Grief will knock you down until it's done teaching you
Grief needs an exit ramp.
If it doesn’t get one, it will swirl around like a wild tornado with nowhere to go.
Writing is my way to give grief an exit. So are tears and talking to others.
After my beautiful nephew, Michael, died unexpectedly at 34, the grief of losing him just thrashed me around like wild ocean waves. The gentle waves I could handle, but some days, it felt like a tsunami let loose.
Then my friend, Veronica, shared this beautiful message on Facebook. Her daughter, Neyomii died last year unexpectedly at 24.
Nigerian poet Ijeoma Umebinyuo offers three routes to healing.
You must let the pain visit.
You must allow it to teach you.
You must not allow it to overstay.
I needed to hear about all three.
My friend, Sherri, lost her older brother when she was just 8. I called her this week when I was drowning in tears. She said it’s okay to climb in the high chair for a few minutes or even an hour, and rail against life and rant and be angry and sad and let it rip. You just don’t stay in the high chair. At some point, you climb back into life.
Instead of giving yourself a “time out” like we do children, you give yourself a “time in” so you can feel all the pain so it can go all the way through you and be done. Maybe not done forever, but done for today, done for this wave.
Grief is teaching me to give it room to pass through. All the way through.
And when it does pass through, it leaves me raw and hollowed out and ready to receive moments of peace and grace where the best memories of my nephew find a gentle place to land.