Grief in the Second Year

There is a common misconception that the first year following a death is the worst. That once you get through those first milestones; birthdays, holidays, the anniversary of the death, that there is some sort of closure. That life returns to normal. That when you survive the first year, it gets easier. What they don’t tell you is that for many, the opposite is true. That the shock and numbness wears off and you are left to fend on your own. That the majority of your support system will go back to living their normal lives while you are left floundering. There are a special few who stick around, who are really there, but even among those very special people, your loss is no longer on the forefront of their minds. They have their own lives with their own routines and while they don’t forget about you and your loss, they have their own priorities.

By the second year I imagine most have started adjusting to their “new normal” (oh how I hate that phrase). I know David and I have. We’ve long since returned to work, I’ve returned to exercise, we see people, and go about our daily routines. All ordinary behavior and yet it continues to feel surreal. How? How can we possibly live our lives, act like normal people, when our daughter is dead? A phrase commonly heard when you hear about the death of a child is “I would never be able to survive the death of my child”, and yet we do. Our hearts, though broken, continue to beat and our lungs continue to draw in air. We really don’t have much choice in the matter and so we live our lives, as empty as they may feel. On the outside, we look okay. We look like we are functioning. The pain is no longer obvious to those who don’t know us. But though we may smile and laugh and even have fun, effectively hiding the pain, the pain is always there, simmering just under the surface, ready to explode at any moment. Sometimes reaching the boiling point can be predicted, and other times it’s completely unexpected. Sometimes the trigger is obvious, and sometimes, for no apparent reason, the grief and pain become so overwhelming that it literally makes me crumple, brings me to my knees. The point is, the pain is always there.

Five months into this second year and the days are harder and longer with a road in front of me filled with dread and anxiety, pain and heartache. Being in the middle of a pandemic doesn’t help matters; there are fewer distractions and means of escape. It’s like living in the movie Groundhog Day, where every day is a repeat of the day before, with no end in sight. I still cry everyday. Sometimes just a few tears and sometimes heaving sobs that take over my whole body. I still have visions of driving my car off a bridge or into a tree. I still wake up each morning with anger that I woke up at all and with the dread of the agonizing minutes and hours ahead until I can escape in sleep again. Except that sleep isn’t always an escape these days. Sometimes my dreams torture me just as much as the daylight hours, leaving me feeling unsettled for the rest of the day. During this second year I have fully come to realize what life is going to be like now. During the early days, even though the unfathomable did happen, there was no imagining how I would get through each day moving forward. Yet somehow I have made it to this point and now there is no more imagining, I know truly how terrible and painful it feels to be in this life without Ariella. And that’s what I have lying ahead of me for decades. Reality sinks in and numbness wears off during the second year. Anyone who thinks grieving should just end after a year hasn’t experienced significant loss.

I saw one of my oldest friends the other day. We have been friends 32 years. Over the years we have been in and out of touch as happens, but our daughters met a couple of times and we’ve been there for each other when it matters. We got to talking about friends and friendships and how they change. How what we need in friends changes as we get older, but also following traumatic events. And at that moment I realized that I need to stop mourning the loss of the friends and family that left me not only after Ariella died, but after Ariella was diagnosed. The friends and family that are here are here because they want to be. I have exactly the friendships and connections I need and I am grateful for them, because not everyone has that following a tragedy. I have friends that frequently reach out even though I often don’t reply. Friends that are always inviting us out and don’t get offended if we turn them down. Friends that anticipate our needs, like our friends that invited us to dinner on Halloween to make sure we aren’t going to be stuck at home having to face trick-or-treaters (if that even happens this year), knowing Halloween was a favorite of Ariella’s. Friends and family that don’t ignore my grief, that aren’t afraid to talk about Ariella, but in fact encourage it. Friends and family that understand that grief is selfish and that I am most likely not going to reach out and instead the ball is almost always in their court. Friends and family that don’t try to make it better, that don’t try to fix me, that don’t try to make me see the silver lining (there is no silver lining), that don’t think I am stuck in grief. This second year of grief has continued to be hell but being able to let go of unworthy relationships has been somewhat freeing. I’m hurting enough, I need to let go of people and situations that cause more pain.

In the second year you realize this is it. This is life from this point forward. The same thing day after day after day. Year after year. Not much to live for. Not much meaning. The second year is most definitely harder than the first.