| "The Journey Through Grief" A Journey With Grief |
| Am I the eternal pessimist? Do I take hope and toss it aside lightly? I don't believe so. For, in the beginning, we all think of the journey through grief as indicating there is another side that we should reach; a time when we move on and leave all of this pain behind us, a time of healing, a time when life returns to normal, or at least, to some former level of happiness. Instead I have reached a time of acceptance. Today marks seven years and six months since I last saw my daughter. I realize fully how terrible my life has become since that day. It has been over seven years of measuring time by "when I had Cara" and "after I lost Cara". That day is now the focal point from which I see my life. That is how I think and see things every day. To say "journey through grief " is to indicate there will be another time when I see things as I used to; a time when I look forward to the next day and do not measure it against the past. It is normal to have a focal point from which we view our life. Before I was married, before we had children, after I retired, we picked highlights in our life and use them to measure time, but this is not a highlight in my life. This is the worst day of my life and now it is the focal point. It is forever embedded in my mind as the day that changed my life. It is not the joy of marriage, or the birth of children, it is now forever measured by the day my life was destroyed. There are many levels of grief. Most people look at the loss of a loved parent, a sibling, or a tragedy, and say "grief". A divorce, an illness, so many things that bring pain into their lives and they believe that they do understand the word. Yet these are things that they have passed through. There were days of pain and anger, days of great sadness. Then in time, life went on and they put that behind them. They do pass through to another time. For a parent who has lost their child, we have moved into Hell and there is nothing that can occupy us enough to bring that healing. Hell is when the center of your world has been destroyed. It is not just days, weeks , or months of remembering. It is a life time of always remembering. It is waking up each day knowing, I will never see her face again except in flat pieces of film or paper. The twinkle in her eyes, the delightful sound of her voice or laughter, the warmth of her hugs. The hours of conversation and the love have been ripped from my life; leaving a void that can never be filled. There is an emptiness at the center of my chest. Had she moved away to another part of the world, I would still have letters, phone calls, and looking forward to times she would come home to visit. But death takes everything and leaves only a void. This Hell can only be understood by another parent who is in Hell with you. So today I will go and try to find something to do; something that will not allow me to think or to remember. I will look for ways to occupy my body and my mind and not allow me to have moments of quiet. Those moments, the quiet moments when we think or dream, have become my enemy. This makes my life something that just exists to be gotten through, not something that is filled with happiness and the joy of living. Some days if I am very lucky I can find things to smile about and sometimes even laugh. I think the best days are those when I can remember some thing about her with another person who understands that even with the laughter there is always the shadow of pain and regret. The memories are always only for a brief moment ~~ because they do bring pain with them. So, everything has been taken from me, even the joy of remembering. This is what my life has become now. It is not the life I choose nor the life I wanted. It is just what I am left with. Before, life had its ups and downs, good and bad, but always it was looking forward to a new day. Now it is a time of looking backward. Now, it is survival and just to make it through the day without looking at the pain that is only a heart beat away. A journey through grief indicates a time that we will pass to the other side and go beyond it. This is not true for me. For me it is a journey with grief; a time of acceptance and learning how to cope. Oh how I wish there were a journey through ~~ but that will only come when I can see her again. Netta Wilson Mother of Cara 5/20/2002 |