grief journey

Grief is a strange road to walk and I am not sure that there is ever an end date to it.  In the beginning it is all consuming and takes every fiber of your body, mind and soul and consumes it.  Each day that the journey continues there are stops along the way where you see things you hadn't seen before and people come into your life to help you see things. It seems to be a discovery phase of life that no one would ask for or seek out but everyone at some point will have to go through.  There are so many words of comfort at first that seem empty and meaningless yet each one of them seems to have a place on the road. I am not sure that time ever heals as the saying goes but time does change things and time does change the person on the path.  Taking this journey, as unasked for as it is, has made me a different person.  At first it was a very sad and despondent person.  Then it was a very angry and hateful person.  Then it was a terrified of my own shadow person.  Then it was a person who was so very tired and couldn't fight anymore person. Having been all of these people and having to discover which fit into my life has taken so much energy.  Today as I start to have the emotional capacity to sift through it all I realize that each one of these steps has added value to my life.  Through all of these steps there has been one constant and that is my faith.  Each day as I am able to let go of the past and start to move forward I can see that there has been a purpose.  When I look at my journey as a purpose then I know that I am starting to grow through the pain.   I suppose I could have at any point decided to sit by the side of the road and not walk along the path.  People would have told me that I had every right to do that after all look at what I had been through.  To me that has never been a choice or an option.  It is not who I have every chosen to be. What I am discovering is that all of the painful parts wrapped together with the happy parts as well has allowed me to grow and that allows me to have experience and stregth.  Those things allow me to share with another and to let others know that yes, the road can be difficult, but yes, the road is worth walking.  Along the way there are beautiful sights and there are sights that make you stop and ache. I was fighting the stops and fighting the ache and I was missing an opportunity to stop and reflect as well.  The last few days I have done a lot of reflection and I am starting to see pieces of me that I will keep.  The other pieces will always be part of how I got to this part of the journey but I am learning to let them go with so many other things.   I will always be grateful that I learned from them but I choose today not to hold on to them. I am also grateful that I have found a community where I can just put the feelings and the thoughts down and know that they are safe.