It’s OK not to be OK

Today is the day…
I’ve woken up. It’s the morning of my grandad’s funeral. I feel deflated; I feel angry; I feel let down by life.

I don’t understand how life can rip my dad from me and then so cruelly, without reason and without notice, take my grandad soon after.

I have only just begun to piece together the broken pieces that I’ve struggled so much to fix back together. So why now? Why today? Why you? Why me?

I don’t want to go back to that place where we laid your body to rest. I don’t want to stand again in the same spot and speak words of another life that has been taken away from me. I don’t want to be here, right now, in this moment; I don’t want to have to be.

To stand and say goodbye again, to look at another coffin positioned in the place yours was. To witness the grief, the pain, the sorrow. I don’t want to be here again, traveling on the same story that I had only just begun to heal.

Today, I can’t see past the fog. Today I am struggling to find strength. Today I am not ok and that is…completely ok.

You feel, when time goes on, slowly but surely you are healing. You’re beginning to find positives within the day; you’re beginning to feel peace around what was dealt to you; you begin to find reasons to laugh again. But then what happens when all of a sudden you feel reversed back to the very beginning. This could happen for any reason; an anniversary triggering the pain of the loss; a special occasion that is being missed making it feeling less whole, without the one you love; or in my case, this was the death of my grandpa, bringing me straight back to the start, back to the beginning. Leaving my heart to, once more, be flooded with the pain of grief. The waves of crushing emotions being forcefully thrown back into my core. I had just started to heal. I just began to feel ok and now I am not ok.

Memories that you had somehow managed to bury. Painful images that you’ve managed to store somewhere in the back of your mind, all come flooding to the surface. You remember that ache within your heart. You remember that emptiness. You remember it all and it hurts so much. Last words, last hugs, last moments, all those lasts are all you can see, all you can remember.

Walking towards the crematorium, holding my mum’s hand, a sickness churned my stomach. The feeling of living within two moments. Flashes of the day about to take place, combined with a flash of the day we last walked at this same place. Watching my siblings lift another coffin. Carrying someone so precious to us, with the same tears streaming down their cheeks, it’s too much to bear. You sit and look at the coffin; the coffin laid in the exact same place; the room laid out the exact same; the music playing; the silent sobs of everyone you love so dear and it just hits you. So much pain, so much sadness, you’re back at the very beginning again, in that vulnerable, lost haze, feeling another part of you has, once more, been taken away.

I always thought that after losing my dad, watching him pass away at home, getting to say our final goodbyes, having that final hug, would mean I was strong enough to be put through any other death to come. But that helplessness and that feeling, I’ve learned, is not something we can control or prepare for. If we loved something that much and it was that precious, it would never be easy to let it go, to say goodbye. I woke up expecting to feel ok, to feel strong, but I saw quickly that this pain, this journey with grief, will now be a part of me for the rest of my life. People will die- it’s inevitable. Saying goodbye every time will always crush me. It will always bring me back to the beginning, back to the start. But with that, I realise, it’s ok. It’s ok to not always feel strong. It’s ok to not always feel positive. It’s ok to have low days, sad days, painful days. We are human beings. We have a huge, complex maze of emotion and a huge amount of love shared between us all and, with that, saying goodbye every time to one that you loved will never feel ok.

We must gentle with ourselves. We must respect that all emotions have a place. They all deserve to be felt and seen. Although we are back at the beginning today, as time moves forward, we know we will heal. We know we will find a reason to laugh again. We know we will feel positive again. You know, eventually, the journey you live everyday with grief will become softer, easier. So be kind to yourself.

Today, I am not ok and that is…completely ok x

A section from the book “The Gift” 

The gift of the story you never got to write- By Phoebe Young

We walk on the same plane, though not all can see, I am here. I have always been here and here is where I’ll remain. In times of loneliness, call to me and I will hear you. Move through the maze; ride those powerful waves; let the pain move through you; let the grief flow but don’t stay there. Let it come, let it move and let it leave. We will always share the same world. Our light will remain connected for eternity. I am always right behind you, today, tomorrow, always.