Grief is Weird

Any one who has lost someone or dealt with grief in some form or another, can verify that grief and the process of grief, makes no sense. There are thousands of books and podcasts on grief and how to deal with it. They talk about the 5 stages of grief; denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance. They talk about allowing yourself to feel, to deal with it “healthily”, to pick yourself up and keep moving. Although all of these are designed to help, the truth is there is no right or wrong way to deal, there is no set manual to get through the process of grief, it makes no sense, just when you think you have a handle on it and your on the other side of it, grief comes barrelling through the front door and decides to stay for a little while, because when it comes down to it, grief is weird.

When you lose someone close to you like a parent, or a significant other you’re just expected to keep functioning like your entire world hasn’t just been destroyed. Suddenly you have been thrown on this new road trip, that you didn’t voluntarily sign up for, you weren’t given time to pack, you have no idea where you’re going, no one has handed you any directions or information, but you are expected to start on this new trip right away, and everyone is watching. The one person you need to ask questions to so you can figure out what you are doing, is the one person you can’t. Grief does things to you, it mixes you up. You no longer feel like you can make a basic decision. Every moment that you’ve taken for granted suddenly becomes a moment of pain. The good things are sad because they are not here. The bad things are worse because the rock you would have leaned on is gone. Every new moment and milestone is filled with happiness and sadness at the same time.

When my mom died in 2023 I heard the favorite line of “time heals all wounds”. I always hated that saying because the pain may cease and the wound may heal, but it’s still there. It still hurts, there’s still a scar. This year I learned that first hand. April 16 marked 3 years since I lost my mom and I thought I was doing good. I knew it was coming up and I was prepared. I figured it’d be 3 years, this year shouldn’t be any harder than before. But this year my mind and emotions decided to throw me into all 5 stages of grief in one day. Most days I can talk about my mom and laugh and smile with very few tears, but this year I couldn’t even think about her completely breaking down. I was angry because she will never get to meet her great grandbaby who carries her name. I was sad because she was missing so much and she deserved more time. I found myself feeling like I did the day I got the call. I was angry because how dare grief bring up emotions I thought I had dealt with, how dare grief make me feel the pain that I never want to feel ever again. But that is the most evil thing about grief, you never actually get over it. It just changes. You laugh when you think of them, big moments are still happy, life keeps moving forward and so do you, but there’s always that underlying sadness. But there is only sadness because what came before was so great.