Grief is Not a Four Letter Word

I can’t. I can’t do this. I can’t live like this. I can’t live with this huge, gaping hole in my heart. I know I’m redundant. I repeat myself quite a bit. But that’s the theme here. How does one go on living when the person that made them whole is gone? How does one move forward when all she wants to do is curl up in the fetal position and stay there indefinitely? How can I interact with the world when it feels like the world is conspiring against me? I know we’re not the only ones in this world grieving or sad or angry or dealing with what feels impossible. But all I see are people living their normal lives. Carefree. Happy. Satisfied. And all I feel is anguish, intense longing, despair, heartache. Minute by minute, second by second. What a horrible existence.

Here’s the thing about grief, especially with the loss of a child. The sadness alone is overwhelming and intense. The yearning to hold your child again, hear their voice, feel their arms around you. But it’s not just about the sadness of missing the person most important to you in the world. It’s about all the unfulfilled plans and dreams. It’s about the guilt and regrets. The “What ifs?” It’s reliving their last few days, weeks, months, begging and pleading for it to just be a horrible nightmare. It’s being confronted with the reality of it every morning when you wake up. It’s about having to get through each day minute by excruciating minute with no reprieve. It’s about all the conversations you never got to have. It’s about not having nearly enough time with your child. Parents should not outlive their children. It’s about watching their friends live their lives, grow up, achieve their dreams without your child. It’s about losing your role/identity of being an active parent (especially if it was your only child). But even if not your only child, parenting roles and sibling roles change. It’s about getting used to this new life without that child. When a child dies so do all their dreams and wishes and goals. The parents have only the memories to carry them through and that is just not good enough when you have so many plans that can never be fulfilled. It’s just not the natural order of things. Your whole life changes in an instant and that makes grief that much more complicated. You’re not just grieving the loss of the person, but grieving the loss of everything else as well.

Everyone has heard about the 5 stages of grief. Denial, anger, bargaining, depression and acceptance  I have since learned that Kubler-Ross came up with the stages through observation of terminal patients. She never intended it to be a road map if you will of the grieving process. These were stages terminal patients were observed to go through when confronted with their own death. They weren’t linear or orderly and weren’t meant to describe the grief of those left behind. I think the misunderstanding of the intent of the stages complicates matters. I’m learning through my groups and interactions that bereaved parents are often expected to “move on”, “get over it”, not stay “stuck” in their grief. They are expected to move through the stages and then in a year or so are expected to be just fine. But they’re not just fine. Three, five, ten years later the pain and heartache is still there. They may have learned to live with it and maybe have started living again rather than just surviving, but they long for their child just as much. Attitudes like that towards grieving parents is isolating and makes the parents feel like they are abnormal, unhealthy, or should be medicated. So far I have been fortunate not to experience the negative attitudes but this is still very new or fresh. I have no idea what’s coming down the road and I would find it extremely hurtful if I was on the receiving end of comments such as those. When your child dies, a part of you dies with them. No amount of time can fix that. No amount of time will make it okay that your child died before you. No amount of time will heal that wound, cure the sadness, cure the longing. Just think about how much you miss your child when they are at camp, or when you go away and leave them behind for a week, or when they sleep out or are at their other parents house if parents aren’t together. Now imagine that, forever. Knowing you will never see them again. Time will not make that better.

I do think those stages have a place when describing grief, but not in a prescriptive way. They help to describe what someone may be experiencing but should not ever be used to prove to someone that they are “stuck” or should be in the next stage by a certain point in time. Everyone experiences grief differently and should not be held to some standard timeline. Some may experience all the stages, some may experience only one or two. You could go through all the stages in a single day, experience multiple stages at the same time, or stay in a stage for weeks. Grief is so much more than the stages. It manifests differently from day to day, hour to hour. Grief is being on the verge of tears all day some days but barely crying other days until a trigger sets you off. Grief is being irritable, getting frustrated with the smallest things. Grief is feeling lonely when you are in a room of people. Grief is physical pain and illness; nausea, headaches, body aches. Grief is being afraid to talk because if you talk, you’ll cry. Grief is antisocial. Being unable to make small talk, or smile when someone talks to you, unable to say okay when an acquaintance asks how you are. Grief is anxiety. Being afraid to do anything because you don’t know when the grief wave will overtake you. But. Grief is necessary. The pain, the sadness, the grief cannot be pushed aside. No matter how long it takes being with the grief is the only way to eventually survive. Do not try to hurry someone along their grief path.

The unconditional support I’m receiving is the only reason I’m surviving right now. I have a list of people I know I can call or text anytime and they will be there. But surprisingly the one helping me quite a bit is a friend of Ariella’s. She texts me everyday just to tell me about her day. These are the things I’m missing and I thought it would hurt too much coming from her friend and not her but it’s actually quite nice. I don’t think she realizes she’s helping me (well she does now), I think she likes maintaining a connection in a different way to Ariella. I took her to lunch today and it felt nice to have a conversation with someone Ariella’s age. We talked about Ariella a bit but she didn’t dominate the conversation. Her friend is a way for me to have a different connection with Ariella as well. She is a very sweet and caring soul. Ariella was lucky to have her. She even bought me the perfect gift. A necklace with three little birds, like the song, like the painting Ariella did, like my tattoo. Don’t get me wrong, I wish with every ounce of my being that I was taking them both to lunch. It isn’t easy to hear about the things her friends get to do. But I miss that life. I miss those conversations. I’m glad that in some way I can still be a part of that world.