When the dust settles- that is when we need people the most. We need people the most, AFTER the chaos that life throws at us.  We need people the most once it finds its resting place, not always as it stirs.  But people naturally come ready to carry us through initial shock, initial grief, and initial pain.  People come ready to carry you through the storm, but most people don't come ready to carry you through the long road ahead that it takes to rebuild what the storm damaged.  

I don't know why chaos is so easy for people to deal with, yet the settling of the dust is not. Perhaps that is because once the dust settles, the emotions become raw.  Reality hits.  And it hits hard.  The aftermath is much more intimate than the shock that firsts hits us.   

I have found that the dust that stirs does not hurt nearly as bad as the dust that settles.  Perhaps that is because once the dust settles, people expect normalcy to return to your life. But what we use to know as normal is not normal anymore.  This adjustment can take for a long, long time.  I honestly believe that adjustment can sometimes take your whole life.

I won't write forever about this topic, although I could...  I only want to stress the importance of reaching out to those long after the initial shock and after the initial pain, because it is long after that it always hurts the most. 

Society often forgets that it is okay to feel emotion.  And, we as friends often forget that it is okay to ask, long after the storm-  "Are you okay?"  Sometimes, these three words, is all someone has been looking for.