Living With Grief

I’ve had grief on my mind lately. The last couple of years, my family and I have become well versed in grief, suffering hard losses that have forever changed the landscape of our family. These losses have left irreparable holes, ones in which we are just barely beginning to weave new fabric around. Still, even as we mend, the scars will always remain. You cannot truly fix what has been shattered. Pieces will always be missing. All you can do is try to put things back as best you can, and glue the fissures and hope it holds. There are the days that you know are going to be hard—the holidays, birthdays, each and every first without the person you love---and you dread those, because you know it’s going to hurt. Yet, you expect it. You grow familiar with the ache of tears in your chest and in your throat, the sheen of moisture that obstructs your vision. It’s expected. What’s harder are those days you don’t expect, where you’re blindsided.

Grief is an insidious beast. You can be going along about your day, feeling fine and then out of the blue, there it is. It could be triggered by anything—a song, a smell, just the random trick of memory, and you’re right back in the thick of it. That’s the worst thing about grief...it’s not something you EVER get over. It’s always there, lurking in the background, forever coloring how you see the world. That doesn’t mean that you’re always sad, or that grief is always negative, either. It’s bittersweet. It’s like the scene in Inside Out, where Sadness touches the memories, tinging them blue. Those memories aren’t automatically absolutely sad, or unhappy. Instead, the perception is now changed. You may smile even as your heart aches, and that’s okay. In fact, that’s a good thing. Shouldn’t you smile when you think of the ones you love? Of course you should! Losing someone doesn’t mean that they are gone from your heart. On the contrary, the person is that much more special. You don’t get new moments with that person, so you have to preserve those precious times that you shared.

Still, grief is a struggle. Missing someone never gets any easier. Losing my grandmother in January of 2016, and then my cousin a year later was a double blow that I’m not sure I’ll ever fully recover from. In fact, I know I won’t. It’s impossible to, because they are no longer here. I can’t call them. I can’t see them in person. My daughter will only remember them from pictures, and the stories I tell her. I think of them every single day. Pictures are still tough for me, especially with my cousin. To look at his picture still physically hurts me. Sixteen is simply too young to lose your life, and it’s hard to think of the man he would have become. I still remember rocking him to sleep as a baby, singing to him. I lost a lot of that connection with him when I moved away to college, and I never quite got it back, and every day I carry that regret with me. I should have called him more. I should have told him I loved him more often. Now, that opportunity is forever gone. We always think we’ll have time...until we don’t. That sweet boy would have turned 18 on April 1, and I miss him so much. The light he brought into the world was so bright. On those days when the sadness or regret is too much, I talk to him. I tell him all the things that I never got to say while he was here. It helps some, but I’d give anything for one moment in time to get to say them to his face. I know he’d just smile that huge, trademark smile, and give me a hug, probably make a joke, because that’s who he was. See, guys, grief in motion right here. I’m smiling even as I cry, because I can so clearly picture it all. Bittersweet.

You know what I think the worst moments of grief are? Those moments when you forget, for that brief second, that your loved one is gone. Not that long ago, I was in the car with my husband and Scoot, just having a conversation and I said, “I need to go see my grandma and tell her…” I trailed off, shocked that the words had come from my mouth, and my husband looked at me as I shook my head, heart turning in my chest. Even now, two years later, I slip. I forget briefly that I can’t go see her. She isn’t there. That split second of forgetting costs deeply, because when reality comes back, it hits hard. The mind is a tricky beast, and sometimes, it plays awful tricks. Yet, all I could do from that moment was take a deep breath, let the hurt wash through me, and keep going. You see, I think grief is different not just from person to person, you grieve in different ways over different losses. For my cousin, that grief is still sharp and shocking a lot of the time. His death was such an overwhelming shock that it colors the grief I feel. With my grandmother, the edges have softened some, but then I’ve had longer to walk the path. It’s not easier, by any means, but I had more time to adjust to losing her, even before she was gone, and I think that made a difference. There’s more acceptance. Still, either way, it’s a weight that I carry within me, and sometimes it’s overwhelming.

Even though it’s tough, and I struggle from time to time, I can’t be upset that grief affects me. Grief is simply proof that you loved someone deeply, and that they impacted your life. There is no shame in that, at all, and you shouldn’t feel any. Instead, I would argue that you should embrace it. I don’t mean dwell in it, and set up shop there. That’s not healthy either. Instead, you should accept those moments of sadness, where the tears flow. Accept them. Take that moment, and acknowledge your pain, because you know what? It’s proof that you loved that person you’ve lost. It’s proof that that person mattered to you, and matters still. Even if that moment happens every day for a while, that’s okay. There’s no timeline to feeling pain over loss. Anyone that tells you otherwise is a liar.  You are free to feel and grieve however works for you, because guess what? It’s YOUR loss. It’s YOUR pain, and YOUR journey. Hiding from it doesn’t make it easier. In fact, honestly, nothing makes grief easier. It’s not something you get through, or over, or any of those other platitudes. Instead it’s something you work with, and grow from.

You’re always going to miss those you’ve lost. Always. Missing them, hurting over it, that doesn’t make you weak. If anything, the power to grieve and show the love we felt through tears and memories, and smiles, that is the greatest strength we as humans possess. It makes me angry when someone says, “Jill should be over this by now. It’s been a year.” Why? Why should Jill be over it? Jill has lost someone. Jill will always have to face each day without the person she loved. Her life is irrevocably changed, and you don’t “get over” that. No, you just keep living. You adapt. That doesn’t mean that there isn’t still a giant, aching, sometimes festering hole in Jill’s heart, or that that hole will ever, ever mend completely. It won’t. If you cut your arm badly enough, doesn’t it scar?  It’s the same way with your heart, so why some people expect you to go on living as though you don’t have that scar, I don’t know. Wear your scars proudly. Cry your tears proudly. Know that grief doesn’t have to be destructive, that it can also be healing. Everyone’s process is different, as special and unique as they are. You don’t ever have to conform to what anyone thinks your grief journey should be because, after all, no one else is you. They didn’t love your loved one in the same way that you did. In the end, there’s not much any of us can do about the grief we feel. We can’t make it go away, or take some magic pill to lessen it. Even if I could, I don’t think I would, because I think that would cheapen all that I feel and all that my loved ones have meant to me. 

There is beauty in sorrow. The sharpest edges of the pain after a loss do wear away, but there are always going to be jagged spots that never smooth. I’ve heard grief described as an ocean, and I think that’s apt. Like the ocean, it’s mysterious, sometimes dark and turbulent. There’s always more going on under the surface than one can see. There hare hidden depths, and surprising beauty. It is breathtaking, and strong, but somehow, sometimes, elegant and even playful. The waves of grief carve you in new, different ways, and you will become someone different after a loss. Your coastline will change, but that doesn’t mean it will be any less, or any worse. Instead, it will simply be different. All we can do is learn to walk this new coastline, appreciating if not the reason for the changes, then our ability to adapt to them.