the embrace of the living.

Just for today I'll ask God to strip away any character defect of mine that "protects" me from the full one-on-one caress of my friends that fuels the fire of my healing. It is in this abandon that I will truly feel the warm breath of God Himself.

I really wrestle at times with depression knowing that my wife stayed behind in May and the calendar has moved along so far without her. Her gravestone has her year of birth and her year of death inscribed on it. With my fingers touching the 2007 I feel utterly helpless as we race toward 2008. I can't stop moving into each new day and I can't pull her forward from when she died.

To avoid being stretched in half by holding hands with each date, I have had to find a way to communicate with her in the here and now. I have to bring her into today with me. That is why, for now, I make my daily treks to her graveside. There I sit beside her grave. I place my hand on her stone, and spend time in my mind with her. I hold my memories, remember her voice, and talk to her just as certain as when she was alive.

Maybe this means I am crazy? Or maybe it keeps me from going crazy? Whichever it is, it is the only way I can regain my serenity and composure.

You would think after 4 months I would begin to let the dead bury the dead, but instead it is an activity for the living. I miss her so terribly. She is the only one who really knows me. There is no facade with her, she can see right into the depths of my heart regardless of what words my mouth is forming.

In her healthy years she was supportive and proud of me. She could quiet my anxiety and help me rest. She knew my weaknesses and neuroses, and could firmly pull me back from the edge. Even with the web of alcoholism, in her moments of clarity she encouraged me to new heights. She felt so bad that the disease was destroying us.

I am confused at times wondering in my loneliness if I must find another companion quickly to fill the terrible void I have at my center. But in my own moments of clarity I think I must go slowly. I need to heal and become comfortable in my own skin before I try to bond seriously with a partner hoping they will do for me what I cannot do for myself.

So for today I'm just plain broken. I sit at the grave with my wife and God trying to figure out what to do with the calendar. In one corner of my world there will always be a calendar page from that awful day. If I don't try to tear off the page or put it away I will be okay.

God, thank you for the photo album and tape recorder in my mind. Thank you for letting me know true companionship and understanding in a world where these things are so hard to find. Thank you for taking good care of my wife until I get up there to see her again. And thank you for helping me stay here another day without her. Let time move on.