Day 46 of 100 Days of Grief and Hope

"Grief shared is grief diminished."

-Rabbi Earl Grollman 

As I was reading through this chapter I literally wish I could copy it onto this page.  Every part I read was a resounding yes in my mind.  Instead of doing that and plagiarizing the book I will just quote some of my favorite things he mentioned.

"To love and feel attached to another living being is to one day mourn."

It hit me so hard after reading this line.  The grief that I'm feeling now I will probably feel again.  Maybe not to losing a baby or a child but a husband, or a parent or a sibling.  I will have to go through grief and mourning again at some point in my life.  Or maybe others will have to grieve over me first.  It feels me with a little bit of dread to know I'm going to have to go through this again but at the same time I feel empowered that I made it through this and things are okay.  It gives me hope that when I go through it again, I know it will get better even when everything seems so dark.  That and I feel like I now know who to turn to, to find comfort.

"'Healing' your loss and 'curing' your loss are two different concepts...Your grief cannot be cured; it will always live inside of you."

I feel like some people who haven't experienced grief don't know what this means.  They try to fix you.  They want to try and get you to do things that they think will make you better.  They want you to go out with friends, to go do something you used to enjoy.  It's hard to explain to them that those things can't 'cure' or fix your grief.  Each person needs their time to heal.  And each person will be different.  It says, "healing is an active emotional and spiritual process in which you seek to be whole again."  It's not that the grief ever really leaves you, you just learn to go on with it in your heart.  

"Remember that each person's grief journey is unique."

This line was written for me.  It was a huge reminder that I needed to hear.  Each person will grieve differently.  I don't have all the answers.  What works for me, may not work for others.  I may take longer to work through something or maybe certain things won't effect me as they do others or vice versa.  Today as I talked with a friend I realized that when when talking with someone that is grieving you need to humble yourself and just be with them.  Don't give them advice.  Don't tell them what works.  And don't compare yourself to them.  Listen.  Just listen and be with them in their grief.  Sit with them in it.  I've had many friends that do this so intuitively.  Even after I've been in the grief, I feel like I need to still learn it.  

I feel like we are just so programmed to want to fix things.  We want to make them better but people who are grieving don't need that.  They don't need advice, they need love.  I'm hoping that I can be better at this.  I hope that I can become a better listener and more empathetic because I had just great examples of that and I know what it meant to me.  

As I've said in another post in my blog, I've kind of been struggling if I should continue this blog or not.  I've had a few different situations in the last week that really have me pondering if this blog is helping me, is helping others, or if it's potentially doing harm to others.  But today, the title of this chapter is called, "Talk about grief and mourning".  I do really feel like it's important for me and others to be talking about grief and loss.  I feel like a lot of time we shy away from it.  We don't want to butt in to others business or think they want to be alone in the grief.  I feel like the more people to talk about it and to be there with you in the better the person heals.  I know it has been that way for me.  I've had amazing friends share experiences with me that have helped me understand my feelings.  

Today's prompt is this:  Write your own definition of grief and mourning.  Perhaps you can even put a picture or drawing to each word or definition.  This will help you actually see how your grief is different from your mourning.

How I understand grief is that it's the feelings that you experience with loss.  It's all the emotions that come with it.  Mourning is what you do to work through those emotions.  For me mourning is creating.  Mourning is writing.  Mourning is talking about Hope.  Mourning is finding ways to remind myself of Hope.  Grief is the feelings that will always be with me now.  Grief is the heartache that doesn't leave because I've loved each and every baby that I was able to carry.