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