I wrote yesterday that my oldest and dearest childhood friend Wally Smith had passed. We had crushes on each other since elementary school.  We never dated but were the best of buds.  His friendship outlasted all boyfriends and husbands. I did not expect this loss to make me feel that lighting has struck half of me away. I’ve never felt that before.  I’ve been widowed three times but each relationship was less than three years and all in my 20′s – 30′s. Not enough time to get deeply enmeshed. But Wally I’ve known since I was 7.  Grief is a new emotion to observe.  Feeling I’ve lost something is a new emotion to observe.  Today I will spend time going into my emotion and learn from it whatever it has to teach me.  “The cycle of grief has its own timetable. Until that cycle is honored and completed we are moving along life’s path with an anchor down.” — Ann Linnea, Deep Water Passage