Internal calm when all seems out of whack

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As I've posted in the Haven section of WP, my mother is currently sick in the hospital fighting pneumonia brought on by non-Hodgkins lymphoma. While at times I have felt the pain of this news and wanted to bawl my eyes out 24x7, I have developed this sort of internal calm in the face of this terrible news. I read an article on Yahoo! Voices about coping with an illness in the family, and the paragraph that caught my eye was about having some "Me" time. In the intervening days, I have worked, met up with a high school friend at Saratoga Race Course (150 years old this year!) and pretty much gone about my routine as normal. This, according to the article, is a healthy coping mechanism, and a vital one at that. My Dad calls me "brave" in this regard, and who am I to contradict him. His only outlet is crying every time life without Mom crosses his mind, as it has become a sort of overwhelming burden on him (and rightfully so; they've been married for over 40 years).

I've spoken my piece; your thoughts?

I've had plenty of terrible news and experiences myself lately (I assure you, altogether more sudden than your own) and I believe it's a metaphorical climb, reaching your version of normal. I've gotten back to my study routines, and at this rate I'll be working as soon as the right opportunity presents itself. I wish I could say the same went for my workouts - I'm a cyclist - mountain biker & dirt jumper, and if you have any kind of demanding or risky hobby I encourage you to focus on strength training first. or perhaps begin it. I know I'll be buying a whole other bike to cover all the ground I need to return to my last season's level of competence.

_________________
"Standing on a well-chilled cinder, we see the fading of the suns, and try to recall the vanished brilliance of the origin of the worlds."
-Georges Lemaitre
"I fly through hyperspace, in my green computer interface"
-Gem Tos

Here is something that has always helped me. This is by the Stoic Epictetus, from his Enchiridion. This has been great not only for dealing with death, but the loss of people from our lives because of who we are:

"5. Men are disturbed, not by things, but by the principles and notions which they form concerning things. Death, for instance, is not terrible, else it would have appeared so to Socrates. But the terror consists in our notion of death that it is terrible. When therefore we are hindered, or disturbed, or grieved, let us never attribute it to others, but to ourselves; that is, to our own principles. An uninstructed person will lay the fault of his own bad condition upon others. Someone just starting instruction will lay the fault on himself. Someone who is perfectly instructed will place blame neither on others nor on himself."

Good luck.