Grief is a leveler, this is something I can speak on til the cows come home, with authority and for all who may have been drawn to this post because of the title, well , YOU KNOW.
What is grief? How is it so powerful of a feeling or process? And what do we do about it?
Here goes my most simple explainer.
When we lose a loved one, we the person who finds themselves grieving, we are left with a void or an emptiness where once there was a person. A person whom we loved. Not always loved in a way like madly or deeply in love though we loved them nonetheless. So when we are faced with a void, an empty chair where once sat our loved one, we still have feelings for them. We miss them, yes this is correct. We have nowhere to direct our feelings of love. They are gone from this world and are no longer around us nor in our lives. So what do we do with all of this love if we do not have the person to direct it at any more?
It is called GRIEF.
Grief being our own love towards another becoming turned inside out, so to speak. A love that does not land and is not challenged or reciprocated. A love that can only stir up in our emotional selves and then fall to the floor almost. Like we cannot direct it anywhere. We do not receive a smile back, we do not receive anything back because the person is no longer with us, gone from this world.
Our love for them, towards them and of them has nowhere to go.
So why does it hurt so much?
You can read my live story called TWO sons TOO many and you will be brought up to speed about me and my life through the memoir mentioned above. In there you will read of how I openly discuss what it has been like to lose two of my sons.
So grieving is this weird feeling of being in love with somebody that is not here. A thought in our mind of how we would like to see that person just for a smile or 5 minutes of their time. Grief is the animal that would make you want to be able to make the world disappear for one day or three. Grief can be that thing creeps up out of nowhere and brings tears to your eyes leaving you with no explanation at all. Grief can have you angry and resentful towards your loved one for leaving you to deal with all the hurt and pain. Grief can make life and people around you seem strange or bring about a feeling of being a stranger in your own home, your own world.
If you have ever felt any such weird way during your grief or living with your grief, you are not mad or insane. Grief simply does these things and some feelings can come from nowhere based all upon the love you have inside of you for the person you have lost.
Then why does it hurt so much?
The hurt we feel in grief is the love we have inside of us for our lost loved one. The more it hurts the more we did love. It may seem unbearable and a hurting pain that may never go away, take comfort in knowing it is true love that brings about such pain. Take comfort in knowing you can feel and have had so much love for that person.
Grief pains because you cared, grief hurts because you loved. I understand that these are no quick fix remedies nor does knowing why we hurt so much make any of it any different. I simply post on grief and the extent of pain and love to let any person know that you are not the first and not the only person to have felt like this before, there are many of us who hurt our way through a day or wish for other people around us to understand what it is like. And by the same token it is not our go to conversation to be explaining ourselves or why we might not feel like doing certain things.
Grief is weird and grief is difficult even at the best of times. Life itself can be strange and we can view people as strange sometimes too. And we do not wish to be feeling so strange amongst the strangers. It is just how grief can be and there is nothing we can do to ease another persons burden of grief. We must make progress in seeing grief as a strong emotional love. Can we, will we ever normalise the process so those who have not experienced loss might gain an understanding? The reason for my blog post today is just that.
Let us normalise the process and make a kinder world for those in pain. I guess not only for those who pain with grief, also those who pain and hurt in silence. Can we take a moment from our day to consider life for another human may not be that strange at all. Perhaps they are a person who is hurt, perhaps they have no words to explain. Perhaps being a human to another human would be a great place to start.
I have no answers, I have no remedy, I simply say, enjoy your life no matter how you feel. In pain, hurt and love. Enjoy them all as we never know when it will be our own last day.
July marks a very special for monrh for me in my life and my journey and so a blog post to celebrate.
As always I sign off with,
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Book links can be found around my site and directly from Amazon @TWOsonsTOOmany
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