The Thing About Grief

Its been almost two years since I said goodbye to my son Joshua.
Two years.  Two years that have been so full, full of love, pain, grief, joy.
So much has happened in the last two years, and yet so much has stayed the same.
I miss my son. I never thought there would be a day when I didn't, but i didn't expect for it not to have at least dimmed a little.  I miss my son today in the same way I missed him the day after he passed.  I'm still healing, as I suspect I will be until the day I die.  I'm ok with that though, I don't want to be numb to it.


I have reached a point in my healing though, where my life is once again a happy one.  I have passed the point where it hurts to live, I have a wonderfully blessed life, even with the shade, there is so much light.
The healing however did not come easy, and it did not come the way I expected it to in the days, weeks and months after his loss.
I expected the healing to be almost linear, with each day and week being a little better than the last,
It doesn't work like that though.  Grief comes in its own time and I have had moments, even in the last few weeks, that have been as rough as in the weeks immediately following his death.
I've learned that you can have your happiest and saddest moments at the exact same time.  The recent birth of my second son Zackary was heartbreaking, amazing, and beautiful in a way that I had never experienced before.
As I held my healthy beautiful baby I felt both Joshua's absence and his presence.
I have days where I don't feel sad at all, and even more importantly, I don't feel guilty about that. I have learned however that grief is insidious and sneaky.  I will be fine, and then I will close my eyes and in a moment I am transported.  Back to the hospital after he was born, or back to my kitchen, when I received the phone call that told me he wasn't going to be ok.
These memories are strong enough to stop me in my tracks.  I used to try to fight the sadness, but its not a fight I can ever win.
The thing about grief is that it wont go away, it cant be denied or repressed.  The only way to really overcome it is to let yourself experience it.  You have to let yourself cry, scream, vent and rage, you have to feel it, and when you do you will come out stronger.
It took being broken apart for me to learn how strong I truly am.

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