What you never knew about grief

Honestly, I have no time for a new blog right now and I thought I’d just skip one this week altogether. After all, how many people would notice? Okay, a few would I guess, those of you who have hung in with me since I wrote on Writing on the Broken Road. This week—this whole summer— has been a challenge. One would think my newly retired self would be reveling in the fact that thirty years of teaching are now behind me and a new chapter is opening before me.

But Dad’s death and other family matters have complicated my days. Instead of spending them by the surf of the ocean, I’ve spent them at my computer sifting through Dad’s finances, or sorting through boxes of family memorabilia, or editing dissertations, or helping my autistic adult son accept still another death.

And I’ve thought about grief. A lot. My late husband’s birthday was May 30; my father died June 6; his services were June 12; Father’s Day—bereft of husband and father—was June 16; the anniversary of Ron’s death was July 13.

So the humid days of summer wrapped themselves around me like a shroud of loss, reminding me all too often of the faces I longed to see.

And I realized, not for the first time, the truth of Ecclesiastes 3:3:

1To everything there is a season,

and a time for every purpose under heaven:

2a time to be born and a time to die,

a time to plant and a time to uproot,

3a time to kill and a time to heal,

a time to break down and a time to build

Ecclesiastes 3:1-3

We need to take time to heal.

It is a process that cannot be rushed. As much as I long to sink into the sand of the beach and settle myself into retirement mode, I am still processing the loss of my father. And, if I am being honest, the loss of my husband. Retirement, these golden years, should have been spent with him. The realization that I will walk this path, too, alone and not in the ways we had planned is another loss.

Psych2Go illustrates that there are 5 things we never say about when we are grieving:

1. We can grieve the loss of many things, not just the death of a loved one. We can grieve any type of loss.

2. We don’t need to be strong. We can feel weak, and let go in our own time.

3. Guilt is part of grief.

4. Time does not heal the pain of our grief.

5. Acceptance is not the end of grief.

It seems I have written a post this week after all. Like many things in my life, it was not what I intended to do. It just happened, in the way that most things do. We can plan, but we can’t control.

And that, too, is a part of grief.

We grieve many losses in our lives that others might not understand or consider a loss. It’s important to remember that each loss—even misplacing your favorite pen—is a potential for grief. What is something you have lost that other people might not understand?