Grief is a bit of crazy one isn’t it?
we have good days and bad days with grief sometimes we ‘forget’about a loved one passing and you see a recipe for one of their favourite cakes or see something on sale you know they’d love and think i’ll ring them and tell them about that! and then it hits you that there not here anymore, if its a good day you’ll just get on with your day if its a bad you’ll have a good cry and there is nothing wrong with that at all.
I attended my first funeral when i was 10 and i’ve been to a lot more of them than i have weddings in my life i’m like an old pro dealing with the whole process i go on auto pilot for the whole thing i remember a friend telling me at 27 he’d never been to a funeral or had a loved one pass away and i cant lie part of me was a little jealous, by 27 i’d lost so many family and friends some natural deaths some gone way before their time to go and i sat thinking why have i lost so many people and they’ve lost no one hows that fair?!?!
Grief effects us all in different ways some cry for days and feel at peace once they’ve been and laid their loved one to rest some of us can’t cry and feel we need to look after everyone else and be strong for them and never really get round to grieving properly because were so focused on others that we kind of forget about our own emotions.
I’m the type that worries about everyone else and forgets about myself and lets it build up till i see something or hear something that reminds me of that person and my brain goes fuck there gone! and then it kinda hits me in a big wave and i can sit and sob and let it all out and then suck it up and get on with it and put on a brave face for others.
Some deaths are easier to handle than others as awful as that sounds, my grandma passed away last year it’ll be a year in June since she passed away and i still struggle to cope with the fact shes not here anymore, my grandma Hazel was like my second mum i spent most of my childhood at her house because my parents worked full time, the poor woman knew Beauty and the Beast word for word because i made her watch it everyday and drove her up the wall as i got older she was always super protective over me and told me like it was never sugar coated anything! when i had my children she adored them, we used to sit and talk for hours i could happily sit all day and listen to her stories of how she grew up and when she met my grandad i’d heard them millions of times but that didn’t matter, she made the most amazing cakes i was always a winner on bake sale day at school thanks to me granny!
When she passed it was quick and sudden and i never got a proper chance to say good bye she was with us the Saturday and by Sunday morning she was gone and i found it so hard to deal with, it never really felt real i went to her house and couldn’t go in the front room and see her chair because it didn’t feel right seeing it without her in it, it didn’t truly hit me till the day of her funeral i’d been fine all morning worrying about my mum and family making sure they were all ok, it was only when her coffin arrived outside the house and i saw it that it all hit me that she was gone and i wasn’t going to get to hear her stories or sit and hold her hand again and i’m not ashamed to admit i sobbed and maybe had a little panic attack about it i honestly don’t think other than giving birth i’ve ever held another persons hand so tight (sorry about that Amanda!) i can honestly say that it was one the hardest things i’ve ever had to do was say goodbye to my granny, i held it together enough to be able to get up with two of my cousins to read a poem we’d written on behalf of all the grandkids and great grandkids cause we would have been there all day if all of us had gotten up there’s bloody loads of us! when it came to the end of the service i didn’t wanna leave the thought of her being on her own destroyed me i sobbed i didn’t care who saw as i left because i didn’t wanna leave but knew i had to.
There’s days when my brain accepts shes not with us anymore but the days where i ‘forget’ are the hard ones everytime i go to her house i have to remember she’s not gonna be in her chair or walk in the room with a sneaky bit of cake for us to eat whilst everyone is in the garden, last time i went down and whilst making a cup of tea saw her tea cup and cried, its the little things that make it a little bit harder to deal with the fact there gone.
The reason that i’m telling you all this is because i want people to know its hard to deal with grief and your not alone we all deal with it in different ways but some days are so much easier than others and that’s ok, grief doesn’t have a time line and i don’t think you truly ever get ‘over’ losing a loved one, the best way to cope is to remember all the amazing times you had with them and the good memories and think what they would say in certain situations and if you sit and have a good cry over it then go for it.
xxxxxxx
Fat Bird Thinking 