How we grieve

[NitroChrys_Butch]

What can I tell you about Leigh? Leigh was funny. Smart. Good at so many things. My best friend. We were in cahoots. We spent countless hours being together doing nothing. Hanging out. Talking. Sharing. We were inseparable. There wasn't anything we wouldn't do for each other. Say to one another. We grew up finishing each other's sentences. A look was all that was needed to know what the other was thinking and scheming. And we were in it ...hook, line and sinker together. We had each other's backs.

Days after the accident, I refused to come out of my room. I refused to eat with the family. I refused to talk to anyone. I shut down. I had to. I couldn't process Leigh was gone. Any minute Leigh would come into My room and tell Me quit being a jerk. Quit hurting the rest of the family with My foolishness. Any minute. Tick. Tick. Tick. Any minute Leigh would walk in My room. But Leigh didn't.

People told Me to "snap" out of it. I couldn't keep acting this way. I was making them uncomfortable. My grief wasn't convenient. I should be on their timetable. It was time to move on. Time to heal. Time to go forward. Live. How was I supposed to do that when Leigh wasn't here. How could they tell Me what to feel and how to feel it and for how long? This is My pain. This is My grief. They have no idea. I wasn't about to apologize to anyone because My pain ... the grief I felt and was going through was making them uneasy. I knew I was hurting My parents... I knew they were hurting but I couldn't help them any more than they could help Me.

We all go through this. We lose someone dear to us. And, unfortunately, we lose more than one dear person in this life time. How we handle it is ours and ours alone and no one has the right to tell us how to do this. How dare they.

I heard the amount of pain we feel with a loss is only equal to the amount of love we experienced with that person. Makes sense.

[cricket26]

http://awakeningtimes.com/keanu-reev...-tragic-story/

[Gemme]

Originally Posted by cricket26

http://awakeningtimes.com/keanu-reev...-tragic-story/

“Grief changes shape, but it never ends.”


So true.

[Kätzchen]

Originally Posted by Gemme

“Grief changes shape, but it never ends.”


So true.

Gemme, I hope you don't mind if I pick up your post, and talk about how 'grief changes shape, but it never ends' and the fact that I share the same sentiment as you, when your response was, "So, true."



As I have aged over the years, I hate that I have become so terribly sensitive. To the point that when I suffer a loss or losing something I have no say in whether they stay or go (expectedly or unexpectedly), it ruffles every wave in my universe, causing me such an upset that most often I tend to withdraw, deep into myself. Searching every place I can think of, so I can find some semblance of..... "I'm going to be okay."

But often more than naught, I am not okay.

I'm not okay with loss or losing something that was meaningful to me. And, that place of grief is sometimes a place that seems to never end or has no ending. Like it just changes shape, over time.

So I too concur: So true.

I am grateful for time and space to process the painful hurts in my own life, and the gift of more time to create space in my heart or life to experience life's better moments.

[Ascot]

Like you, Kätzchen, the older I get, the more I find myself affected by things. Until quite recently, I was really bothered by it. I think in some ways I saw it is a failing or weakness. One day I found myself saying to a friend that I think I feel things so much more now because I'm actually allowing myself to. What with a lot of life under my belt, apparently the universe has decided that I'm more capable of surviving a submersion into pathos. Until that moment when I was actually expressing that idea, I didn't know I felt that way. Since then, about a month, I've been mulling it over and I think it has validity. At least for me it does. I'm still upright, so if nothing else that is concrete proof that I can exist in and survive great anguish. I'm not certain, but it is possible that my personal definition of being okay has also changed. Maybe I'm finally not only learning to, but finding a willingness to bend in the storm instead of vehemently trying to hold strong and breaking because of it.

[MsTinkerbelly]

Originally Posted by cricket26

http://awakeningtimes.com/keanu-reev...-tragic-story/

The full quote is:

Grief never ends...but it changes. It's a passage, not a place to stay. Grief is not a sign of weakness, nor a lack of faith...it is the price of love.

Author unknown

[CherylNYC]

Originally Posted by MsTinkerbelly

The full quote is:

Grief never ends...but it changes. It's a passage, not a place to stay. Grief is not a sign of weakness, nor a lack of faith...it is the price of love.

Author unknown

What a spectacular quote! It gives beautiful, succinct voice to my process around my own losses. I try not to let my losses define me, profound though they may be, but they're still potent, and still very present. Eventually they recede and become a part of my life rather than my whole life, but they all still take up quite a bit of room in my head.

I find that it's therapeutic to write. I wrote a piece about my late partner and how her loss intertwined with the death of my next girlfriend. Finishing that story walked me into a much healthier place. Now I'm writing a piece about the woman who raised me. Her's was first loss that knocked me off my feet. That was 1992. I cried for a solid year, and I still miss her terribly. I feel that if I don't write down everything I can remember right now I'm at risk of losing those really precious moments forever.

[Candelion]

...a long farewell

...a tribute to your love

...part of your love story

[Tuff Stuff]

Over a year ago my father died.He died right before my eyes,a sudden heart attack.As I dialed 911 i didn't even cry.It happen(cried)when I was bringing back his ashes to be buried in the family cemetery and as I was driving back the 50+ miles home I broke down,still driving(i never pulled over once)and speeding down the highway I just bawled my eyes out.The old fart loved watching his favorite soap The young and the restless.He actually got to see one more episode before his passing,lucky bastard.
Rest in peace dad,I love you.

[Bèsame*]

I think the hardest part for me was last weekend. I had to say goodbye to just my Mom when I left. As I was packing up the car with some of my father things, I was crying. I had to go into the house and say, I have to go Mom, or I'm going to keep on crying. We both were crying by then and that broke my heart. Her story to her friends that week, her breaking point was picking up my Dad's ashes. I broke when I opened the hutch and saw his ashes. But what really killed me was leaving. I cried for 4 hours, and I had a 10 hour drive ahead of me.

when I got home, I just wasn't the same. It took me a few days to find myself and come back into our love story. Things are getting better, however I'm still watching the calendar. And I won't be able to share with him what's going on.

[MsTinkerbelly]

For those of us who grieve...posted before in this thread

Grief never ends...but it changes. It's a passage, not a place to stay. Grief is not a sign of weakness, nor a lack of faith...it is the price of love.

Author unknown

[RockOn]

I was told back in the late 80s by a counselor that I did not know how to grieve. Even after all these years, I still think she is right.

My mom passed in '84. I took care of her, spent all but one night in the hospital with her the last year when she would check in for a treatment. When she died, I did not know what to do with myself. I worked ( of course ) while she was sick ... so I worked harder after ahe passed. And not just at my job but I pressed my limits in hard outdoor physical work. I always do that outdoor extra hard work when I hurt. If I can wear myself out, I flop into bed and fall asleep immediately.

Charlie (father) passed in summer of 2011. I did not know about his death until a month or so afterwards. I did not care one way or the other. I know that sounds callous but he was always on a regular basis an extremely physically abusive person. Never sexually, only with beatings. Here was the best I could conjure up about him. I hoped he did not linger and suffer alone. To this day, I do not know his cause of death. I could get a copy of his death certificate if I wanted that information but I don't see any need to inquire.

When I lose a dog, that is the most prolonged sadness I have ever dealt with ... it never ever goes away. Each one leaves a pawprint on my heart. When I moved last summer, I found some of my beloved Kelly's belongings, some of her baby toys. When I saw them, I felt like I had been mowed down by a sixteen wheeler. I had to work physically so hard for awhile but I cannot shake that type of loss of kinship pain E-V-E-R! A dog's love is forever. Their actions and demonstrations of love are sincere. You can always depend on them.

Hugs to all who struggle with grief.

[Tiffany Aching]

I visited this site only once on a whim, ages ago. And tonight, I thought of it, and out of curiosity and having something to do, I came again.

Interestingly, one of the trending topics is this. And it just jumped out.

I have lost my mother 2 weeks ago. She has been struggling with health, and its possible that if doctors reacted in timely manner that she would be still here (and this was admitted to me by professionals). I am wrecked with guilt for not being more assertive and finding the right help at the time.

She was my best friend, the person whom I admired the most, who unfortunately had a very hard life and was suffering terrible chronic pain most of her life that couldnt be helped due to various reasons.

I keep thinking every day " I should call mum" and that sudden realization that I can't hits me in the gut and I am not able to breathe.

I didn't cry at the funeral. It was like I wasn't even there, cuz I knew SHE wasn't there, just her body.

I even managed to sing, pitch perfect, I have no idea how, at her funeral. And that was because, 5 days before she died, she told me, the lovely spirit she was, even in all that pain "hey darling why dont you sing for me" and I told her I wasn't in the mood and didn't. And now I curse my self for it.

This grief is so all-consuming and at the same time I feel like its not real, like this is some parallel universe, and I am stuck in one where the doctors didn't help, and there is the other, where everything was sorted, like it should have been.

Noone ever loved me like she did, and nobody ever had such zest for life, despite everything that happened to them, and I feel she was ultimately betrayed, her hope, optimism, yearn for knowledge, everything she wanted and could have done.

I keep thinking of everything I will not be able to share with her.

She wanted to live so much, and she coped with so much, and at the end, all the hope was just gone due to incompetence and lack of interest for someone who is over 65. I wish there was no hope and that she couldn't have been helped, that would at least give me some solace.

This way, I am just left with emptiness and lost chances.

Mind how you go, mum.

[deeds]

Tiffany-This is only one reason I advocate for G-d and marijuana instead of doctors and pills..Many elderly people have gone this way over the past 32 years I know of.

All I can say to you is..We never, ever die..Think quantum and energy..I bet your mama suffers still to feel you hurting so bad..That's why I eventually learned truth about life after death..I didnt want my dad and brother see me in so much pain..

I do hope you feel better soon..