IN THE SHADOW OF MY DESPAIR You have no idea just how I feel unless you're in my shoes. No way you can comprehend the depth of sorrow in my blues. The shock carried me away when my child died, a cloud like calm enveloped me as friends hugged me and we cried. They then felt the bitter pain putting themselves in my place, envisioning the loss of their child as they gazed upon his face. They at once realized how vulnerable one could truly be how painful that reality was brought clear for them to see. To see such a beautiful child lying cold and lifeless in his funeral bier strikes terror in any parents' heart that there child could too expire. Uncomfortable, people don't know what to say so you hear, "if there is anything that I can do..." feeling helpless in a situation so difficult to get through. So many people often exclaim," I don't know how you do it, I love my children so awfully much there is no way I could get through it." My God! Does this mean because I am calm I love my child less? How else could I handle it, under such great duress? God grants us a little time a short period that we are numb with shock to attend to funeral arrangements and the ability to even talk. It is when the wake is over the funeral said and done the graveside interment finished or the ashes scattered in the sun.These acts of life's finality start to erode the facade of calm and the reality of my great loss breaks down God's numbing balm. It is said that grief takes time at least two years most experts agree before a semblance of normalcy will start to return to me. At times I feel quite normal in fact almost good and then the boom is lowered as I expected that it would. Intense pain then returns and racks my very soul, depression I have never known before starts to take its toll. The real world fades away... people talk and are not heard, apathy surrounds my being it's difficult to utter a word. Tears flow in a sudden flood with deep convulsive groans wails of torment escape my throat that vibrates from my bones. As an exhausted shell of myself I feel washed out and spent the intensity diminishing from this scenario of my lament. I slowly then recover and feeling better in part, it seems a great weight has been lifted temporarily from my heart. It is these intense feelings other people do not perceive not realizing the profundity of pain that each day I do receive.  Their lives go on, as before with a modicum of change their petty priorities seem unimportant that in their lives they do arrange. I have a lowered tolerance for trivial problems that people exclaim no time for their trifling complaints or who won the baseball game. I understand that it is my perception it is no fault of their own, but I cannot help the way I'm feeling caught in this "grieving zone". I wonder how long it will take before I lose a friend because of my intolerable moods that could put a friendship to end. I think that friends that truly care will always be by my side and in the shadow of my despair their love will still reside. It may take several years before I can stand tall again and I will thank God for the loving arms of the people I still call a friend. Author Unknown