Shadows Of Grief

Life since my son Finn died is ugly and dark and at times unbearable. But, I can find grief to be beautiful.  When I am missing Finn the most,  when I am actually crying and when I can feel his body snuggled on my chest, when my entire body aches because he isn’t here, then I am living.  I honor and treasure these moments, because while I do feel pain, I also feel good, I feel alive.  At these moments, Finn without a doubt is real.  Finn is real and I am living.  This is a blessing and it is beautiful.  

After these moments, my body and mind and soul is trashed.  My mind is complete mud.  My body feels totally flattened.  I lose all feeling about almost everything.   I have spent most of my grieving journey thus far in this dark lonely achy place.  This is what makes grief so hard.  At these times, I may not have memories of Finn.  I may be tired of thinking about him. I stop caring about the things that are important.  The biggest being myself.  I don’t like living.  Life is ugly, dark, and lonely.  This is what I call the Shadows of Grief.

It is not the grief that is awful.  It is the dark and lonely shadow that is formed because of the towering grief.  For me, grief is bright and beautiful.  While grief does hurt, I find it inspiring.  It reminds me of what is important.  It is when I feel my sweet son Finn and that is what makes it beautiful.

I have found it extremely helpful to make the distinction between grief and the Shadows of Grief.  I don’t want grief to bring me down.  I strive to learn and grow and be inspired by experiences with and without Finn and to use these to enrich life.  But, I can now recognize that when I am in the Shadows of Grief, I need to lose expectations.  I need to be patient to myself and to those who are important to me.  I need to be kind and gentle to myself. I need to hold with all my might the thread of hope that soon I might find hope.  There are days that I can wake up with hope.  Then I know I am no longer in the Shadows of Grief.

So I continue on my journey of embracing grief and learning tools and practices to not allow the shadows of grief to shut out life.