A three-letter worded question to which I may never get a response.
I have asked that question a fair bit in my past; the agony of trying to understand, left me suffering. I was once told, “There is pain, and there is suffering. Pain is inevitable. Suffering is what we do with that pain”. It was very humbling to hear this. In my pain, and self-centered ways with that pain, I could hold on to the very thing, causing me to suffer longer than necessary.
I have learned that the answers I seek, I may never know.
I had to learn to accept that there are some things I may never be able to understand or know the why. My sense of control and needing to know, I needed to let go. In life there are some “whys” that just can not be answered. No logical reason for this human to even begin to understand. None.
Acceptance is the answer to all of my problems today. Acceptance in that I agree that it is, what is, and there is nothing that will change it. It’s done. Nothing I can do to bring it back.
I learned quite a few years ago, 1988 in fact, that in life, the why of things, I just have no control over. Life just sucks at times, but life is life; things happen I have no control of and definitely not going to like and will cause tremendous pain…but that’s a fact of life. It may be senseless and unreasonable to me; my heart will break and I’ll feel pain but there is absolutely nothing I can do about it. It’s life. It’s a pain I have to live through. I can get angry, blame everyone and still… I will be left with a void that anger won’t fill., no pain to be quenched. And an ache that lingers and burns. Do I remain in that or do something to heal?
That morning in December when I picked my baby girl up and she was dead. Nothing could have prepared me for the shock and grief. Nothing.
It changed my life.
Living without someone you love, takes some adjusting. Not to mention learning to live with the memory of the event; the tragedy of the minutes as they unfolded etched your memory. All hopes, plans and dreams come crashing to a halt. Life is never the same again.
It certainly taught me that bad things do happen in this life. A life lesson on so many levels one shouldn’t have to go through, but they do. Is this where strength is built?
Things I have no control over; that’s a hard pill to swallow for this self-willed gal. It was hard. But I had to accept it and move forward, or stay stuck and lash out at the world and anyone who came into the line of fire. I chose to move forward. It didn’t end the missing nor did I forget, but it gave me healing that I needed. A healing to be able to accept that life is now different and I needed to learn how to live again. Live without the person I loved. Change can be hard when holding on to a past full of memories and;” what could have been”.
Grief has its many stages; shock, denial, pain, guilt, anger, bargaining, depression. I felt every one. Some I felt for far too long. I got stuck in some, which wasn’t good for me. Until I dealt with my grief, it seeped into every facet of my life. Things became unmanageable.
Forward a few years from that date, we moved and met another mom who had lost their child; a neighbor who visited often and the common bond of loss, connected us. Support is vital in the healing process. We knew we were not alone.
Then life turned again.
Living in what I felt a safe rural area, I soon learned …. nothing was safe.
My neighbor was murdered in her home and left behind a husband and 4 children. Another occurrence once again, that drove home the fact that in life, there are no guarantees and shit does happen. Terrible awful tragedies happen of which no one has any control over. Senseless.
My mind wanted to understand, but there is none. Pretty helpless feeling. Sitting with that powerlessness is very… overwhelming. Grief, filled with all those uncomfortable feelings. Feelings I had to go through to come out the other side. There is no escaping it. Oh, it can be delayed, shoved under the carped so to speak, but it will always have it’s time one way or another. Like that carpet with a mess piled underneath, eventually it needs to be dealt with or it will trip you up. Shoving it under the carpet doesn’t deal with it; just delays it. It was that way with me.
Life can suck the big donkey at times. BIG TIME. But, that’s life. A huge lesson of letting go and moving on. A difficult lesson for in it, one possibly gets tangled up in the stages of grief and be stagnant there. A cistern that only does harm and causes more misery.
There are no rights nor wrongs with loss and grieving. We all have to deal in our own way. Being patient with myself was huge to allow myself to find that way.
Reaching out to others for help was difficult. I am glad for those who sat with me on that mourning bench, listened, and reached out to me when I couldn’t help myself. I believe that people are afraid of how to deal with someone that has suffered loss. Some ignore talking, even ignore you, and that can be difficult. But when one has never experienced such intense grief, I soon understood, they didn’t know what to say.
Actually, nothing was needed to be said. Sometimes words said can be hurtful without intent. Saying nothing but a word of just thinking about you is enough. Knowing a person cares sometimes is the greatest healer. Saying less is more.
Hearing of the recent events and the reactions of many, memories came flooding back of the “whys” I once had with the many losses experienced.
I recognized the shock, the disbelief, the anger, the heartache. I think of all that I have experienced and my heart went out to all who are suffering at this time.
We each grieve in our own way. We find our own way. Seeing such rants, I can totally understand yet I just hope for those who are going through such pain, that such rants don’t add harm to their healing.
Life is fleeting. Through the losses I have experienced, I have learned take each day as my last and show love and compassion for all. It’s all we have in the end. Love never dies. Don’t let anger and hatred mar the memories of those passed on. Honor them for the loving Spirits they are.
This world can turn a person so easily. Things happen to some that we may never understand. Mental health is a fine line and can take you down twists and turns of no returns. The “why” of things never known.
Focusing on the good with a healthy heart gives rise to overcoming anything, even those “whys” that are difficult to understand in life.
That 3-letter word, won’t fill the emptiness of loss. I remember words a gal I used to work with used to say, “Why is just a crooked letter, a letter you just can’t straighten “. How true is that?
Don’t let the Whys of this life deflect from the very thing which is important in the end… Love.