My father passed away two months ago and it’s taking a lot longer to work through his death than I expected. It’s not like my father and I saw each other every day, we live in two different states. So physically, nothing has changed for me. Yet, even though my world looks the same, it somehow feels different. I feel…out of sorts. Nothing seems right. It’s as if I’m viewing my life from a great distance. At the same time, there’s also a heaviness to life as well, like I’m walking through a dense fog with weights strapped to my body.
The other day, I woke up emotionally broke. If emotions were currency, I had spent it all and didn’t know where it all went. Especially considering my emotional bank was perfectly fine days before. So why it crashed that day, I really don’t know.
I think the truth is, I never expected the death of my father to impact every part of my life. I thought it would be happily contained in its little grief box next to all the other boxes that make up my life. Sitting in close proximity to each other but not affecting each other. In reality, grief can’t be contained. It spills into every part of life.
You think I would’ve known that, considering this isn’t my first experience with grief. Yet it still surprised me and I’ve learned several lessons (I may learn more as the year progresses).
The lessons grief has taught me
- First, I know very little about grief. Even though I’ve done a ton of research on the subject, knowing theories and living with grief is very different. Heck, I thought I was done crying when I came back home from the funeral. Well, it turns out I wasn’t. There was still a whole mess of tears waiting to come out.
- Second, grief is different and no two experiences will ever look alike. Being familiar with grief didn’t make it easier. Nor were my experiences identical.
- Thirdly, grief can’t be planned. I have to let it run its course. As someone who likes to plan, not knowing when grief will resurface and how long it will last, is hard. I’ve underestimated it already. Perhaps not knowing when I’m going to be ambushed by grief is contributing to my feeling off-kilter.
- Fourthly, grieving doesn’t mean stop living. In fact, nothing speaks the importance of life louder than death. Life is too precious to stay wrapped in a grief cocoon. However, grief exists and it shouldn’t be ignored. But living and grief can co-exist. Turns out the human mind is very capable of experiencing different emotions at the same time.
What I’m learning
Grief is different for everybody. And no two experiences of grief will be the same. There’s absolutely no way of knowing how long the grief cycle will take. But this doesn’t mean we stop living because both grief and enjoying life can co-exist.