Please Excuse Me While I Grieve

"Grief is a process." How many times have I heard that statement? I am only now beginning to realize how accurate it is. 

   I wish I could grieve once and get it over with but it comes in waves, sometimes there is a long break between waves and sometimes they roll in, one after the next without giving me time to catch my breath.

     I am fighting a never ending battle with grief. Sometimes I ignore it, pretend it isn't there, refuse to acknowledge it's presence, other times I embrace it and allow myself to feel the pain but I always stuff it back inside, never giving it time to wane on it's own.

    Grief has changed me into someone I don't even recognize, someone I don't like very well, I might add. I sometimes imagine this is how people with mind altering illness's feel, lost and trapped inside their body, constantly searching for the person they used to be, to no avail. 

   Grief has taken my joy, my laughter and turned it into bitterness and pain. Life isn't full of happiness when grief comes to visit. I can ignore it's presence but a heavy lump remains in the pit of my stomach, continually reminding me that sometime I will have to acknowledge this painful feeling.

   Grief is relentless, no matter how often I rebuff it, it faithfully comes back. I have used all the therapeutic methods to send him running but they haven't worked so well either. I am left feeling miserable, lost, trapped.

   Rationalizing grief doesn't work I have found, and trust me, I have rationalized it away more times than I can count. 

   I can tell myself that I didn't lose a child to death but grief say's it doesn't matter how you lost a child, just that you did lose one.

   I have tried telling myself to count my blessings but after counting them, grief still reminds me of the unfinished business that needs to be resolved.

  I tried therapy and the therapist said, "You experienced a lot of loss in your life, you must allow yourself the time and space to grieve." I didn't have time and I didn't have space, I had traumatized children who needed me.

  Now grief has come knocking in earnest and I am finally admitting defeat. I am done fighting, finished rationalizing and ready to let grief do it's work. I won't like it, it won't be pleasant but in order to heal emotionally, it has to be done.

   So please forgive me if I cry, forgive me when I seem distant and unable to do those things expected of me, forgive me if I talk incessantly about the pain in my heart, I will move beyond it but for now, I need to walk through it, distasteful though it is.