by Danessa Adino Lazaga*
When we lose a loved one, in the beginning it isn't so much a matter of moving on, as it is of getting through the day. That period referred to as "the beginning". It is a long time process and it doesn't end all at once. Its ending is more suitably described as "slowly fading". Even, too, as we cannot imagine moving on, we do because each day come and goes, and here we still are, going through the motions and getting through each of those days.
They say that it takes a full five years to feel back to oneself. With each day that passes we move farther and farther away from that initial shock and grief. It is a gradually fading, but the grief remained painfully close to the surface far longer than once we could imagine it would.
After losing my father last August 16, 2005, it was so difficult to accept the fact that he was already gone. It was so painful that I couldn’t imagine if I could bear the feeling of grief and emptiness after losing him without even talking to him for the last time. His death was not easy to admit to the fact that I was not being informed right after his death was confirmed because of my heart problem.
I discovered that there is that numbness that occurs when a loss is so terrible that the mind can’t bear, and as the numbness wears off the thoughts that need processing appear. I found that those painful thoughts were thoughts I could bear only in small doses before overcome it with grief again.
We all have our daily activities that we must do, and that can help. One thing is that grief seems to creep into our minds and push all positive, nurturing, thoughts and memories we have to the back of our minds. It’s as if our minds are one, big, room full of sadness and grayness. The longer that “grayness” takes up most of the space in “the main part” of our mind, the more chance it has to take hold and seem to harden.
When we lose a loved one we never get over it completely, but we get to a point where we are back to feeling like ourselves. When we first lose someone, it is an unbearable shock that is hard to believe. Once the shock wears off the grief swoops in, and over us and can sometimes make it feel as if we can’t even breathe. We need to accept that, that footprint will always be there, but as the weeks and months go by the grief does die down a little at a time.
Difficult as it is to believe when we have just lost someone, we all just keep moving on, whether or not we want to, and whether or not we appear to be. If you ask how to get through your days, rather than ask how to move on, time will move you on, and your heart will tell you when to take another step.
* A woman who was moved by time's different way of healing, rather than dwelling on the past.
