This week, someone asked me what I'm doing with the "survivor's guilt" from the storm. My first response echoed what I said in my blog a few weeks ago, where I've had to recognize that each of us is on our own journey. Our respective journeys are happening whether or not we have faced an epic storm. What I'm coming to recognize is that I'm wrestling with grief more than guilt. I remember when my mom died, the fact that the world went on was maddening to me. Did they NOT understand that my world had stopped? How dare they! I remember driving through a large city, after dark, marveling at all the cars, the lights, the businesses that were going about their business, without a care about the loss my family was feeling. As I drove, what I noticed had changed. It seems my personal "polarized" filter only noticed things that made me cry. For the first time ever, I noticed a funeral home as I passed. Tears soon followed. There were appropriate times to drop into the full experience of my grief; driving through a big city at night was not that time. I had to work on my focus. With that awareness, I shifted my filter. Just like you can turn a polarized filter over another polarized filter, and have it block almost all light, I recognized that I needed to turn my attention to a different angle. Rather than focus on the loss, I found that ...