Grieving
I knew I would eventually get to this subject of importance, I just didn’t think it would be right now. I actually started a completely different blog on Friday, before I knew how the Aurora Shooting would alter my life. I felt that addressing this subject was a little more important for so many at this time and it is not easy. Grief is not something that you can speed up or discount the importance of, yet so many people need help through this every day and is by far one of toughest things that I have ever had to face in my life.
Sometimes grief will mask itself as other things such as anger or frustration versus recognizing you are sad or that life is simply not the same. I remember days of waking up, getting ready for work and then suddenly being angry and not even at anything in particular just an overall overwhelming anger at where my life had taken me. I am not going to lie; those days were hard and often lonely. It took me some time to realize that grief is a process that you cannot put off, replace, speed up or take for granted. It is simply its own step in your road to getting your life back.
I didn’t accept this just as I didn’t accept a lot of things. I didn’t want to recognize that despite leaving my ex husband and actually subjecting myself to a constant barrage of emotional attacks from him I was still grieving. After relocating and starting a new life I was still grieving. I didn’t come to terms with this for a long time and one day it hit me, it wasn’t that I was grieving for the loss of him but instead that I was grieving for what I had hoped for 10 years before. I had still lost. I had lost a person I had one day hoped would be the person I spend the rest of my days with, the person I relied on to be my rock, the person who was supposed to love me unconditionally.
As I sit here today and re-visit the feeling of grief I at least know that recognizing and accepting your pain is the biggest and hardest step. Denying myself the proper time and process led me to places that only put me further away from a feeling of peace and comfort. I had to find a way to let go of a lack of understanding as to why certain things happen in your life, I had to welcome the pain that I didn’t want to feel and I had to make the decision that it was not where I wanted to spend the rest of my life.
Living in the pain and working through it from a place of acceptance are two totally different things. Find your place of acceptance so that you may find comfort.
This blog is dedicated to Rebecca Wingo, my friend who was lost in the Aurora shooting. Rebecca was a beautiful, vivacious, caring, honest and loving mother. Many will miss her. I love you Rebecca!
Your words and wisely stated. There are so many lives forever change by the shooting in Aurora. For ever changed by divorce and the loss of loved one. I know now from my many personal losses that you don't ever work through pain you learn to work with pain and in pain. It isn't really you are ever totally over, it is something that lives with you. It doesn't need over-shadow your life in the long run but it also doesn't ever just go away. Thanks for your words.
ReplyDeleteThank you Alex. It is a tough road and learning the lessons of life in this way is never easy but we come away with a different understanding. Glad you have found this.
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ReplyDeleteI appreciate your sincere post. It says a lot that you are willing to share personal information and experiences just so they might help another struggling through similar obstacles and challenges.
ReplyDeleteYou are right. We can not fight grief. It will only consume us more and more each day it is denied. However, grief does not have to be a part of our lives. Grief arises from an unwillingness, or rather an inability, to accept the things that are out of our control. When we simplify our lives down to the basest, narrowest element, we will see that there is only one thing that we have the power to control. And that is how we CHOOSE to perceive and emotionally react to the events in our lives. And yes, it is a choice.
No matter what, we are swept up in the swirling vortex of life, no matter what, that vortex will carry us wherever it carries us, no matter what, we stand a lone fern in the face of a hurricane, but that does not mean that we are powerless before our destinies. People will ask you not to mourn their deaths, but rather to celebrate their lives. It is a cliche, but it is a perfect example of the choice that we all have. Saddened we will be by the loss of a dear friend, by the severing of a strand of our hearts, but joyous we can choose to be that it was ever there at all.
Do not feel bad that you grieve. It is not your fault. Because even accepting that grief does not HAVE to be a part of our lives, let us also realize that sometimes it should be. Because without the power to feel ourselves torn apart from such tragedies and monumental losses . . . are we really human?
Very eloquent words. Thank you Colten. I hope that I may borrow some of your wisdom.
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