So I just finished reading the book, Signs of Life. Sometimes the read was a little too depressing for me, not because the story of a young, pregnant wife losing her husband is sad, sad is my new best friend; but because the author was describing how the birth of her son breathed new life into her. I’d think, “Well that’s just great, what’s going to breathe new life into me?” And then I’d think maybe I just need to do as she did: completing a triathlon, maybe that’s the ticket; having another baby, maybe that will heal a broken heart; teaching again, that must be the answer.
But then I finished her book. And I acknowledged that my path is different. I have to do this. I don’t get to read her Cliff Notes and breeze through this semester. But, I also started to understand that though my path is different, my grief is not so dissimilar. It actually seems that even though the Grief Gods like to say we all grieve in our own way most of us experience the same grief, the same monster who storms in and sucks out our air. I really do think we grieve in more similar than different ways; we just express the emotions in different ways and draw from unique experiences to move on. From my perspective, it’s what we have to do and whom we have to lean on to come back that is different.
So Natalie Taylor, she had a son, she leaned on family and friends, she competed in a triathlon and did so many other things. She went on living, slowly at first, but she kept on going and in the final pages of her book she writes, “If Josh were here, I would never know any of this. I would be living my happy life getting stressed out over things like how badly we need a new refrigerator.” She acknowledges that she is not the same person who was widowed. She is not the same girl who walked down the aisle and married Josh. Just as I am not the same mother who held TJ as he breathed his last breath, or the same mom who dreamed of watching her son play hockey. I live everyday with the reality that I lost, I lost big time and I don’t think when I say I learned how to live because I lost the most important thing in my life that I am saying I am somehow better off because of this. I don’t think I am doing anything other than merely making an observation. I was and now I am. And so, those of us who grieve, those of us who lost, ultimately we have a choice, we can choose to live on without that person or not. And once we choose to live, I think we have to go on, we have to wake up each day, drag our feet out of the molasses, open up the window, and breathe.
Like Natalie Taylor says, “Then the one thing I was so afraid of happening, so afraid I could hardly acknowledge it, actually happened…What am I so afraid of now?” And I think she’s right. A mother’s greatest fear, losing her child, yea, that happened, it actually f’ing happened. But…I am still here and I have moments, I live in moments: moments when I’m smiling, moments when I laugh, there are also moments when I’m swearing and moments when I cry. And yet I know, because I share the same grief, that I too will wake up one day, open the window, breathe and I will feel like there is more to be done and more to be grateful for. So, what do I have to be afraid of?
I love you little guy! Let your faith be bigger than your fears.
But then I finished her book. And I acknowledged that my path is different. I have to do this. I don’t get to read her Cliff Notes and breeze through this semester. But, I also started to understand that though my path is different, my grief is not so dissimilar. It actually seems that even though the Grief Gods like to say we all grieve in our own way most of us experience the same grief, the same monster who storms in and sucks out our air. I really do think we grieve in more similar than different ways; we just express the emotions in different ways and draw from unique experiences to move on. From my perspective, it’s what we have to do and whom we have to lean on to come back that is different.
So Natalie Taylor, she had a son, she leaned on family and friends, she competed in a triathlon and did so many other things. She went on living, slowly at first, but she kept on going and in the final pages of her book she writes, “If Josh were here, I would never know any of this. I would be living my happy life getting stressed out over things like how badly we need a new refrigerator.” She acknowledges that she is not the same person who was widowed. She is not the same girl who walked down the aisle and married Josh. Just as I am not the same mother who held TJ as he breathed his last breath, or the same mom who dreamed of watching her son play hockey. I live everyday with the reality that I lost, I lost big time and I don’t think when I say I learned how to live because I lost the most important thing in my life that I am saying I am somehow better off because of this. I don’t think I am doing anything other than merely making an observation. I was and now I am. And so, those of us who grieve, those of us who lost, ultimately we have a choice, we can choose to live on without that person or not. And once we choose to live, I think we have to go on, we have to wake up each day, drag our feet out of the molasses, open up the window, and breathe.
Like Natalie Taylor says, “Then the one thing I was so afraid of happening, so afraid I could hardly acknowledge it, actually happened…What am I so afraid of now?” And I think she’s right. A mother’s greatest fear, losing her child, yea, that happened, it actually f’ing happened. But…I am still here and I have moments, I live in moments: moments when I’m smiling, moments when I laugh, there are also moments when I’m swearing and moments when I cry. And yet I know, because I share the same grief, that I too will wake up one day, open the window, breathe and I will feel like there is more to be done and more to be grateful for. So, what do I have to be afraid of?
I love you little guy! Let your faith be bigger than your fears.