STAGE 8 - There is no other side of grief...

SDianeL

My soulmate husband Lonny passed August 12. I feel lost most of the time but am trying to find myself without him. Found this on a Facebook post today. So true.

I had my own notion of grief. I thought it was the sad time, that followed the death of someone you love. And you had to push through it to get to the other side. But I’m learning, there is no other side...There is no pushing through, but rather, there is absorption. Adjustment. Acceptance. And grief is not something you complete, but rather, you endure. Grief is not a task to finish, and move on, but an element of yourself – an alteration of your being. A new way of seeing. A new dimension of self...~ Gwen Flowers ~

AND….

"The pain of grief is just as much part of life as the joy of love: it is perhaps the price we pay for love, the cost of commitment." Dr Colin Murray Parkes.

Praying for those in Stage 8. 🙏

Caro_Lynne

Thanks for posting this Diane. My LO took his last breath on October 20; two weeks tomorrow. Like you, I am lost and miss him so much. 💔

midge333

Thank you for sharing.

Biggles

Thank you for sharing; this whole journey is awful, strange, debilitating, almost destroying. I am in the middle of this journey with my DH and I think there is no end just a continuation of living in a different format, trying to see the beauty in nature, of children being born and all those things but the pain and sadness is something we must bear. I couldn’t do it with out being connected to this big understanding family where I can vent, cry and laugh occasionally. It is my ‘bible’ I open my mail every day and read of others and my love pours out to them and strangely to my DH.

fmb

This was a timely post for me. I just finished a book about grief after the death of a spouse that a well-meaning friend gave to me. Although my DH is not dead yet, the time is coming soon, and like many of us, I have been grieving the incremental loss of my DH for years.

The premise of the book was that grief is something that you push through to get to the other side. The author, a psychologist who was suddenly widowed herself and since remarried, gave time periods to perform certain tasks, right down to when to remove your wedding ring. She even said to have a ceremony to mark the end of grieving, as though grief ever truly completely ends.

She stated that you should be finished grieving within a year of the death. I was truly appalled. As the quote above says, "Grief is not a task to finish, and move on, but an element of yourself – an alteration of your being. A new way of seeing. A new dimension of self..."~ Gwen Flowers ~

CatladyNW

That is lovely. My DH passed on October 20, and I have been stunned by the intensity of my feelings of sadness and loneliness. I had lost him bit by bit for two years. But the final loss is hard.

Carl46

I don't get over grief for the people I truly loved. It gets easier with time, but it never goes away. My older son died in 1994 and I still grieve him, but I find I think more of the good times and less of the horror as time goes by.

The psychologist mentioned by FMB has a point in that it is good to get on with your life. However, we do it with scars, some that show and some that don't.