Why isn’t there a “So sorry to hear you’ve lost your home” or “Our thoughts and prayers are with you as you try to find a new job in this economy.” Somehow a regular sympathy card just doesn’t do it.

And where are the occasions to mark these losses. Should we have a firepit gathering where we burn the deed we didn’t pay off? There is no funeral to mark or signal the end, or even the beginning, of the mourning process for these things. I feel like people are suffering all around me, and yet we have no celebrations, or un-celebrations, to help release our grief.

I know I am sounding a bit morbid here, but for anyone going through these rough times, the grief just sneaks up on you when you least expect it, while you are trying so hard to bundle it up and leave it by the curb with a happy face and a ribbon on it. Sometimes you just need to give yourself permission to feel sad and cry. I have.