Allowing Grief

In my Internet perusings lately,  I came upon this question.  "What if you just allowed grief to do it's very important work in your heart, body, and soul, without trying to hide from it or interfere?" (http://stillstandingmag.com/2015/07/giving-grief/)  It's a scary proposition...to allow grief in, to give in to the feelings, not to hide.  Initially it seems that it would be so much easier to hide and to go on with life as if everything were normal.  Eventually, however, the grief will catch up and you will have no choice but to give in to it.

I avoided grief when we lost Brady.  Tim and I took our 5 days of bereavement, holed up in the house together, and then went back to "normal" life the next week.  Brady's loss was an uncomfortable topic for people, and Tim and I were the only people to even see Brady, so I didn't feel like it was something I could discuss.  I used that spring and summer to "party" my grief away, as though having fun could erase the sadness and feeling of loss.  And then, the end of that summer brought news of Henry's coming arrival.

I managed to avoid grief to a large extent when I lost my mom a few months later.  Sure, I took a few days to be with her as she neared the end, and I had my 5 days of bereavement to spend with my family.  Toward the end of that week, we found out that Henry was Henry (that he was a boy), and that seemed to refocus my attention to my pregnancy and preparations for our baby.  And then, a couple months later I was put on bedrest which completed the shift from grief to anticipation.

I didn't actually manage to avoid my grief in these circumstances...rather I redirected it, postponed it.  It wasn't until Henry died that I really faced any of these feelings.  And then, instead of dealing with one tragic loss, I was trying to deal with THREE.  Finally, I stopped hiding (from my feelings, anyway).  I cried.  I leaned on family and friends.  I took time off from work to allow myself to work through the beginnings of this journey (even though I really didn't have any time to take.)  And even when I did go back to work, or slowly started to re-enter my life, I did so slowly.  I talked, I shared, I was open to my grief.

I'm not healed, and I won't ever be.  But I am trying to allow my grief to do what it needs to do.  I am trying not to hide from my feelings.  I am trying to be patient with myself.  I am a changed person, and I have accepted that.  It's not always easy...some days still crush my spirit.  But some days I feel like a real human being, and I don't feel guilty about it!  Grieving is an active process, and I am actively working my way through each day as it comes.