Sometimes the bravest thing we can do is to be completely alone with our thoughts. I have always been one who has kept myself busy so that I didn’t have to do just that…think. I only took a week off after Myesha passed away, for two reasons. 1.) I was in the middle of a nasty divorce and with recent changes in income I was not in any position to be able to afford the time off. 2.) I think somehow I just thought I could be strong enough to pick up and move on with the life God had chosen me for, as tragic as it may be. I had two other kids to live for and I couldn’t just give up. But I realize that with just such a short amount of time, I never really gave myself time to grieve. Time to allow all of my thoughts and raw emotions to come to surface so I could battle them, absorb them, try to make sense of all of it. Life isn’t fair, it’s really more of a coin toss and you never know what side you will get despite how hard you struggle to be on the right side of things. The grief of losing someone you love in your life consumes your mind and starts a rebellion inside you. It leaves you with fighting your own insecurities and cracks open your skull. You lose your mind thinking what could have been and what you could have done differently.
I speak to quite a few people now a day who also struggle with grief. I would never refer to myself and a professional, but my own journey through this process has definetly put me in the category of experienced. I recently had a conversation with a friend who had lost their mother, their best friend. As their 2 year marker was approaching they found themselves questioning what to do with their life now. What they needed to do in order to make their mom “proud”. It struck a chord with me. Isn’t that the question we all have? What do we do now? How do we continue on and try to find that happiness that we so desire in a walk of life that has suddenly stripped us of that hope of finding that place in our hearts again. That’s when I realized that when our loved ones pass, we do have an obligation to ourselves to find a way to continue on in a life without them, as hard as it may be. At some point you just have to stop fighting that battle within and start forgiving yourself. In times like these, you need to accept that you are at war with yourself. You are not at war with someone else’s inflicted pain or someone else’s mistakes. You are battling a war with your current state. No matter what anyone says, they will not be able to get through to you. The pain and emptiness and the hopelessness will form a deadly alliance and continue to besiege you in the darkest hours of the night. However, wars are not won by the weak that aren’t prepared to accept the harsh realities of life. That’s why grief and acceptance of the life bestowed upon us is a constant battle.
But when you least expect it, the smoke will dissipate and the rays of the sun will shine through, in place that was once so dark. What time does give you is more perspective, more time to dissolve the physical hurt that burns inside the depths of your soul. It gives you the options of when it’s okay to feel that grief and when you need to compartmentalize it so that you can continue on each and every day. To make the person you lost, well, “proud” of you. To try and figure out a constructive way to tuck that grief away for a while and deal with the present. That is often where you will find the gratitude and sweetness in remembering how blessed you were to have them in your life. That’s when you will find those few moments of happiness and “make them proud”. Mommy Loves you Myesha. FIM<3F
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