There hasn’t been a day in over 2 years that I have not cried. At any moment and without notice. It can be a trickling tear or a full tsunami that takes my breath away and literally feels like my heart is crumbling into a million tiny pieces and drops me to my knees.
I lost my grandma at 11. I lost my aunt to kidney disease when I was 21. I was sad, of course. I was more devastated watching my mom lose her mother and her sister. Her father passed away before I was born. My mom was 21 years old. A young wife with a son who was only 3 months old. She lost her immediate family by the time she was 45 years old. That is a lot of loss. I must admit, my life is not easy but my life was not full of loss. Then enter 2018 and 2019, THE TSUNAMI.
During these past few years, I have had a few goals (actually several, but here are the main ones):
- Do not live with regret. Lay your head on the pillow every night knowing you did everything you could. Knowing you loved and cared for those who have passed and those who are still here
- Take care of your mental/physical health. Do not take your pain and destroy someone else with it. BUT, do NOT take any shit from anyone. Speak your truth
- Sit in it. Let it wash over you. Do not go around it but go through it
- Do not lose YOU. Find YOU
- Do not lose your empathy
- Get Therapy
I do not succeed 100% of the time. But I am proud to say that I do most of the time.
My journey is different from others. Mine is MINE. It may not be yours. Find yours. Find YOU.
As David Kessler states in his book, Finding Meaning, “Your grief is the worst grief because it is yours.”
Grief is the price we pay for love. I would rather cry every day for the rest of my life than not having loved or been loved by those who have passed from this life to the next. I am also grateful for waterproof mascara, just saying.
Would I prefer my loved ones to be here? Yes. However, I think about what my life would have been like without having them at all. That is a frightening thought.
