One Sunday about a month ago, I was snuggled up in bed, half awake and half asleep; when my mind threw these words at me…grief does not define me!

“Wow,” I said, “that came out of nowhere!”

It was ‘said’ in such a powerful way that I was well and truly awake. “Dangit”, I said out loud to an empty room, “there is no going back to sleep now.”

After trundling downstairs and making a cup of coffee, I sat down in my front room staring at the last vestiges of the night sky. I started thinking about what those words were trying to tell me.

After a while, I remembered what I felt and said to myself the first time I saw Danny’s photograph of me lying on Kalei’s grave — “Oh my God, I am not just witnessing grief, I am seeing life, all of it.”

And then I wondered…could anyone else besides me see beyond the headstone in order to see the same thing? I suspected not.

I have known for a long time that grief does not define me, but maybe that truth was not as clear to other people; especially since many — okay, most, OKAY, honesty prevails, all — of my blogs talk about grief.

You see, while I consider myself a grief SME (Subject Matter Expert) thanks to 14 years of practical hands-on knowledge in this arena, it is not the only thing I have gained expertise in over the past 61 years.

For example, I am considered a subject matter expert on parts of the natural gas, grain transportation and farming/cattle industries. I am also pretty good at figuring out what makes people tick — I have always been a study of man and woman kind for there is so much that lies beneath the surface of us all — and just like every other human out there, I have accumulate big and little bundles of knowledge that together make up the sum of who I am at this stage of my life.

I write and speak about my grief SME knowledge because I am a firm believer in the saying knowledge shared is knowledge gained. I do the same at my natural gas job, and I do so in all the others areas when I feel I have something of value to communicate.

However, on the matter of grief, I am learning that not sharing the laughter, love, playfulness and normal life ups and downs that in varying degrees contribute to the sum of me, one could easily assume grief is all I know or care about now. While that might have been true in the years after Kalei’s death, of late I have learned how to incorporate grief into my regular universe life in a more balanced and natural way.

So…..I am going to change things up a bit to help you gain the perspective I think might be missing.

While continuing to foster a healthy grief-based conversation, I will do my best to blog about the other aspects of my Lifetime Ahead.

If I think events or stories from my work, friendships, social life, dates (okay, I made that last one up, but I am trying to do something about it on a dating website — if I don’t throw up my hands and run screaming down the street because the whole process feels so, well, wrong) are relevant and add value to what I am trying to accomplish here.

I can’t promise to share, ummm, everything, but if it makes sense to do so, I will write about all the colors of my journey in the weeks and months ahead.

I invite you to laugh, sigh, roll your eyes, shake your head, etc. etc. and yes, occasionally cry along with me as we walk together via the power of the written word.

In time, I hope you will come to appreciate what I mean when I say, “Grief does not define me.”