After my son died, grief wreaked havoc on my mind and body. It aged me instantly and significantly. I felt dizzy, cut off from family and friends, and tormented by the loss of my son. My mind slipped into a heavy fog of grief. It was like I was thinking through Jello. I feared I was losing my mind.
Friend, are you there now? Hold on. There’s hope.
For a long time, I was convinced I was losing my mind. I couldn’t remember how to do things I’d routinely done my entire adult life. Worse, I couldn’t even remember to do things. Something as basic as taking a shower challenged me. I would step out of the shower, dry off, and not remember if I shampooed my hair. Sometimes, I got back in. Most of the time, I was too depleted to care. I remember being a person who devoured books, but now I couldn’t digest a small newspaper obituary without reading the same line repeatedly and having no idea what it said.
I used to have a good memory and took good care of my family and home. Now, I was sending my boys to the laundry room to find their cleanest dirty jeans to wear to school. I relied on Burger King to feed my family—for months. I failed to show up for all kinds of appointments. And I shunned social functions and gatherings. It didn’t help to write things on a calendar as I was incapable of keeping one.
One particularly gut-wrenching morning, I found myself curled up in a fetal position on the bathroom floor sobbing uncontrollably, convinced I was going crazy.
I didn’t.
You won’t either.
Many years later, I now know that was okay. I was deep in the throes of grief. As painful and ugly as it was, I know now that I was in the state of mind that I needed to be in at that time.
A personal note …
Friends,
We cannot walk out of the cemetery and back into life as we knew it. We must take the time to grieve. It is hard, painful, and ugly. And it is necessary.
But the news is good. None of us has to grieve alone.
Shelley