By Rob Anderson
Should I still feel so bad, should I still cry so often? I see other
parents smiling, why can’t I? I thought if I did my grief work, it
was supposed to get easier.
Grieving is hard work. Expectations of ourselves, and those that others
place on us, can confuse and make us think we should be in a certain
place at a certain time with our grief. Sometimes we hear, “Your child
died five years ago, aren’t you over it yet?” Or, “It’s been a long
time, why are you still crying?” Those comments hurt and push us
away. Early in my grief, I read the following which helped me
understand that I was fine where I was on my journey: Wherever you
are in your grief is exactly where you should be. To that I would add;
as long as you’re not abusing yourself or others, and not living in
chronic grief.
If you don’t want to go to a birthday party because you feel horrible,
that’s fine. If you don’t want to go out to dinner because you’re
having a bad day, that’s fine. If you want to stay home all day and go
through pictures of your loved one, that’s fine. Most of what we do is
fine, regardless of what others may think or want.
Just as there is no consistency to the grieving process and the pattern
is often unrecognizable, so is our healing sometimes hard to see. We
are told about the stages of grief and how we can pass through them
towards healing in a logical, controlled manner. What we find is that
often B doesn’t follow A, or C follow B. Our goal has a way of taking
us places beyond reason and down an irrational path. Grieving is often
times out of our control and we get dragged along. One day will be
good, the next horrible. One minute we laugh, the next we cry. In the
early stages of grieving, we feel our lives have been thrown into a
blender, the switch on high as we spin and spin trying to slow down
the chaos.
For our lives to get better, we need to believe that no one can tell us
how we should grieve, or how long we should be doing it. Others don’t
understand our pain and we can’t expect them to. Our first, and most
important obligation is to ourselves, to our healing. Others may want
us to hide our grief so they’ll feel better. Only we know what is best,
and that is what we must do, regardless of what others may want.
Don’t try to get them back, let them go and wish them well. If we
grieve to please others, we will only make our lives more miserable.
So, how do we get about feeling better? How do we start the process of
healing? It is important to give ourselves time to heal and to
acknowledge that we will forever grieve the death of our loved ones. We
will never be “over it” as some may want or expect. As much as we
want our pain to end, it will never completely leave us. Acknowledging
that we will forever live with some of our pain can help us get
comfortable with our grief. We learn how to live with it and blend it into
our new normal. A grieving and healing life will not be an easy life. It
can still be very good, but not like it was. Many challenges will block
our healing and the path back to our smiles.
We are on a solitary journey in our new grieving and healing lives.
Within each of us is where we will find the strength to go on. Follow
your heart, do what is best for you, regardless of what others may
want. You will be doing what you need to reconnect with the special and
beautiful life of your loved one, and your grieving will get “easier.”