I am feeling very loved and supported by all the expressions of sympathy, condolence and encouragement that are reaching me by card, email, text, phone etc. I am indeed, very blessed.

Grief is a strange thing, and as I always say to people for whom I conduct funerals, having affirmed and normalised their feelings, there is only one correct way to grieve - the way that is correct for you. 

I'm not a crying person (except over cats). I suspect I may be mildly 'on the spectrum' as my emotional responses are certainly far away from the 'median, mean or mode'. And those things are OK, even though it can lead to my grief responses being misread or misunderstood, and even though the misunderstanding sometimes hurts as deeply as, if not more than, the grief itself.

This morning as the challenges of funeral organising reached their peak, I became very, very aware that not only are my ways of grieving utterly different from my siblings,  trying to hold the resultant tensions can prove too much even for me! The important thing is that we got there, and everyone's key needs will be met.

I have done almost all the practical stuff for now, and as I sat in my favourite Social Enterprise, suddenly came an overwhelming weariness that wasn't just tiredness from the travel or from holding it together, just a deep-rooted soul-weariness that, I think is how my grief is expressing itself.  And I am more than content to sit with that heaviness, in my own space, with my kitties for company, knowing that I am surrounded by a cloud of angels who come in many guises.

I think 'angel' is an over-worked term, but in it's proper meaning as messengers of good news, of hope, whose timing is impeccable, then many of my human friends and acquaintances have been, and are being, angelic.  The lovely cards with carefully chosen words; the emails with beautiful, thoughtful poems; these perhaps are not so unexpected, yet their significance is huge.  There are also the unexpected ones, such as the lovely people at the end of the phone for the NatWest helpline and the branch manger in Glasgow... just the simple phrase 'I'm sorry for your loss' carries so much healing power (especially when the registrar recording the death didn't even introduce herself).

The 'last act of love' I can give my Mum is the funeral she requested, and, whilst that is a challenge in many ways, I will do my utmost to ensure it happens.