Please do not ask us if we are “still grieving”…
Let me start off by saying, if you have to ask someone if they’re still grieving then please count yourself fortunate. And why fortunate I hear you ask…. You are fortunate because you do not yet know the answer yourself to the very question you have just asked because if you did know the answer, you wouldn’t need to ask.
You would understand that to still be grieving doesn’t exist. It doesn’t exist because to still be grieving indicates an end point, a time you’ll reach when your grief will end. All of us living in the reality of grief know too well that this pain, this loneliness, this longing for the old days, will be lie deep within us for the rest of our lives.
So yes, we are still grieving and yes, we will grieve for the rest of our lives…. Why wouldn’t we? Our feelings for those we’ve lost cannot magically be turned off after we’ve hit that famous “year milestone” that people always assume holds meaning that you must be feeling better now that year of firsts has passed. I’d be lying if I said any different but some parts do feel better, we can feel a little more light, we can have a few more good days than bad, we may begin to get back on our feet and enter back into the world, but without a doubt, at no point, no year, no milestone, will our grief ever end.
We are all on an endless journey, there is no finish line, there is no medal of achievement for making it through, no rest from the exhausting path we’ve just travelled. We simply have no choice but to push through and, we do.
I don’t know how I manage to get through some of my darker days, the days where I am consumed in the realisation that my dad, my real-life hero, no longer stands with me here, but somehow I manage those days and I know, sometimes, you manage them too. Somehow we ride those waves that charge towards us. We feel their force, out of our control, as those waves consume us brutally, with no remorse, hitting us with the pain over and over again.
We stand together in this, united and living in hope that when it’s our own time we will be reunited with the ones we love once more. To one day be scooped into the warmest embrace, wrapped in their love, their safety, feeling whole again.
So please do not ask us if we are still grieving, because our answers will never change.
Be gentle with yourselves,
You know where to reach me,
Phoebe x
As my blog name says- there is no textbook!“
- Dear Dad… It’s been four years without you - March 18, 2023
- A letter to you- by Tom Planner - December 12, 2022
- A Pandemic of Grief - September 26, 2021
