The Ways of Grief
"The second year was harder for me. The first year it still feels new. By the second year, the reality of the loss just sits inside you. The permanence has hit you. It takes you to a deeper, darker place."Quoted by Patti Davis, in "The River of Memory."
posted by Unknown @ 10:50 PM
10 Comments:
Oh. So sorry. Plus after a while, people out there in the world expect you to have "gotten used to it" or whatever. I'm sure you want to scream at the world, "IT STILL HURTS!!!"
I wish I could help. If you lived down the street, I'd bring you soup.
Virtual soup is the next best thing. Thanks, YT.
Dorcasina,
I have been reading your blog for about a year but this is my first time commenting.
This tends to be a common experience with grief. I think our bodies use defense mechanisms to prevent us from feeling the full impact of a loss immediately. If we did it would be impossible to bear. As it is, what we do feel is unbearable enough.
I am a grief counselor and I have heard many times that the second year is harder than the first. And what yankee, transferred said is true, people expect grief to have a timeline and expect you to "get over it" within that timeframe. (As if getting over it were possible.)
Peace to you and your daugther, Dorcasina. Grief is a journey and you will heal.
I read this yesterday and I've been avoiding commenting because I don't know what to say.
The best I can do is send more virtual soup. Wish I could do/say more.
I love the sound of "virtual soup", I'm sending you some as well.
It takes a few years to grow new bones around the aching hole. (Did you ever read The Lovely Bones? The main concept I took from that book, was that it took 7 years for the family to grow a new skeleton around the narrator's absence. The narrator being a murdered girl watching her family survive after her death..."These were the lovely bones that had grown around my absence: the connections — sometimes tenuous, sometimes made at great cost, but often magnificent — that happened after I was gone.")
But, yeah, once all the activity of survival has resumed a 'normal' pace, the hole just gapes wider in that second year. It takes a long time to grow a new structure around it.
Much sympathy.
Yukon parson says
You never "get over it" but you must adjust to the new difficult reality. Ultimate comfort comes from a relationship to God thru Jesus Christ.
I have a friend I am going to give your quote. She lost her husband in an accident and they have an almost 3 year old. The 1st "anniversary" of his death is tomorrow. She has told me it is like moving from disbelief to forcing yourself into the reality of the loss - and it is so very hard. One person who responded to you said that their ultimate comfort comes from God. I think she is a little ticked with him - it is all so unfair! And explaining it to a two year old that he can't visit daddy, and daddy loves him but can't come back from heaven because his body stopped working ...heaven doesn't make a whole lot of sense to him. He just wants daddy. I am so sorry for you - you sound like my friend in your quote post - I haven't read any others. I was just searching - for some possible way to help her.
I began the second year of grieving in September 2010. The Holidays were more difficult. My anniversary was a painful reminder of the joy at our wedding. People want you to be "better". Few people want you to feel worse. They cannot comprehend the difficulty in feeling "better". I am lonely, empty and searching for a future that will have meaning.
Lost
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