I only dream in shades of gray these days.  Life seems to have taken on a hue less colorful than before.  I struggle to comprehend what I'm feeling, where I'm going, what I'm doing.  Has some part of me lost its way?

It seems that just a few short months ago I was mourning Derek's passing.  I lamented the loss of such a good friend, the horrible pain and anguish he went through in his last few years, the heartache I knew his family was feeling, and, even if somewhat selfishly, the emptiness I felt without him around.

I have struggled to get through it all.  There are times even now when I cannot help but think of Derek, perhaps in some context with The Kids, perhaps because of something I see or read in the news, or perhaps only because I enjoyed spending time with him and miss him so.

It has been almost four months since he died, yet it's like I'm waiting for time to fix some part of me that keeps on breaking.

Most of my own anguish has been caused by guilt — guilt for being upset about the whole situation just a few short months before he passed away, guilt about the uncontrollable anger I've felt for many reasons, and guilt about calling his family when Derek had made me promise time and again not to.

Guilt is a funny thing.  There's nothing so bad that you can't add a little guilt to it to make it worse.  There's nothing so good that you can't add a little guilt to it to make it better.

But guilt distracts us from the greater truth of what we're feeling.  That is what makes it such a powerful weapon, something a limited few members of Derek's family have attempted on me.

It's sad.  As if I hadn't already been through enough and hadn't already suffered long and hard just to take care of Derek during his last years, some misguided souls from his family have made it their quest in life to place all the blame at my feet — the blame for Derek's situation and the blame for their own absence from his care for the two years before he died.

It angers me.  It's a betrayal of Derek's legacy and life.  Empty promises of understanding and shallow attempts to betray what it is to be human simply make the situation worse.  The most offensive aspect is that these same people are breaking promises they made to Derek in his last days just so they can throw their own guilt in my direction.

But that is blindness caused by guilt.

Life is already a confusing deluge of events and people.  From our perspective, it can be confusing and overwhelming.  I like to think that from the best perspectives, though, life… everything… even death… makes sense.

Life is not just a kaleidoscope of sensory and emotional overload.  We're all connected.  It's beautiful.  It's funny.  It's scary.  And it's good.

Sometimes it doesn't make sense from our perspective here in the heart of life where we seem to have no control.

Despite these things, however, we humans have an inherent ability to heal ourselves.  We seem intent on living through even the worst heartaches and anguish.  How?  Practice.

Life is about living, something even I myself have written about before and know in my heart.

I need to find a way to get past this.