Grief Is a Unique Experience - Day 2

Grief Is a Unique Experience
Day 2

You may feel it is useless to talk about your grief because no one truly understands what you are going through.

"You sometimes feel after an experience like this that you're talking a foreign language," says Dora, whose daughter died. "You feel like there's no way anybody can know what you're feeling. There is absolutely no way anyone can know the depth of your pain. So you feel like it's futile to talk about it because words can't express the pain."

Although countless people have experienced grief before you, each person's response to grief is different. Your path of grief will be uniquely your own.

Be encouraged that regardless of how your grief appears to you or others, it has a precious uniqueness to the One who created you. God, who knows intimately your personality, your relationships, and the experiences of your life, knows your grief and isn't shocked or surprised by your responses.

"O LORD, You have examined my heart and know everything about me ... Thank you for making me so wonderfully complex ... You saw me before I was born. Every day of my life was recorded in your book. Every moment was laid out before a single day had passed" (Psalm 139:1, 14, 16 NLT).

Father, thank You that my way of grieving is distinctly my own, reflective of all You have sovereignly created me to be and experience. Amen.

~I find it amazing that while we all have lost someone, the way we each handle it is unique to our own understanding. I watch the grief share videos and wonder how these people say some of the things they say and then I think that perhaps they are just more faithful than I am at this time. I lost my way along the way. The first thing out of my mouth was "I was a good Catholic. I did what I was supposed to do. I even got baptized during the time when my mother first got sick and started losing her toes one by one. It was at this time that I was tested and I still believed enough to get baptized."
I JUST suddenly realized in writing that perhaps this was all in preparation for my losses to come. I didn't lose my mother that year. It would be 8 or so years later, but it would be a battle for her and a time for me to grow and get back my bond with my mother that was strained when I moved out when I was 23 years old. I questioned every bit of it along the way. The first loved one that really "traumatized" me was losing my Popo. He was the man in my life and I took it really hard. I was there when he passed. I was there when they took him away. I was 19 when he passed. I am not sure that I really grieved that loss now that I think about it. I had flashbacks for years about seeing him laying there in the bed at the house and looking off into the distance. I remember my cousins being in town and I remember getting that call at work that the priest was coming to give my Popo his last rites. I was shaken and torn. I was so eager to leave work and just get to my Popo's side. I wanted to just be there surrounded by my family.  I remember my dad coming by I was sitting in my aunt's yard and I didn't want him anywhere near me. I didn't even want to talk to him. I was bitter and didn't want him or anyone else to talk to me because I didn't know how to express my hurt, I didn't know who to process the loss and I didn't know what/how or when. It is hard.
Now that I am going to these classes, it feels good. I feel like I am finally at a place where they speak the same language and understand me. They don't judge me and surely aren't telling me "it is time to move on" or "it has been long enough" or "they would want you to move on and not be upset all the time".  NO ONE wants/needs/desires to hear that and that is the WORST advice that anyone can give a grieving person.  One thing that I have learned in this journey is that TIME DOES NOT HEAL ALL WOUNDS.
If you don't know what to say to someone who is grieving, just give them a hug or just listen to them. Don't try and "fix" them or try and change their mind about where they are in their grieving process. We don't need fixing. Most of the time, we just want to be heard or hugged.