Many people have directly urged me to get some "professional" help (i.e., grief counseling) and several others have told Holly that she should make sure to get me in to see a counselor.

I initially resisted the idea, due in part to my unpleasant experience with a counselor after my mother passed away in 1980. And more importantly, I maintain that my great group of friends and family are the best counselors I could hope for; why pay money to go talk to a stranger?

Well, I heard the following analogy from a couple sources: seeing a grief counselor is like seeing a sports therapist after an injury: you get injured, they fix you up, and then they send you on your way. "Great as your friends may be, you wouldn't go to them for a sports injury, right? So what's the harm in going to a counselor for a mental injury?"

So we met with a counselor twice last month. This counselor is an MD/PhD, clearly very intelligent and knows his field quite well. The counselor came very highly recommended by a close friend of mine who is the Director of Pulmonary Medicine at a large, very well known medical center in LA, where this counselor works.

The counselor basically asked a lot of questions about my history and what happened, and then honed in on the following: was I using any drugs or alcohol to get through this?

He really drilled down and went through a long list of drugs. Of course, it was "no" all the way through. And you can count on two hands the number of drinks I have had since March 7. (No, they weren't all on one night, either!) He also asked about my support network, and I assured him that I haven't withdrawn into a shell.

In our first visit, the counselor "diagnosed" me as suffering from acute grief, which was surely accurate during that first week after Peter was killed. I think that falling to my knees and sobbing uncontrollably several times that week qualifies as "acute." But I think that was probably healthy; I have had some tears, but no meltdowns since that week.

I was against going back for a follow-up visit (the first visit accomplished roughly nothing) but was talked into it.

Bottom line, on both visits, the counselor assured me that what I'm going through is normal, I'm doing fine, it's good that I'm not using drugs, etc. But I already knew that.

Grief counselors may be great for some people who have different needs than me, but I don't think I need one to tell me that I'm doing fine and it's a good thing I'm not using drugs to get through this. That's an expensive pat on the head!