I would not consider myself an expert in grief but I have had my fair share of grief on this journey of life ecspecially in this past year. It will be a year on January 26th since Dad went home to heaven. I have read several things about grief but I think the best lessons have been opening up my own heart to feel and experience the full brunt of it.
What is the most painful grief? Your own. The most painful grief you will ever experience is your own. No one can go through it but yourself. The highs and lows of allowing yourself to ‘feel’ is pretty intense.
The intensity of grief will strike at the most unexpected times. For me it has been the little things in life. Like waking in the middle of the night and finding I have a wet pillow from unrealized crying and the thought hits me…’I will never hear him say my name ‘Nettie’ again’. Or walking into their house and expecting to see him sitting in his chair, business as usual.
I know there are professional stages of grief but I’ve come up with my own titles to go along with my grief–Numb-Numbville, The Sting, Your Kidding Right?, Now What.
Numb-numbville is exactly like it sounds, no feeling, blurry brain, dulled senses, etc. I remember thinking when Dad was in the process of dying that ‘I should be feeling something’ but no, I was doing what needed to be done to just get through the moment. Auto-pilot was my default setting to get through some of the unpleasantness. There were even days I thought I was handling things pretty well, this isn’t too bad. Maybe it really was an uncommon Grace that can only be tapped into through God’s amazing love.
The Sting happened unexpectedly. I woke up one day and I could not handle life anymore. I even went to work but couldn’t keep it together and had to leave. I went to Dad’s grave site and just wept. Every thing I had not felt in the preciding months came crashing down like a wall of cinder blocks on my heart. All filters were gone and I could not ‘keep it together’ any more. I had finally allowed myself to feel the full brunt of my loss. It has very comforting and a tremendous relief to release all my pent-up emotion.
Your Kidding Right? This is it? The reality set in that Dad is not coming back. God, what about so and so, they’ve not lived a very good life, why couldn’t you have taken them instead of Dad? I’ve had more questions then answers during my times of ‘Your Kidding’. But I’ve learned over the years that God is a big enough God to handle my rantings and ravings. He can handle my blunt accusations. He is not going to punish me for questioning and plain not understanding this life sometimes.
Now what? For me, pretty much more questions but more in a forward thinking sort of way. Some people may call it ‘coming to terms’ with loss. I like to think of it is starting to find the new ‘normal’ in life because life will never be the same. I realize I don’t want it to be the same because then I’d really be stuck in trying to make something happen that never will or can go back.
I’ve grieved much in my life. I’ve miscarried, lost a parent, dreams have died,and well laid plans have gotten tossed to the wind. A loss of any kind will more than likely cause us to grieve. It is not something to be afraid of but something we should start embracing. My journey of grief will continue for life as I learn to embrace and come into relationship with my Heavenly Father to find comfort and peace.
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