I have written a blog article on grief previously; this is a gentle recap with a little bit added … How awkward do a lot of us feel when we see somebody out and about and we ask about their other half to be told that they had sadly died. How many of us say ‘I am so sorry’ and the conversation just stops there. Please believe me when I say the majority of us that have lost someone love to talk about our loved one who has ‘gone home’. It keeps them real, and I know when I talk about those I have lost, I feel a sense of pride in them and all that they were and what they achieved in life.
So, keep talking …
Grief. If you have ever experienced it, and let’s face it, we all will at some point; but if you have experienced it, you will know how overwhelming it can be. You feel that there will be no end to the pain and sorry to say, you are right. There will be forever a void left that will not, nor cannot, be filled. But you do learn to live with the pain and your ability to handle it increases, so over time things do feel calmer. But as night meets day, those tears will come again and again and again, the only difference is with the passage of time they become far gentler.
Ten years on for me since Mike died, the tears are gentle. He died on the Summer Solstice; he was a deeply spiritual man.
One year since my father died, he died on Star Wars Day, makes us smile as he loved Star Wars. The tears for him are very raw.
Death is part of life; but we do not die, we go home. It leaves those of us down here to deal with the grief and there is no easy way to navigate those painful moments. However, grief is also felt due to other circumstances … the breakdown of a relationship for example. The pain is still deep. But grief is a natural emotion to loss. We cannot expect life to be all sunshine and roses. We must take the rough with the smooth in order to grow and evolve.
There is no time limit on how long you should grieve. We all grieve in our own way, in our own time. We grieve people differently as they are different people and different relationships. Grieving is like everything in life, it’s a process but it is also part of the healing process that we need to go through, no matter how challenging, so that we can move forward and live life again.
There are no hard and fast rules to grieving, but you must never judge yourself in the process. Accept that you will feel a gamut of emotions from loss, sadness, guilt (often misplaced and irrational), disbelief, it is all part of you coming to accept what has happened.
Likewise, there are no easy ways to overcome it but you have to do what you have to do to help yourself. Journalling is a really good way of communicating your loss to yourself; but please do not shut yourself away. Seek help from family, friends, outside agencies that offer counselling.
You are not alone in your grief, please remember that.
And for those that are reading this who have suffered a loss, I am so sorry you are going through the pain, but it will ease one day as you adjust in the process.
Hugs,
Shelly x
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