Can Someone Please Invent Something That Makes Grief Hurt Less?
There is affinity in consolation.
I lost my aunt three days before Christmas 2021.
She was 94 years old and had a well-lived life. She would have been 95 on February 4th. I will miss her. My emotions are straddling along the outskirts of still numb and returning to normal.
Life goes on. I return to my daily routine. Grief is like a wound you think has healed, but it hasn’t. I put the bandage back on. The spot in my heart that has been ripped off yet again. You deal with it. I was wounded in 2013 when my mom passed. Now once more, I am once again binding my wounds.
I am not unique in what I am feeling. I am not special in my pain.
I am one of the billions of people sharing the same awful emotion, trying to get on the other side of it. I wish there were a way that no one would have to deal with feelings of losing someone they love.
Time does indeed help, and we begin adjustment to not having the person in our life anymore and learning to accept it.
If only we did not have to go through the raw stage of sorrow and be able to fast-forward into the stage where it does not hurt so much. That would be ideal. That would be the remedy.
I talked to a close friend who lost her mother years earlier. She recalled one day while doing weekly grocery shopping, her eyes spotted an item sitting on the store shelves. Overcome by a wave of sadness so strong it buckled her knees. Her eyes filled with tears. It was a bottle of Mott’s Apple Juice. This was her mother’s favorite juice.
That’s the thing about grief. You think you have a handle on it, the pain is gone, you’re good. All of a sudden you hear something, or see something, or touch something that brings a memory of the loved one. A rush of fresh grief washes over you. Then as suddenly as it appears, it retreats. You are back to normal again.
By mercy, grace, or just mental survival, those moments become fewer and far between as the days pass. My complaint is that it takes time to get to this point. What I do know is that I have never pitched a tent in sad-land and stayed there.
I considered including photos of my Mom and my Aunt in this story, but I decided not to. I want to tell their stories properly. I want to write about what a grand woman my mom was. How feisty my aunt was. I shall regale you with their colorful stories in the future.
“The pain of grief is just as much part of life as the joy of love: it is perhaps the price we pay for love, the cost of commitment.”
Dr. Colin Murray Parkes
If this is indeed the case, we all must commend ourselves for loving so strongly, with so much joy, conviction, and benevolence.
Hi! Thanks for reading, I really appreciate it. If you enjoyed this story, sign-up and become a Medium member. Get unlimited access to not only my stories but thousands of amazing stories on Medium. Let’s Go!
MORE STORIES BY JANICE M. FLANDERS
