Grief and loss have become the norm in my family, how it’s ok for everyone to deal with grief there own way.
Some feel it longer others, some get on with life and feel it but don’t show it unless it`s an anniversary or a special occasion that brings memories flooding back or when you have a down day and wish that special person was there to talk too.
There is no right or wrong way to grieve it is down to the actual person that is grieving.
Emotions very many are shown in the grieving process gut wrenching, tear falling there’s the angry stage the empty stage where you are just completely numb.
There are many things not just death that makes us grieve and have these feelings, a loss of life, a loss of job, a loss of friendship, a broken relationship, A diagnosis of illness or condition. A bad experience or even seeing sad events or natural disasters.
The majority of us take time, gain strength and still get up every day, that is a true fact of life we get up and carry on we even find time to enjoy life laugh and joke have fun times with friends and family. But there is a truth in the fact that some can’t, you hear stories about it all the time, of lives ending because of strong feelings, i wish no one ever had to feel so alone for this to happen but i think statistics somehow will always back up that this is the case.
Sometimes grief affects the physical body as well for me i feel grief throughout my body shakes and cold ice feeling sickness it happens maybe just the body’s way of trying to protect itself.
I am an emotionally and mentally strong person, but the physical side of the feelings do incapacitate me more and because we have lost so many in such a short space of time it makes it harder to recover.
Some can’t express grief at all sometimes, i was like that for many years after i lost my daughter, maybe it was seeing and experiencing such a devastating set of circumstances around her death, or maybe it is because my mind was in denial of her loss,
I know my mind still gives me issues with this, as i remember the feeling of holding her, her perfect little have ice cold like wet ice, I remember standing by her grave and seeing her lowered into the ground in the tiniest coffin, I remember not being able to cry not because i am an unfeeling woman but because i feel too much.
I remember the nightmares of her crying that went on a long time after only she lived but didn`t cry. I still get pains in my tummy on the day of her birth 21 years later.
So am i a strong woman hell yes, do i bounce back ,yes every time do i wish i could of changed something, i think sometimes i still blame myself even though it was one of them things and not my fault, i still want to re write history even though it is not possible.
I still want to help all my family not have to go through the deaths and loss we have but we can’t yet control genetic illness some still have no cure. Some still wreak havoc generation after generations in family people can say they understand but can they truly if they don`t have those very issues to deal with.
I can`t change the way my mind remembers my daughter because all though they were sad memories they are my only memories of her apart from one solitary photo a clipping of hair and foot and hand prints, they are my memories and are precious.
I can’t change the words of the doctor said in the room that day fatal prognosis,i can’t change that i hung on to hope that they were mistaken, even though i saw the evidence with my own eyes, i was young and scared, and extremely distraught, if i could change any thing about the decisions, i made all those years ago i would not,if i was in the same position now as i was them i would make the same decision. They were right for me and they were right for her in that she was acknowledged as a person in her own right.
This is a thing that brings more grief to parents is that you can’t always get a birth certificate and that some are not recognised it hurts us parents a lot, these stories are important to tell as they can help other families to deal with grief if they know others have been there and got through some of the worst feelings in the world.
I can`t change the way my body reacts to loss because it brings up old feelings of my daughter.