Ten Things I’ve Learned About Grief (on National Grief Awareness Day)
Image provided by Elijah Hiett @elijahdhiett on Unsplash
August 30th is/was National Grief Awareness Day. After eight years of living with the sudden death of my husband, here are some things about grief that I would like to share forward – things that others should be “aware” of on this day, and every day. Feel free to add anything that you have learned about grief, in the comments, or to share any additional thoughts. I originally posted this on my personal Facebook page yesterday, and it has so far received over 100 “shares” and hundreds of comments. So, I figured it would be a good thing to share in my blog. I hope these insights help:
Grief is not linear. It has no logic or sense of time. There are days when the pain sits in the background, almost silently, like a dull humming sound. Other days, the pain sits on top of your sternum, and feels like it’s stabbing you viciously and endlessly and repeatedly. This is all normal, and it all feels completely abnormal. You feel like you are losing your mind.
Grief has no ending. It will change and it will shift, and the weight of it will get lighter as time goes by and as you get stronger. But it never goes away. There is no finish line. Grief is something to be carried, and so we carry it forward, for the rest of our lives. HOW you carry it, and what you do with it, is ultimately up to you.
Losing someone that you love dearly changes you in a visceral way. It alters you on a cellular level. Pieces of your old self will remain, but so many things about you will change. How you see the world will change. What you find important will change. Who you let into your circle will change. How you love will change. You cannot go through something this enormous, and not be forever changed. You cannot go back to who you were before. Death ends one life, and awakens another. Yours. Everything about the core of you will be different, and coming to terms with that is a personal and emotional process that takes energy, patience, and an open-mind. The sooner you can embrace the new version of yourself that has been born from this enormous loss, the more you will keep growing, learning, and emerging.
Grief is the great revealer. It will show you who your friends are. It will show you who YOU are. It will show you who REALLY wants to know how you are doing today, and who is just asking to fill the awkward pauses. Through grief, you will lose many people. They wont much like the “new you.” They wont agree with your choices. They will judge you, or they simply wont understand why you cant just “get over this already.” For a long time, this will hurt like hell. But after awhile, you will learn to let go of people who cannot walk this path with you, and focus on the ones who have remained by your side, and the new friends who most likely you have met because they also understand loss from first-hand experience. Grief will show you over and over again, who is worth your energy, and who you should let fade away. Listen.
With grief, the only way out is through. You cannot drink it away. You cannot deny it away. You cannot wish it away. Well, you CAN, but none of that will work. It will still be there after you drink or after you numb yourself with sex or food or whatever else. Everyone lives inside their own grief tsunami. We all have to go through this however we can. Many mistakes will be made. It’s okay. Just know that, at some point, eventually, if you truly want to start healing, the pain and the grief and the hurt cannot be pushed aside or ignored. It must be faced head-on, and you have to talk about it, write about it, process through it somehow. You have to dig through all of your grief emotions, until you exhaust yourself and come to a new, healthier place with them. There is no finish line to this process. It’s ongoing. But if you face your grief, I promise you there are very good things on the other side of the pain.
When you lose someone you love to death, one of the best things you can do to help make them feel closer, is to take on some of their very best qualities in your own life. If your mother was a great cook and you miss it, start making some of her recipes and share them with friends and family. If your brother spoke to strangers like friends, start doing that yourself, and see how it transforms your day, and your life. If your husband had a lot of patience, work on being a more patient person yourself. Take the best pieces of who they were, and bring them back to life. The minute you start doing this as practice, you will feel them closer to you. Trust me.
There is nothing more powerful or validating than meeting other people who share a similar type of loss to your own. A grief that is shared, is cut in half. Community and friendships built out of loss and pain, are some of the most important relationships you will ever have in your lifetime. Not only can you help each other to get through the pain, but you can also find inspiration, hope, and evidence from one another – that love and joy and laughter will all still happen, even after devastating and life-altering loss.
Be kind to others who are hurting. Judging them or berating them or dismissing them is not helpful. If you truly don’t know what to say, saying nothing is perfectly welcome. Sitting with someone inside of their pain, and just simply letting them feel it, is more valuable than you will ever know. Do that, and you can’t go wrong.
Grief magnifies everything. The sadness I felt in my other life, was nothing compared to the intense longing and sorrow I am capable of today. Everything has more depth. Everything feels louder somehow. The good news is that I said “everything.” So, yes, sadness is so much more intense now – but so is joy. And noticing beauty. And nature. Music. Gratitude. All of it is felt at maximum volume, and I wouldn’t have it any other way.
When all is said and done, nothing matters except for love. Love each other hard. Grief will never take the love. Death will never take the love. We get to keep the love – always, forever, and eternally. Share the stories and the moments of those we love who have died, and do so proudly. When all else fades away, Love remains. If you do everything with the intention of being love; you will live a life of purpose, meaning, and beauty; and your heart will beat on forever; in every single life that you have touched. In a life well-lived, the ultimate legacy is Love.
-Kelley Lynn, author of “My Husband Is Not a Rainbow; the brutally awful, hilarious truth about life, love, grief, and loss”, on Amazon
#NationalGriefAwarenessDay #August30 #LoveGrowsLove