Cheryl Strayed said of grief "You let time pass. That's the cure. You survive the days. You float like a rabid ghost through the weeks. You cry and wallow and lament and scratch your way back up through the months. And then, one day you find yourself alone on a bench in the sun, and you close your eyes and lean your head back and you realize you're okay."

There was a time I was so shattered, I could not see returning to the things I had formerly loved and defined my life by. Time stopped, for awhile. And then suddenly finally, I've found myself on a bench in the sun. That bench came in the form of a four wheeler in the Upper Peninsula.

It's been awhile since I've written here regularly. Slowly I have been celebrating returning to myself, and coming back to the things that I love after such a difficult and trying time make them all the more savory and beautiful. Fall brought a peaceful reassurance that the things that define me will always be there, and are what I will always return to: dogs, a warm fire in the wood stove, the smell of autumn leaves in the woods, the feel of my favorite winter hat, teaching and talking about writing and writers. This fall I have returned to myself completely, stronger than I ever was before because now I know the pain of a loss that brought me to my knees and lived to walk again smiling.

After a glorious weekend in the Upper Peninsula - the land I love - here are some of my favorite photos:

Lake Superior on a beautiful fall day. I have also seen this same beach when she's not in such a great mood and it's treacherous. Deer Park, MI

My favorite type of tree along a trail that leads to a cabin I once lived in. Deer Park, MI

A dog that belongs to my good friends Joann and Larry Fortier. Deer Park, MI 

Elise and her five month old pup, Mallory, looking over Lake Superior. Deer Park, MI

Excerpt

Here's what I know: you can do a lot of things that at first you think are unbearable and don't think you can do. 

The men from the funeral home came, finally, after my family grieved around my dad’s small body in the hospital bed in the spare bedroom. They put a thin gurney in the narrow hallway. It didn’t look wide enough to hold an average-sized person, but it was perfect for my dad. They began removing the blankets that covered his lifeless body, and I asked routinely “do you need help with anything?” not expecting an answer. Surprisingly, one of the men said, “Yes, in fact,” and asked me to stand at the head of the gurney to steady it for placing my father’s body on it. I did what I was asked. I am the daughter of a Marine, after all. 

I stood holding onto the cold metal rail at the head of the gurney, bracing myself for him to appear. The hallway and time seemed to stretch, becoming longer, narrower, and my head started to spin. I began sobbing in anticipation of seeing him carried out of his house this final time, questioning to myself whether I had the strength for this duty. And then he appeared. Wrapped in a white sheet, naked except for an adult diaper, the big man I’d known as my father appeared a gaunt, tiny frail person in the funeral man’s arms. He carried him like a baby, cradling his head against his arm and chest and walked slowly, carefully toward me. As he lay my father down before me on the stretcher, I looked down at my father’s face from above and great swells of sobs took hold of me uncontrollably. The funeral man placed a navy blue velour blanket over my dad, pulling it taut up to his chin over the white sheet. I could see his thin legs under the blanket in repose and the knob of knuckles underneath where his hands were folded neatly over his rib cage. He looked peaceful finally as I looked down at him there. His mouth finally closed. 

I pulled the stretcher out of the hallway with the two funeral men, our informal private calling hours now taking place in my parent's living room, and my mom began to wail. “I can’t let him go!” she repeated, and leaned down and kissed my dad’s sunken eyes and cold cheeks and forehead. I wrapped my arms around her sobbing body. She shook with grief. I wanted so much to protect her from this pain. But I couldn’t. Grief is a process, and it comes in waves, and the waves crashed hard within my parent’s living room that morning.

Lake Superior shores

Along the shores of that giant lake I found a rock shaped like a heart. I picked it up and held it close to my own heart, thinking about you. All of the hurt. All of the anger. I placed within that rock-heart all of my anger and hurt and replaced in my own heart good intentions and love. I wanted to throw the rock-heart back into Lake Superior, let that clean Big Lake wash all of those bad feelings and ill will clean but for a second, I couldn't resist wanting to hold onto all of it: the love and the hate.

Then, instead of throwing the rock-heart into the clear cold water, I simply gently let it go. It shimmered under the cold waves. I let go.