Grief is for sure…. we will not escape it.
So, best we surrender to the journey and five years on from my husband dying this is how it feels for me and maybe for you too?
For me in my grief the best way I can describe it is we are all in the ocean of grief, all of us that have lost somebody, and when we first get thrown in, we may enter at different places, different kinds of conditions depending on the circumstances surrounding our loss, perhaps the sea much more treacherous for those that are grieving children than those losing a loved one at the end of a life well lived…but either way still an ocean of grief and, well, we feel like it is so hard to keep our head above water, (especially in the particularly treacherous areas), we can’t negotiate the waves very well, we are thrown around, battered and feel like we are drowning …and there are times we just wish we would so that we didn’t have to keep fighting on through the pain, and we get so tired, so damn tired of it!
And then some people offer us a life buoy …and sometimes we accept it in the form of help, counseling, support etc, and it gives us some moments of rest and peace, but at this stage when they leave the buoy goes too, so we find ourselves still floundering and then in time we realize we have a board (and this may be in the form of ongoing support from each other, others that we love that we must go on for, or just the realization that we have to keep on) and so we hop on the board, we are clumsy at first and fall off a few times and then we take a rest, perhaps even start paddling to calmer sea, but in the early stages we still aren’t so good with the board; we fall off, we crash, we get tired of trying to stay on… but as time goes on, we do get better at it… we rest more, we have a little more peace, we get better at keeping our heads above water…. we never leave the ocean of grief… and every now and again a big wave of grief will come and we will get dumped again and this can happen when you least expect it….
On the 11th of November five years since Flash died…I usually schedule some grieving in for the 11th…. but this year I thought we would do something different …on the Coast for a weekend with other families and then work scheduled, but grief said to me today, I won’t be scheduled in, slid around, avoided or not looked at. It happened while sitting with my son at his new High School for Orientation Day. I looked around at the Dads sitting there and then the wave slammed into me…
I want my husband to be sitting here with me, oh sure he is in Spirit, but I want him here holding my hand dammit, I want him here this afternoon when the kids come home, I want help with that. I want him here to celebrate milestones reached and help me pay the damn bills. I want him here to laugh with and cry with. I want to hear him call me ‘Mouse’ one more time. I want him to take Jacko to Rugby and do driving lessons with him. I want him here to love me. I miss him and I miss having a husband and today I am going to allow myself to surrender to the grief and the tears because it is today they showed up. And I am not asking you to cheer me up, I feel like being sad and I reckon we are allowed to just go there every now and again because it is sad for us dammit!
And when people tell me I am ‘courageous’ I really appreciate that may be what they see, but all I can say is that for the courage that you see from the outside looking in, well from the inside looking out I still feel like a little girl and I feel like I have been thrown out of the toddler pool and into the ocean with the grownups, playing in very big waves and not really sure how to do it.
So I guess for every person you see as being ‘courageous’ through grief, it doesn’t mean that vulnerability, fear, sadness is absent…. it means they are acting despite all of that being present. It is OK to be sad sometimes, so take a little time to do that.
And so, with time, we are better able to negotiate those waves, and even stand up tall and proud on our board that is our life, and then perhaps one day we can just let the grief gently lap around us, under us and sometimes over us… and know that we can enjoy the view, the ride, the sights, the laughter, the joy and the people that are here still with us in and around our grief…… and like all oceans, they can sometimes rough and treacherous however, they can also be calm, exciting and beautiful!
So as I send you a hug….
- Do allow yourself the time and space to grieve.
- Love you and do exercise; it is the most under prescribed and underutilized soul nurturing drug around.
- And remember there are no rules on how to do grief.
- It doesn’t come with a tick off box.
- And you STILL have a right to your JOY.
- You don’t measure your respect and honor of your memories by the amount of time you spend crying and grieving.
- You moving on and being happy in no way negates the love you had for loved ones.
Love, hugs warmth, sparkle and delight!
Julie Cross
Inspirational Entertainer, Passionate Purpose, Authentically Me
Multi-award winning Speaker, non-award winning Mother of two. She’s been described as an Inspirational Entertainer with a life changing and thought provoking message.
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