I've taken some time lately to go over my previous blogs. While writing has always been cathartic to me, revisiting what I have written helps me to see how I've progressed on this journey of grief. Some of the things that I journaled have proven to be 100% true - now and forever. But some of what I wrote was only true for the season. It seems that the closer you are to your grief event the harder it is to see down the road. Grief makes myopes of us all. But in retrospect let me share what I have learned in hopes that you too can recognize your progression from whatever grief event you may have encountered.
1. We all grieve differently. While this is true, there are many similarities in the way we grieve. We may go through the stages of grief for some events more quickly than others. Grief turns you into an expert... on your own grief. But just because you can work through a grief event faster than the next person doesn't mean that you loved the person you lost any less than another griever. And just because it takes you longer doesn't mean you loved that person any more than them either.
2. Tsunamis of grief will always overtake you. Even years down the road. Out of nowhere a tremor below the surface creates a wave that will seemingly crush you. And there is nothing you can do to escape. But you can learn to ride it out. You can learn how to distance yourself from some of the triggers. But, when that tsunami does engulf you just hold your breath. You will get through it.
3. Angry Me still exists, he just doesn't have as much of a say so as he did from the beginning. For those of you who are new to my blog, Angry Me is that part of me that is so hurt that he becomes selfish. He doesn't care about your pain. He doesn't care about what might be the right thing to do. He only cares about what will bring him joy, or lessen the grief at that moment. Angry Me does stupid stuff. Angry Me lashes out at people for not being caring enough to stay in constant contact. Angry Me doesn't care if you have your own life. Angry Me is all about Angry Me. And when Angry Me shows up you have a decision to make. You can choose to let him take over and win the day or you can choose to put him in his place. How you do that takes some time to learn. In the first days Angry Me always wins. Eventually you win a battle or two. And later you learn how to channel Angry Me into something productive. Exercise is a good way to channel. I recall the scene from Forrest Gump where Jenny left Forrest early one morning. When he woke up he didn't know what to do. So he ran. Sometimes a little exercise can exorcise those little Angry Me devils.
4. Things and people will show up in your life. Sometimes just when you need them. Sometimes at the worst possible moment. Angry Me has a tendency to invite a lot of the latter into your life! The toughest part is recognizing whether those things or people are good for you or not. Which brings me to my next point.
5. Craters form where your loved one once stood. In a previous blog I wrote about how when a grief event occurs it is like the creation of a crater. That crater can be large or small but it's there. It's that huge gaping wound in your heart. Once that crater appears it wipes out what you lost and immediately replaces it with grief. Your journey will not be about replacing your loved one. No one knows better than you that your loved one is no longer there. What is there now is grief and you have to focus on replacing that grief. Too many times I have seen people replace that grief with the wrong thing or person. I've done it myself. But if you can learn to replace that grief with things that will build you up and, more importantly, with God who will show you how to plant the right things, then you can win this battle over grief. This is an excellent time to surround yourself with friends that you really trust to be sure that what is planted in that hole in your heart is something that won't need to be ripped out again.
6. Sharing your grief is tough. I hate to burden others with my grief. But finding an outlet for your grief is crucial. My outlet has been writing. This modest size house I live in became larger at the loss of my child. It became a huge empty mansion at the loss of my wife. Writing made me feel like I had someone to talk to. Even when I didn't post what I wrote as a blog but just kept it as a journal entry. So, find someone who will cry with you. Someone who will not judge you for your bad days but will encourage you just by their presence. And, if you can't find someone to share with then keep a journal. Bitterness can creep in if you aren't careful and social media can become a poor outlet if your bitterness oozes out onto your Facebook page. The more bitter you are in your posts on social media the more people want to distance themselves from you.
7. Faith will get you through it...but it certainly helps if you have a friend to walk with you. Or, better yet, friends. People are going to constantly bombard you with well meaning scripture but, especially close to the grief event, those scriptures don't hold you at night. They don't snuggle up on the couch with you. You can't touch them. If anything, and I'm being brutally honest and transparent here, they can make you feel worse. It's like that person, no matter their intentions, is saying that if you had enough faith you could get through this. Personally I didn't find the scriptures thrown at me to be comforting. But before you ask for my Christian Card back, let me say that what I found comforting was people around me who lived out the scriptures. I needed those people who could be the arms of Jesus. That could weep with me rather than tell me how I'm supposed to get over losing the biggest part of my life here on earth.
8. Time will speed by so slowly. You don't know how you are going to get through a day when suddenly it has been a week. After a year the wounds are so fresh that it seems like yesterday that your grief event happened and yet it seems like you have lived an eternity without your loved one in your life. I lost my child over seven years before losing my spouse. But it seems as if I've grieved for them both equally long. Now that it has been 18 months since I last spoke with my wife (I've spoken TO her several times since she left), and almost nine years since my daughter crossed that finish line first, I can tell you that the hurt seems like yesterday but the missing them has been decades long. The one thing about time as we know it here on this earth is that it is moving me progressively toward my reunion with them!
9. It's okay to laugh. My joy comes from the Lord. My happiness comes from within. I've always enjoyed a good laugh. Laughter is like a medicine. Your loved one no longer lives on this earth. But you do. They didn't take your life with them (even though it feels they did) so you have to go to school and learn all over the three L's. Learn to live. Learn to laugh. Learn to love.
10. Your life will never be the same. But you can choose to let the changes you go through be positive changes. You can choose to let your experience be there to help others when they need it. You can choose to live a better life in their honor. Most importantly you can choose to tell the whole world about how great your loved one was and how important it is for us to tell our loved ones how we feel about them. Equally important is to allow what you have experienced to let you see how trivial most of life's problems really are. Those things that stress you most suddenly pale in comparison to what you have endured so far. It is all downhill from now. As I told a friend recently, you can say what you want, it can't hurt me any more than I have already been hurt.
My retrospective look may mean nothing to you. Or it may bring back memories of your own grief event and let you see how far you have come. Just remember that it is a journey so no matter whether you are on day one or day 10,000, keep walking. We will eventually get to cross that finish line. And what a glorious reunion it will be.
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