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Kimberly C. Paul

Kimberly C. Paul

Bridging the Gap Author Kimberly Paul

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The Backpack

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What is grief to you?

For me, grief is a backpack packed with 200 pounds of large rocks zipped up in its pouch. My backpack is very heavy to cary at times. Knowing I can never put my backpack down, it has, at times, saddened and disheartened me. My backpack has become a permanent part of my shadow.

Some days, I can’t shoulder the weight. It is hard to even function and many times I can’t recall my life without my backpack.

Over time, the load seems to feel lighter, but I still carry the same 200 pounds of rock. With each passing day, my body adjusts. I become stronger and my heart begins to feel again. It may be a week, a month or many years before the heaviness of the load in my backpack is lifted.

Carrying my backpack has forced me into a rebirth of sorts; a rebirth to a different and unrecognizable life that leads to moving beyond something … or someone. Like giving birth, I am laboring through the heavy, dark weight of my backpack to hear the cry of life once more.

For me, grief is a backpack full of heavy rocks that can never be put down. But I am learning to carry my backpack everyday throughout my life.

So, I ask again … What is grief to you?

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Kimberly C Paul Author of Bridging The Gap

ABOUT KIMBERLY C PAUL

Kimberly C. Paul wants to radically change the way people face end of life, and she’s using her extensive experience as a storyteller to do just that. From the set of Saturday Night Live in New York City, to casting for CBS daytime, Kimberly has spent the last 17 years telling a very different kind of story. As Vice President of Outreach and Communications for a local hospice on the coast of North Carolina, she used a myriad of award-winning marketing strategies to share real stories about death and dying and the keys to making every moment matter.

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