Last night, I had an extreme and strong grief reaction.
The loved one I was thinking of died almost 20 years ago.
There’s a saying that will be dispersed when someone is grieving. “Time heals all wounds.”
The reality is it doesn’t.
If anything, time will change the intensity of what you feel in grief. But it never and fully goes away.
It will always be there because you had a connection to that loved one in some way.
This also goes for whether that connection was a loving one or not.
Time does not make you forget about that person.
It does not delete the love that you all shared or you wanted from that person.
The memories don’t go away.
The what ifs and what could have beens don’t disappear either.
What has been missed out on sits there in the background, as a gentle reminder.
Grief is kind of like working on a car.
You can look underneath the hood, to see what is going on.
You will examine with it, use different tools, process, and be in it.
You can be able to come out the other side of it through patience, compassion, feeling, and movement.
And it’s not like taking the failed spark plug out, adding in the new one, and throwing the old one away in the trash.
Instead, the old spark plug will sit on the shelf in the garage.
Other things will crowd around it on the shelf; taking some attention away from it.
Maybe some dust will settle on that old spark plug.
Every once in awhile, you will come across it again. You will be look at it and do some reflection. Smile, laugh, or give yourself a nod of acknowledgment and contemplation.
Other times, you will end up a crying heap on the garage floor; holding it so tightly that you don’t want to let go…for fear of losing it.
I can say this assuredly, it never goes away. It is never lost. Whether you want it to or not, it never goes away.
The spark plug…your loved one…will always be connected with you.
Why?
Because of love.
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