The paradox of grief
Oh yes, I wanted my pain to end quickly. Oh yes, I would have done anything to stop the hurt and make my suffering go away after my son, Brendon,
was killed. I thought, “Give me the magic spell, the book, the hammer, the video or anything else to make my pain end and I will take it.” Perhaps just like you, grief grabbed me and beat on me; pounded me into submission and hurled me down the well of despair. Grief became my enemy. It was to be destroyed and chased from my life. In the weeks, months and for a few years after my son died, never once did I feel that my grief was teaching me anything but how much it hurt to lose him. My pain was from something bad and my life was in turmoil.
Yet somewhere deep inside I believed life could get better; that I didn’t have to live with such deep grief forever. My son’s death paralyzed me in many ways, so that belief didn’t bubble to the surface and turn into action for over two years. It was then that I discovered my lonely journey didn’t need to be traveled alone. I reached out for help because I needed to reach out for help. If not, I would have died inside and merely existed, and not lived. I would have become an echo, bouncing around forever, never finding a home.
Belief in a better life, which is my definition of hope, took hold of my spirit and I began to fight back against my deep grief and deep suffering. I knew others had traveled my path and if they were one day ahead of me then they knew something I didn’t. To find out what got them to their next day I reached out and joined a support group of other bereaved parents and it worked. My fellow travelers saved my life, but only when I decided to let them into my life and help me learn how to survive my deep grief.
What grief teaches us
It won’t be the first time you’ve heard this, and maybe it still doesn’t make any sense, but maybe this will be the time it will take hold and start to
teach you ways to make your life better. Hopefully it will help you know that death did not take all when it took your child’s body. Here it is. “The pain is
from the love. We hurt so much because we love so much.” The paradox of grief is that something that feels so bad, the death of your child, is because of
something that feels so good, the love for your child. Odd isn’t it. Our grief and deep sadness teach us how much we love and where that love comes from.
The reason we know sad is because we’ve known happy. There would be no sadness if happiness didn’t exist. Here’s an example of what I mean. If you were walking down the street and a dog came up to you for a quick visit where you stroked its fur, let it give you kisses and then you said goodbye, you wouldn’t be very sad if you never saw that dog again. Because you hadn’t experienced great happiness, you wouldn’t know great sadness because the dog left your life. On the other hand, if your beloved dog of eight years died, you’d be heartbroken and very sad because your happiness from its life had been crushed by its death. You’d be sad because you’d been happy. Yes, I know there’s no comparison between losing a child and losing a pet, but love is still love and it hurts when it gets bruised. The point is that because we’ve known such happiness and love with our children, that when they died it gave birth to our profound and overwhelming sadness. But our happiness didn’t die, it was smothered by our sadness and is still there, waiting to return.
The challenge is to find ways to transition from the sadness in our grief, to the happiness from the life of our child. That’s where grief work, letting go, acceptance and, if necessary, forgiveness come into play. Early in our journey the goal is for our grief to go away. But if I were to ask you, “If giving up one moment of your grief means giving up one moment of your love, would you do that?” I doubt you would. The grief we can live with, the love we can’t live without. So we learn to live with grief, find ways to soften it, and learn what it teaches about our love. That way we can move forward to a better life by understanding that death did not take all when it took our child’s body.
Don’t let death win
Your life will never be the same. I’m sure you already know that, but might not have accepted it yet. The death of your child is to life changing an experience to ever be able to go back to where, or who, you once were. In the acceptance and acknowledgment of that unchangeable reality is one path back to your happiness. The relationship with your child has changed, but it didn’t die when their body died. Our greatest suffering comes from the loss of the physical. We hurt so much because we can’t hold them, hear them or even smell them. We long for one more hug, one more conversation and one more tomorrow. We fight that need for a long time because we want it back the way it was. If we can’t let go of the physical part of our relationship, then we’re in danger of seeing our child as a child who died and is gone forever, and not a child who lived, and will always live, if we let them. Letting go of their physical death is a tough bridge to cross though.
When we let go of their bodies, we can begin to see that they are so much more than just their physical presence in our lives. If we’re able to embrace what we have and will always have, which is the spiritual and emotional life of our child, then we can transition from sadness back to happiness. Here’s how we can do that.
Bring back a good memory of your child. Now I ask you, “Is that a memory of a living child or of a dead child?” Of course it’s a memory of a living,
breathing, loving child. That’s yours forever and ever and ever. Death can’t have that memory. Yes, you may be sad and cry when you bring that memory back. And that’s fine; express that sadness. Remember, for your child to have died, it means they had to have lived first. In the letting go of their death is where you can see the return of their life. Not like it was, not like it will ever be again, but in the best possible way you let it happen. In time, if you do your
work, the two emotions of sadness and happiness can change places. When you bring back that same memory, you can smile and say, “Wow, what a terrific child I’ve got…....not had. I am blessed.” We can’t change the past, only embrace what it teaches us and move to the future with a healing heart.
When you put your head on your pillow tonight, think of your child. Not a specific memory, but that feeling you get when you think of them. For me, when I think of my son, I get goosebumps. Brendon tingles me. The joy of the life of that boy surges through me like lightning. If that’s what you feel, then you know that death did not take their life force and can never take it, if you don’t let it. Don’t let death take your goosebumps.
Yes, love hurts. But would you have it any other way? Not me, because without the hurt I wouldn’t know the joy. And love does not die either. There is never a reason to add a “d” to the word love. There is no past tense to love. It was, it is, and it will always be. A love born can never die. Death can’t have your love. Death can’t have your child, if you don’t let it.
Embrace your grief – it’s not your enemy
I’ve got good news and I’ve got good news. The good news is that a measure of your grief will always live with you. It will be yours forever. “That’s good news,” you ask? It’s good news because your grief teaches you that all of your love, and the entire life of your child, will be with you forever as well. I consider my grief a fair trade off for the love and the life of my son. I am grateful for my grief. It’s not my enemy, I embrace it for what it is; the love for Brendon’s life. So if grief is good news, then love is good news as well.
The only thing about my son that's a "was" is his body. That's never, ever coming back. Accepting that unchangable reality helped me move forward. All of my memories, his life force and my love are an "is." Brendon IS, not was, a wonderful son. I love, not loved, him very much. When I speak about him as an "is," he's closer to me. If I speak of him as a "was," he moves further away. I want him close. I want an "is" son.
You and I will never live a top of the mountain life again. That’s just the way it is. A part of us will forever be sad because of the death of our children. We will always live with a tear in our eye. But if we let our sadness from their death be more powerful than our happiness from their life, death
wins. If we embrace our grief, express the pain in it, accept it and blend it into our lives, then the joy and happiness of the lives of our children will
once again fill our lives with joy and happiness. Don’t let death win, let the life of your child win. Embrace the paradox of grief.
Oh yes, I wanted my pain to end quickly. Oh yes, I would have done anything to stop the hurt and make my suffering go away after my son, Brendon,
was killed. I thought, “Give me the magic spell, the book, the hammer, the video or anything else to make my pain end and I will take it.” Perhaps just like you, grief grabbed me and beat on me; pounded me into submission and hurled me down the well of despair. Grief became my enemy. It was to be destroyed and chased from my life. In the weeks, months and for a few years after my son died, never once did I feel that my grief was teaching me anything but how much it hurt to lose him. My pain was from something bad and my life was in turmoil.
Yet somewhere deep inside I believed life could get better; that I didn’t have to live with such deep grief forever. My son’s death paralyzed me in many ways, so that belief didn’t bubble to the surface and turn into action for over two years. It was then that I discovered my lonely journey didn’t need to be traveled alone. I reached out for help because I needed to reach out for help. If not, I would have died inside and merely existed, and not lived. I would have become an echo, bouncing around forever, never finding a home.
Belief in a better life, which is my definition of hope, took hold of my spirit and I began to fight back against my deep grief and deep suffering. I knew others had traveled my path and if they were one day ahead of me then they knew something I didn’t. To find out what got them to their next day I reached out and joined a support group of other bereaved parents and it worked. My fellow travelers saved my life, but only when I decided to let them into my life and help me learn how to survive my deep grief.
What grief teaches us
It won’t be the first time you’ve heard this, and maybe it still doesn’t make any sense, but maybe this will be the time it will take hold and start to
teach you ways to make your life better. Hopefully it will help you know that death did not take all when it took your child’s body. Here it is. “The pain is
from the love. We hurt so much because we love so much.” The paradox of grief is that something that feels so bad, the death of your child, is because of
something that feels so good, the love for your child. Odd isn’t it. Our grief and deep sadness teach us how much we love and where that love comes from.
The reason we know sad is because we’ve known happy. There would be no sadness if happiness didn’t exist. Here’s an example of what I mean. If you were walking down the street and a dog came up to you for a quick visit where you stroked its fur, let it give you kisses and then you said goodbye, you wouldn’t be very sad if you never saw that dog again. Because you hadn’t experienced great happiness, you wouldn’t know great sadness because the dog left your life. On the other hand, if your beloved dog of eight years died, you’d be heartbroken and very sad because your happiness from its life had been crushed by its death. You’d be sad because you’d been happy. Yes, I know there’s no comparison between losing a child and losing a pet, but love is still love and it hurts when it gets bruised. The point is that because we’ve known such happiness and love with our children, that when they died it gave birth to our profound and overwhelming sadness. But our happiness didn’t die, it was smothered by our sadness and is still there, waiting to return.
The challenge is to find ways to transition from the sadness in our grief, to the happiness from the life of our child. That’s where grief work, letting go, acceptance and, if necessary, forgiveness come into play. Early in our journey the goal is for our grief to go away. But if I were to ask you, “If giving up one moment of your grief means giving up one moment of your love, would you do that?” I doubt you would. The grief we can live with, the love we can’t live without. So we learn to live with grief, find ways to soften it, and learn what it teaches about our love. That way we can move forward to a better life by understanding that death did not take all when it took our child’s body.
Don’t let death win
Your life will never be the same. I’m sure you already know that, but might not have accepted it yet. The death of your child is to life changing an experience to ever be able to go back to where, or who, you once were. In the acceptance and acknowledgment of that unchangeable reality is one path back to your happiness. The relationship with your child has changed, but it didn’t die when their body died. Our greatest suffering comes from the loss of the physical. We hurt so much because we can’t hold them, hear them or even smell them. We long for one more hug, one more conversation and one more tomorrow. We fight that need for a long time because we want it back the way it was. If we can’t let go of the physical part of our relationship, then we’re in danger of seeing our child as a child who died and is gone forever, and not a child who lived, and will always live, if we let them. Letting go of their physical death is a tough bridge to cross though.
When we let go of their bodies, we can begin to see that they are so much more than just their physical presence in our lives. If we’re able to embrace what we have and will always have, which is the spiritual and emotional life of our child, then we can transition from sadness back to happiness. Here’s how we can do that.
Bring back a good memory of your child. Now I ask you, “Is that a memory of a living child or of a dead child?” Of course it’s a memory of a living,
breathing, loving child. That’s yours forever and ever and ever. Death can’t have that memory. Yes, you may be sad and cry when you bring that memory back. And that’s fine; express that sadness. Remember, for your child to have died, it means they had to have lived first. In the letting go of their death is where you can see the return of their life. Not like it was, not like it will ever be again, but in the best possible way you let it happen. In time, if you do your
work, the two emotions of sadness and happiness can change places. When you bring back that same memory, you can smile and say, “Wow, what a terrific child I’ve got…....not had. I am blessed.” We can’t change the past, only embrace what it teaches us and move to the future with a healing heart.
When you put your head on your pillow tonight, think of your child. Not a specific memory, but that feeling you get when you think of them. For me, when I think of my son, I get goosebumps. Brendon tingles me. The joy of the life of that boy surges through me like lightning. If that’s what you feel, then you know that death did not take their life force and can never take it, if you don’t let it. Don’t let death take your goosebumps.
Yes, love hurts. But would you have it any other way? Not me, because without the hurt I wouldn’t know the joy. And love does not die either. There is never a reason to add a “d” to the word love. There is no past tense to love. It was, it is, and it will always be. A love born can never die. Death can’t have your love. Death can’t have your child, if you don’t let it.
Embrace your grief – it’s not your enemy
I’ve got good news and I’ve got good news. The good news is that a measure of your grief will always live with you. It will be yours forever. “That’s good news,” you ask? It’s good news because your grief teaches you that all of your love, and the entire life of your child, will be with you forever as well. I consider my grief a fair trade off for the love and the life of my son. I am grateful for my grief. It’s not my enemy, I embrace it for what it is; the love for Brendon’s life. So if grief is good news, then love is good news as well.
The only thing about my son that's a "was" is his body. That's never, ever coming back. Accepting that unchangable reality helped me move forward. All of my memories, his life force and my love are an "is." Brendon IS, not was, a wonderful son. I love, not loved, him very much. When I speak about him as an "is," he's closer to me. If I speak of him as a "was," he moves further away. I want him close. I want an "is" son.
You and I will never live a top of the mountain life again. That’s just the way it is. A part of us will forever be sad because of the death of our children. We will always live with a tear in our eye. But if we let our sadness from their death be more powerful than our happiness from their life, death
wins. If we embrace our grief, express the pain in it, accept it and blend it into our lives, then the joy and happiness of the lives of our children will
once again fill our lives with joy and happiness. Don’t let death win, let the life of your child win. Embrace the paradox of grief.