Moving on with dignity

I have always admired people who move on after a tragedy. It isn't that the loss was any easier for them than any of the rest of us, but they seem to pick up the pieces, pull themselves together, and move on with what needs done. I remember my Grandfather cleaning out the debris in his sister's house the day after she died in a fire in her home. I remember thinking how can he pull himself together to do that. As I have aged, I have begun to understand the day, that at the time seemed so foreign to me. One, we are a working class family. We don't have the luxury of down time to recoup our hearts, souls, and minds. We need to get back to work, clothes need washed, bills need paid, kids need feed. The other is an almost West Virginia, pioneer state of mind. You stay tough no matter what. I've seen this after my small hometown was nearly destroyed by flooding. I've seen it when someone becomes very ill in our family. I've seen it after divorce, car wrecks, deaths, and lean financial times.  We didn't have the money to abandon our homes after the flood so you shoveled mud, you did without utilities and you thanked God you still had a house to shovel mud out of and a wood burning stove to sit around at the end of a long day. I've watched family members move on after great loss, and they moved on with dignity. My cousin Pam has suffered great loss in her life but she will use her faith in God and support of family and friends to move on with dignity. She will be in unimaginable pain and grief but she will move on because that is what we do. We get up, we do what needs to be done, and we move on.        " Courage is not the absence of fear, but simply moving on with dignity despite that fear. ~ "

  Pat Riley