Love Never Goes Away

"Why does it hurt so much? Why is this grief so incapacitating? If
only the hurt weren't so crushing." Sound familiar? All of us have
known hurts before, but none of our previous "ouches" can compare
with the hurt we now feel. Nothing can touch the pain of burying a
child.

Yet, most of us have discovered that the sun still comes up. We still
have to function. We did not die when our child did, even though we
wished we could have. So.we are stuck with this pain, this grief, and
what do we do with it? Surely we can't live like THIS forever!

There are no magic formulas for surviving grief. There are a few
commonly recognized patterns for grief, but even those are only guide-
lines. What we do know is that the emptiness will never go away. It
will become tolerable and livable. some day.

TIME.the longest word in our grief. We used to measure TIME by the
steps of our child.the first word, first tooth, first date, first
car.now we don't have that measure anymore. All we have is TIME, and
it only seems to make the hurt worse.

So what do we do? Give ourselves TIME.to hurt, to grieve, to cry.
TIME to choke, to scream. TIME to be "crazy" and TIME to remember.

Be nice to yourself! Don't measure your progress against anyone
else's. Be your own timekeeper.

Don't push. Eventually you will find the hours and days of grief have
turned to minutes and their moments. but don't expect them to go
away. We will always hurt. You don't get over grief. It only becomes
tolerable and livable.

Change your focus a bit. Instead of dwelling on how much you lost -
try thinking the good memories come over you as easily as the awful
ones do. We didn't lose our child.HE/SHE DIED. We didn't lose the
love that flowed between us. It still flows, but differently now.

Does it help to know that if we didn't love so very much, it would not
hurt so badly? Grief is the price we pay for love. And as much as it
hurts, I'm very, very glad I loved.

Don't let death cast ugly shadows, but rather warm memories of loving
times you shared. Even though death comes, LOVE NEVER GOES AWAY!

-Darcie D. Sims, Ph.D.
Wenatchee, WA