LWC Day 12 - Grief

" Good Grief!"  Many of us remember these words made famous by Charlie Brown.  Grief is good. It is part of a healing process. The catch - it can hurt like hell!

According to the Merriam Webster online dictionary, grief is  "a deep and poignant distress caused by or as if by bereavement."


 That would explain the pain. We are "taught" all through our lives to escape pain. Maybe that is why it is so uncomfortable to accept the pain of grief.  But it is essential to healing from the loss of someone close to our hearts. And it doesn't happen overnight. It is a process of good times and sad times. It brings guilt - at least for me it does. I have some survivor's guilt.  I feel like I shouldn't have fun yet, that it is disrespectful to Callum. I feel guilty when I look forward to my future, especially when I get excited about some of it. But that helps me forget the pain. It never means I forget Callum.  I think of him every minute of every day. It just isn't fair that he isn't here to enjoy life with me - with all of us. 


I think we both grieved a lot over the last couple of years.  As the damn cancer progressed I took over most of the household responsibilities.  I have already been used to shopping on my own, driving many miles, the many trips to unload the car from the parking garage, making meals....etc etc.  None of that is new. Together we grieved the loss of our future.  I had started "losing" him quite a while before he left this world.  We grieved the loss of our social life, the loss of his job, the loss of his career future - he would have made a great publisher!! We had started grieving all the family times we wouldn't share anymore - like the birth of our second grandchild. We were so thrilled to hear that a second grandchild is on its way, but it broke my heart when he cried because he wouldn't be here to meet baby bump in January.  It still breaks my heart. He was a great grandad - and would have been an awesome grandad to all the grandchildren. It breaks my heart that they will never know what a loving and great man he was. And how he so much wanted to be a grandad. 


So much grieving done, so much yet to do. Will it ever end? I have read that eventually the good memories start to replace the pain. That the joy of our life together will start to fill my heart and take the place of pain. What I really want is the impossible - I wish he would come back - that would ease the pain. It is a selfish thought, I know. I don't want him to have pain or fear.  I want him to have peace. I wish I could have it all.  It is not to be. 


And so the grieving continues.  I miss him.  I long to hear his voice again. I long to feel his warm embrace. I want to hear him tell me it will be OK.  


We have so many good memories....I will open up my heart and start filling it with them. 


Memory is a way of holding onto the things you love, the things you are, the things you never want to lose.  ~From the television show The Wonder Years


TTFN
Lorna