Grief usually comes along, like a tsunami, crashing to the shore and destroying everything in it’s path. Even if we have been waiting on the waves to arrive, the storm cannot be tamed or braced.. no matter how hard we try. And if we haven’t been waiting on the storm, well how can we even fathom how to survive or what comes next.
I wanted to write a letter of some of the things I wish I knew in the early days of my grief journey:
I wish I knew that there is no right or wrong way to grieve. That there is no time line and that every second minute, hour and day would bring about new thoughts and feelings and that is ok. One minute I could be crying, the next I could be laughing with family sharing memories and straight back to crying again. I wish I knew that this was normal and that I wasn’t going crazy.
I wish I knew that grief would happen, whether I liked it or not. Like a fizzy drink can shaken up over time, the longer I shook my feelings off, the bigger the explosion when I finally opened up. I’ve come to realise in grief that we have to feel it to heal it.
I wish I knew that my grief wouldn’t define me. Yes, life is very different than I ever imagined. But, I am so much more than just my grief. I am my dreams, my memories, my friends, my job, my achievements, my struggles, my loved ones and everything in between. Of course my grief is a massive part of me, as is my loved one, but it no longer rules my whole life.
I wish I knew that I would always feel a connection and continued relationship with my loved one. This is a strange one to explain. I don’t know if it’s easy to find the words. In more ways than one, I still feel a connection to my loved one, like an invisible thread keeping us together. I have this feeling that they know who I am and what is happening in this life, even if they aren’t physically here anymore. Some bereaved young people may disagree with that thought, and that is ok as grief is as unique as a snowflake. But for some, it may bring comfort and peace feeling like that connection continues, even after your loved one has died.
And finally, I wish I knew it would all be ok. The irony in that statement is that if someone told me this in the early days of my grief, I would have exploded. How dare someone tell me the loss of someone so special to me would eventually feel ‘ok’. But I now know that things being ‘ok’ rather than as messy and unpredictable as the early days, doesn’t mean I don’t desperately miss my loved one just because time has passed. It means that I have given myself the permission to live around my loss, to be ‘ok’ and to keep moving forward with their memory.
I wish I knew how proud I’d be for continuing on, in honour of my special person.
