Grief is Not Linear

 

"People are afraid of themselves, of their own reality - their feelings most of all.  People are taught that pain is evil and dangerous.  People try to hide their pain.  But they're wrong.  You feel your strength in the experience of pain.  Pain is a feeling.  Your feelings are a part of you.  If you feel ashamed of them, and hide them, you're letting society destroy your reality.  You should stand up for your right to feel your pain."

Jim Morrison

 

Worst Firsts

Lissa died March 6, 2023 so I recently experienced one of the "worst firsts" after you lose someone - that one-year anniversary of their death.

There are dates scattered throughout the year that will bring a renewed sense of grief after you've suffered a loss - birthdays, holidays, anniversaries.

June 2023 was a bad month for me.  Lissa's birthday, our friend anniversary, Best Friends Day, and the death anniversary of our beloved cat Oliver (who died in 2019) all fell within those 30 days.  I limped through as best I could.  There were a lot of tears.

In September 2023, I endured my first birthday without seeing well wishes from her, and that stung.  Lissa's favorite season was autumn - on the first day of Fall, I cried all day.

She loved the song "When October Goes," so the end of October was painful.  Christmas was rough as she loved decorating for the season and spoiling people with gifts.

New Years Day 2024 was difficult.  I had read somewhere that people have a hard time with January 1 as it's the start of a year without their loved one.  My friend Janet said that 2024 was the first year in over three decades where Lissa wasn't a physical part of our lives.

What were some of your "worst firsts"?  Were any of them surprising?

Different Grief Triggers

 

Death is Nothing At All - Poem by Henry Scott Holland

Death is nothing at all.

I have only slipped away to the next room.
I am I and you are you.
Whatever we were to each other,
That, we still are.

Call me by my old familiar name.
Speak to me in the easy way
which you always used.
Put no difference into your tone.
Wear no forced air of solemnity or sorrow.

Laugh as we always laughed
at the little jokes we enjoyed together.
Play, smile, think of me. Pray for me.
Let my name be ever the household word
that it always was.
Let it be spoken without effect.
Without the trace of a shadow on it.

Life means all that it ever meant.
It is the same that it ever was.
There is absolute unbroken continuity.
Why should I be out of mind
because I am out of sight?

I am but waiting for you.
For an interval.
Somewhere. Very near.
Just around the corner.

All is well.