The Pain of Grief

“I don’t know who I am anymore.” I stared in the mirror, I looked tired, old, worn out. “I don’t even look like me.” I tried smiling at myself to see if that would help.
Grief smiled back at me over my shoulder
“You?” I turned as I spoke, taken by surprise.
“Yep!” he replied awkwardly.
“You’ve done this to me?” My mind was racing trying to work out if there was any truth in my accusation.
“I can’t take credit for the whole mess,” he smiled as though he thought he was funny.
“Thanks!” I replied sarcastically
“The thing is,” he started to justify himself, “everyone really does respond differently to me. I’ve known people throw on the make-up and their best clothes and get up and face the world, that’s their way of coping with me, others literally do nothing, don’t even bother getting dressed let alone look in a mirror.”
“That’s meant to help” I growled as I turned away and stared for a moment in the mirror at my own tired eyes. “I’m sorry, I’m just finding it hard today, I have no energy, I can’t focus, I’ve no real interest in anything that I used to be interested in, I just don’t feel like me. I just want it all to return to normal.”
“Normal?” Grief pulled a face as though he'd never heard the word before.
“You know what I mean, how it was before, before…” I struggled to find the words, “before I lost her.” Grief looked at me, “I know what you’re going to say, there’s no such thing as normal…”
“No, actually, that wasn’t what I was going to say.” he answered.
“Oh.” I looked at him and waited.

“I just wondered what gives you the impression that things return to normal?” He paused and looked at me, I wasn’t sure if he was waiting for an answer or not. “When you got married did life return to “normal”?” He asked using his fingers as speech marks as he spoke.
“No” I answered hesitantly wondering where he was going with the conversation.
“When you left school, did life return to “normal”?”
“No”
He carried on. “When you had your first child did life return to “normal”? Your second, third, fourth, fifth…” Grief laughed, "sorry, couldn’t resist! Anyway, I’m getting off the point. After any of those significant life moments, or when you’ve moved house, changed jobs, has life ever turned to normal?"
“No”, I looked at the face staring back at me in the mirror, trying to take in the enormity of what he was suggesting.
“It’s not about returning to “normal”, it’s not even about “moving on” or “getting over it”!”
“Will you stop with the speech marks” I pleaded. “How would you define it, and please don’t say “new normal”, argghhh, now I’m doing it.
Grief laughed, “don’t you like the phrase new normal? What about, journeying with or stepping into?" He suggested. “Everything you experience shapes you, expands your story.”
“But it hurts.” I argued, “and I don’t want it to hurt like this.”

“You’ve done those talks on pain, you even posted them on Facebook.” He accused me quizzically. “What would you tell yourself?”
“To feel the pain, to let it exist, to stop trying to fix it with solutions that never last; to cry, to shout to find a space big enough to let it out...a space bigger than it is, that can hold it safely.”
“Sounds good…so how do you do that?” He pushed for an explanation.
“Sometimes I stop and place myself in the bigger story of humanity by reminding myself of what’s gone before, sometimes I find a more physical space like the field where I walk the dog, the beach is always good I just don’t get there enough…oh and trees, trees have a sense of strength, of having witnessed more than this moment and having survived.”
“And does it help?”
“Yes, when I choose to do it but feeling that pain is scary, it leaves me feeling vulnerable and broken.” I confessed.
“Yeah, I know.” Grief sighed, “the thing is some days you will try to run from those feelings, distract yourself or do things that numb your pain, and other days you’ll feel it, you’ll cry or be angry or run for miles and you will find that as you allow it to exist or as you kind of dance with the pain, that it sits in your story more naturally, and that your story is still yours, you are still you, and you are enough, worthy, even maybe a little bit awesome!”
“Thanks” I nudged him affectionately.
“No worries!” he handed me my glasses “So, what’s your plan for the day?”
I put the glasses on and fixed my hair, “I’m going to take the kids for a walk in the woods.”
“Good idea,” he nodded approvingly, “say hello to the trees for me!”
“That’s the plan!” I winked and headed downstairs to find the children.

By Deb Bridges (Director, Writer and Life Coach for Prodigal Collective)