My grief rarely makes me cry and when it does, it’s never in public.
My grief is more likely to be stress, weariness, and anxiety.
My grief is a disability, but it’s more likely one you can’t see.
My grief is setting me apart. My grief changed my identity, made me a pariah and a hero, made me someone else, made me someone different.
My grief is acknowledging I will never be truly happy again. In a way, it’s the desire to not be truly happy again.
My grief doesn’t prevent me from functioning. My grief is only collapsing when I can afford it.
My grief is time-consuming, it is spending hours on a blog post or a picture collage or just laying in my bed because my grief is sometimes paralyzing.
My grief is confusion, lack of direction, and an inclination for depression.
My grief is having flashbacks of the traumatic events that I witnessed.
My grief is challenging. My grief is losing my baby a little bit more each day. My grief is holding on to memories, trying to stop time and go back. It’s a daily fight against oblivion and ultimately, against life.
My grief is being both comforted and heartbroken when I find Soley in other’s little girls.
My grief is not compassionate towards other’s struggles. My grief is judging you and finding your problems petty. My grief is thinking my good days are harder than your bad days. But my grief is also genuine concern for children and families fighting cancer. My grief is helping find a cure that can’t save my daughter anymore.
My grief didn’t come with a manual. It’s hard work figuring it out. Especially since my grief is complicated and constantly changing.
My grief is coming back from a war no one ever heard of.
My grief is building a parallel universe where my daughter didn’t die. My grief is going through everything thinking – if she was here, what would she look like now ? What would she do ? What would she say ? It’s walking in the streets picturing a sleepy 2 years-old in my arms.
My grief is lonely. It is also the fertile ground for the deepest connections and friendships in my life.
My grief is messy and awkward. My grief is guilt and failure and hurtful comments. My grief often makes me and those around me uncomfortable.
My grief is going to sleep defeated and hoping I won’t live long.
My grief is not accepting my daughter’s death. It’s wanting to buy her clothes and toys and a Halloween costume, it’s pretending her pig toy is really her. It’s watching a show where a soldier is coming home after being held prisoner for years and telling her dad – how awesome would it be if we could get her back like that ?
Sometimes my grief makes me physically sick.
My grief is still looking for solutions, for meaning, for a way to be okay. My grief is having so many questions and so few answers.
There is no way getting over my grief, only through it.
My grief is thinking “still, I would rather have my daughter back” whenever something good is happening.
My grief is writing.
My grief is heavy and sometimes, I’d like to shake it off. But I know my grief is the grief of a lifetime.
In the end, my grief is just another name for love.
- Love After Loss – Part II - February 10, 2017
- Love After Loss – Part I - February 8, 2017
- Sorry Not Sorry - January 23, 2017