What if grief is neither good nor bad?
What if, it is just exhausting at times to feel a lot of different emotions going in so many directions all at once?
What if we just embrace that it is uncontrollable?
What if the only thing we can control is how we interpret what we are feeling and words that we use to ourselves and others?
Grief is nothing you can schedule on your calendar and yet something you are going to experience at one point or another. What do you do at that moment? What if you are in the middle of a meeting or trying to give a presentation?
I am going to answer none of that for you. Because this much I know is true. Your answers will not be the right answers for me and vice versa. It is personal, like DNA, unique to each and every person.
I am pushing these questions out into the world, to remove them from my plate of needing to find answers. There isn’t one until you are standing in it and experiencing sorrows, then you get the right answer at that moment. How is that for a different way of dealing with something? I know for those of you, who are in need of all the answers, you won’t find them in an instant.
Here is a good example of a really simple thing, turning into a grieving moment.
It was a Sunday; I was working on all of the bills for my late father’s estate. It takes me a little time to look over and get them paid. Got to love that you can pay them online. One of the bills was his consumer cellular bill. I had his cell phone sitting next to me at my desk, plugged into the charger. It is a little pink flip phone. My dad was not a pink kind of guy and so I was a little surprised that he had a pink flip phone. I looked at the bill and realized there was no need for us to keep paying that monthly. I called the company to pay off the balance and then turned off the phone. It was in the moments after I hung up, looked at the no signal of the little flip phone that the grief hit me and tears started to come to the corner of my eyes. I would never be able to call that number again and hear my Dad’s voice. For whatever reason, having the phone connected had felt like I was still linked to him. With it gone, I felt another connection was now lost too.
My grief was replaced with joy when I learned that a friend of mine had a consumer cellular account and was in need of a new phone. I had just the right thing for a flip phone loving senior. A nice, target clearance, pink flip phone. It is almost like new. It turned out to be a perfect upgrade and it brought more tears to my eyes to see the photo of her with the phone. It also helped me feel more joy than sadness for canceling my dad’s phone plan.
Dealing with my grief was not and never will be an easy process. I keep on ignoring and pushing the sorrow and loneliness, not wanting to feel such strong emotions from the moment he was gone and over a few more months. I focus my mind on a lot of things so that I will not have time to think nor feel sad and lonely. Until the little pink flip phone tickle my memory making my eyes water, releasing all the bottled up emotions. It was a good cry.
As of today, I just keep moving forward through this process and learning new things along the way.
What in your life has more questions than answers that you are just moving forward through?
Written by: JoyGenea Schumer
Edited by: Carla Jane Francisco