Whether you’re ready for it or not, the pain of losing a child eases over time. It just does. Its grip becomes less. It’s still pain, and when it does pay a visit, it still throbs, but it’s not as intense as it was in the early dark days. Pain is no longer your constant companion.
Things are gonna get easier. As the months (and years) go by, you’re no longer crying every day. You’re out and about in the world as a semi-functioning human being. The fog of grief is slowly lifting, and you can see clearly again. The spark of life is gradually returning to your eyes.
This is a good thing, although there’s a good chance that it doesn’t feel good. How could it? Nothing can ever bring your child back, and yet, little by little, you’re learning to cope with and accept the reality of your loss. Reality still bites, but it no longer draws blood, and at the same time, the prospect of your happiness has floated back into the picture.
Taking Positive Steps
You’re actually surprised that you feel this way because, for the longest time, this wasn’t even an option. You didn’t care about the rest of your life because you felt that your life was over, just like it is for your child. When you look back on the early days of your grief and compare it to how you feel a year later, it’s truly amazing how far you’ve come.
You still have a way to go, but you’re getting there.
You’ve taken positive steps and made great leaps forward. You’ve reconciled with many of the things that have been troubling you, and the things you inflicted upon yourself. You’ve put in the work and faced what scared you the most. You’re now a fearless warrior who has mastered walking through fire.
Hope Is the Light
Essentially, two things have happened that have been game-changers. The first was realizing that you now have a choice in how to move forward. (Reminder: When it comes to grief, you don’t move on, you move forward.) You are no longer on autopilot. You’re in control, maybe for the first time since your child’s death. Where you go and what you’ll do from here is completely in your own hands.
The second thing is an unexpected reward for taking control of your life, the re-emergence of one of my favorite four-letter words—hope! Hope is the light at the end of the grief tunnel. Hope makes you look forward to the next day. Hope heals your heart. As my son Rob would say, “Hope is dope!”
And once it returns, it’s there for keeps. You can never lose hope again because you’ve worked hard to get it back. Take that in for a moment and, while you’re at it, give yourself some props for enduring what most people think is unendurable. What those people don’t know is that you didn’t really have any choice. But that in no way diminishes your remarkable journey of survival and recovery.
Okay, so that’s the good news, and there really isn’t any bad news when you’ve reached the other side of the grief tunnel. However, I’m not suggesting that it’s all beautiful memory rainbows and sweet “missing you” lollipops from here on out. You will still hurt, you will still sob, and there will still be days when you miss your kid something awful.
Pain Will No Longer Linger
But you’ll be able to handle the pain in a way that you weren’t able to before. You’ll let it wash over you and then dry your tears, eat dinner, watch TV, and get a good night’s sleep. The pain will no longer linger because you won’t allow it to.
The pain is just a reminder of how much you loved your child.
The next part of your grief journey awaits. And, compared to what you’ve already been through, it’s a piece of cake (very likely angel food). It focuses on accepting the reality of your loss and choosing a kind of happiness that allows the light to coexist with the dark. It’s about maintaining an enduring connection with your child while relearning what it means to live a full and meaningful life. It’s about coming out of the other side of hell transformed. It’s about becoming extraordinary.
