Realisations During Grief - finding acceptance

Then, one day two things hit me:

• The literal only thing in the world that could ever make things okay again would be for my daughter not to have died, and that was of course impossible.
• The “old me” was gone forever and couldn’t possibly come back after what we had been through. Although some pieces of the old me were still there, others didn't fit anymore and never would again.

Once these realities soaked in, I was able to very slowly start appreciating traits in the “new me” and cautiously peeked my head out of the waiting room to begin looking to something other than waiting and “time” to actually start to truly heal.

This is when the realisation came that, as the grief affirmation states, I did actually have some power here; something that I just hadn’t felt significantly before (or maybe wasn't ready to). I could choose how I spent difficult anniversaries, which would in turn influence how I felt, and I could also choose to help others if I wanted to.

One example of this is the anniversary of the death of my daughter. The second year anniversary, I decided that I was going to try to carry on as if nothing had happened. I’d heard others talking about keeping busy during grief and just getting on with things and thought it might help (I was still in the waiting room at this point). Everyone is so different, but I soon realised that this was such a huge mistake for me personally. I had some very difficult work meetings, struggled tremendously and vowed never to work again during that time of year (and I never have to this day).

That decision in itself was taking a little power, but it was sometime after this that my above epiphanies hit me. The following year, my husband and I bought a beautiful birthday gift that was age appropriate to how old our daughter would have been and we gathered more toy donations from friends and family. We then donated these as gifts to our local children’s hospital. We had a real sense of accomplishment in her memory and the feelings started to shift from helplessness to pride. We have done so many other things since then; but by doing this, we took the power in how we chose to remember and honour our little girl.

It’s now been 17 years (at the time of writing), and although we no longer get chance to do the charity work we regularly did back then, we still always arrange something lovely to do around anniversaries. Those days are still hard and the memories return like they happened just yesterday, BUT we choose to do something relaxing and arrange a trip or event that we will look forward to, so that we can take the time to remember her with a smile and all of the things we have done to help others in her memory. We take that power that we know that we have to make these difficult times a little easier. 

I can make more sense of these grief epiphanies and feelings now because I wrote about them back then and still continue to write whenever I need to now. Writing has helped me so much to untangle these feelings and emotions which is why I feel so passionately about writing for wellbeing and self-care. So grab yourself a notebook, a laptop, start a blog or invest in a guided grief journal to document your own grief journey. On the days that you are struggling the most, you will find a release for those impossible feelings and later on, look back to see just how far you have truly come.

Be kind to yourself.

Finding a way to live without someone you love is one of the hardest things we have to face during our lives. There really is no time limit and, although you may not believe it to start with, you will find your own ways of coping with your grief (I call mine my grief toolboox). As you discover your own tools, write them down so that they are easier to reach for when you are feeling overwhelmed. If you'd like to start writing for grief, but don't know where to start, you can find some helpful pointers here.