Grief

I don’t think people realise the enormity of the grief caused by love. For the past few weeks, I have heard friends say, ‘snap out of it’, ‘you have been in this state for too long’. I don’t think they realise that I am not in control of the situation. It’s not like I don’t want to move on, believe me, that’s the only thing I want right now but the lingering pain that comes out of nowhere pierces your soul when you might be thinking, ‘Maybe the worst is over’. From the outside, it seems a bit too much I guess but at the end of the day, I am dealing with grief and it won’t go away just like that.

Lauren Herschel has a great way of talking about grief. She says, there’s a box, a ball and a pain button. Initially, the ball is so big that you can’t move it without hitting the pain button. Even without movement, the ball hits the button relentlessly. Eventually, the ball gets smaller. The pain is just as bad when the button is hit but it happens less and less. However, sometimes it will hit you when you least expect it and it can really throw you off your equilibrium.

For most of us, the ball never completely goes away. We have more time to recover between hits but they hurt just as bad and the tears are just as real.

We don’t move on from grief, we move forward with it. Grief is the price we pay for having loved. Just because someone carries it well doesn’t mean it’s not heavy.