Ripples

Right after Roger passed away, Grace and I were talking about this ripple analogy/picture.
When a pebble is dropped in the middle of a pond, it creates ripples that go all the way to the shore.
The ripples closest to where the pebble first went in are the biggest.
They can be seen and felt the best.
As the ripples move from the center however, they are smaller and smaller.
They are more difficult to see and feel, however they are still there.

I think about this analogy a lot with grief.
For me, it fits in two ways.
First, I never realized (and probably will not ever) how many people Roger's death affected.
I got cards from all over the country.
I had donations from people I have never met and still have not met.
I meet people all the time who said prayers for me and were heartbroken when they heard the news.
I even met someone yesterday almost five months after his death and another one last week.

So there are ripples of people that were moved by Roger's death.
Even if in a small way.
Even if I never see them or hear from them.
I think some of those ripples are afraid to approach me.
They do not know what to say or how to say it.
And I agree, sometimes it is strange to get a phone call, email, or some other form of contact from people I do not know or maybe did not even know Roger.
But they felt his death.
Even if it was very little compared to my ripples from the pebble.

Second, grief is also very cyclic like the ripples that move up and down across the pond.
And I pray and hope and hear that grief never goes away but the further away I get from it, the less I will feel it.
But my ripples will never really reach the shore. My grief pond is more like an ever ending ocean.
Grief really never completely ends.
It just becomes more and more part of the pond of my life.

Actually I feel like my "pebble" was more like a boulder.
A boulder that was dropped in a very small pond.
The boulder was so heavy it had to be dropped by a big yellow crane.
And when it fell into the water, it pretty much destroyed that pond.

The strange thing is how these entries reach or ripple out to so many people.
It is weird sometimes for the readers to know me.
To ask my friends about me.

But it is also nice to know that my ripples are going on.
They have not quite reached shore yet.
And people still care.