I stumbled across this post maybe a month ago and it is so fitting for
how I feel right now. I hope that I’ll come out on the other side some day
too so I can bask in the warmth of the sun that my Betty so loved, but for
now I am just trying my very hardest to float… I have taken the liberty of
making some slight changes to the original post; I hope you’ll afford
me these small edits… I give full credit to the original author GSnow,
who wrote this for someone grieving over 4 years ago on Reddit…
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Grief Comes In Waves
I wish I could say you get used to a beloved pet dying. I never did. I don’t want to. It tears a hole through me whenever a beautiful soul I love dies, no matter the circumstances. But I don’t want it to “not matter”. I don’t want it to be something that just passes. My scars are a testament to the love and the relationship that I had for and with the soul I loved. And if the scar is deep, so was the love. So be it. Scars are a testament to life. Scars are a testament that I can love deeply and live deeply and be cut, or even gouged, and that I can heal and continue to live and continue to love. And the scar tissue is stronger than the original flesh ever was. Scars are a testament to life. Scars are only ugly to people who can’t understand the depth of love that has swamped you or those who have never known a pure and true, unconditional love.
As for grief, I find it comes in waves. When the ship is first wrecked, you’re drowning, with wreckage all around you. Everything floating around you reminds you of the beauty and the magnificence of the ship that was, and is no more. And all you can do is float. You find some piece of the wreckage and you hang on for a while. Maybe it’s some physical thing. Maybe it’s a happy memory or a photograph. Maybe it’s a person who is also floating right along with you. For a while, all you can do is float to stay alive.
In the beginning, the waves are 100 feet tall and crash over you without mercy. They come 10 seconds apart and don’t even give you time to catch your breath. You feel as if you’re drowning in the sorrow. All you can do is hang on and float. After a while, maybe weeks, maybe months, you’ll find the waves are still 100 feet tall, but they come further apart. When they come, they still crash all over you and wipe you out. They can and may shatter your heart all over again without mercy for the small step forward you may have taken. But in between, you can breathe, you can even function. You never know what’s going to trigger the grief. It might be a picture, a smell or a sound… a place you enjoyed together. It can be just about anything… and the wave comes crashing down on you again, pulling you back under. But in between waves, there is life.
Somewhere down the line, and it’s different for everybody, you find that the waves are only 80 feet tall. Or 50 feet tall. And while they still come, they come further apart. You can see them coming. During a walk down a familiar street, a birthday, or that first silly holiday dress-up they are not there to share. You can see it coming, for the most part, and prepare yourself. And when it washes over you and pulls you down, you know that somehow you will, again, come out on the other side. Soaking wet, sputtering, still hanging on to some tiny piece of the wreckage, but you’ll come out just a tiny bit stronger.
The waves never stop coming, and somehow you don’t really want them to. But in time you learn that you’ll survive them. And other waves will come. And you’ll survive them too. If you’re lucky, you’ll have lots of scars from lots of unconditional love from many beautiful souls…
Original Author Credit: http://bit.ly/1NJAAhw [Reddit Link]
