There is no Right or Wrong Way to Grieve!

I think it is so important that we all keep in mind when dealing with people processing grief that everyone walks their own path in healing. Listening and really hearing the person is essential. Sending them prayers or healing light or just giving them a hug is often all that is needed.

In my own healing process after losing my oldest brother (my best friend) I found out a lot about myself. I started with the feeling that I could not do anything. I wanted to go to bed and cover my head with the quilt and never leave. I was pretty much allowed three days to mourn and then work called, family needs called and I had to be back in it.

So I created a whole day and night of distractions on a daily basis. So much that I was overwhelmed physically and mentally. I would find myself some nights sitting on the bathroom floor crying until I couldn’t catch my breath. Hiding out from those that needed me to be strong. I wrote poems about it, sent emails to my brother that he would never receive. I even called his phone to hear his voicemail until his number was given to someone else. I watched video emails he had sent me before he passed over and watched videos of his interviews online and sobbed as I watched his smile or heard his voice. Inside I longed to drive and drive until I ran out of gas and just be away from all the things pulling at me. My strength was gone.

The worst times were when people said really out of line things to me. I remember being in a grocery store one day and someone asked me about my brother’s death and I said “yes, it’s very hard” and they went into a 15-minute long story on how they had lost a great uncle that year and how tough it was for them. Someone who they weren’t even close with and it took everything I had to not just “Yell at them and walk away”. I did a lot of pretending during the first year or so. The worst was when someone said, “You are being really dramatic like you lost a husband or something, you need to get over it!”

There is no rhyme or reason to grief. If I were to offer any advice to a grieving spirit I would say “Let yourself feel everything”. Don’t push anything down or beat yourself up when three or four years in, you break down. Walk your path, feel your emotions, speak your truth and know that wherever your loved one is they want peace for you. It hurts them to see us suffer. This I know. 

Once your grief has become a way of life for you, you will notice signs from your loved ones. Songs, signs in nature, connections with new people that came from them. Watch for them, be aware and know that as long as you are living life, walking your path, you are grieving just the right way for you.

This quote really rang true to me “You will not ‘get over’ the loss of a loved one; you will learn to live with it. You will heal and you will rebuild yourself around the loss you have suffered. You will be whole again, but you will never be the same. Nor should you be the same, nor would you want to.” Elisabeth Kubler Ross and David Kessler.

In Love and Light,

Jennifer