Some people say grief is like the ocean -- it swells and recedes like waves. One minute you're seemingly fine and smiling and the next you're doubled over weeping deeply and unable to breathe.
I lost a friend tragically about 7 years ago. It was hard and I grew angry and distant. It was one of the more painful losses I had to deal with and I didn't know how to process. Now the last few years I've lost three to four friends to cancer.
In 2016 on April 11 I got a call telling me one of my friends had shot himself. It was alleged he was involved in a murder-suicide and that his ex girlfriend was also dead. I didn't know how to respond. I mean how do you respond to news like that? I couldn't breathe. I started hallucinating him thinking I saw him on street corners when it really was just someone else. The pain was crippling. I could barely face my job because he used to work there. He had left to focus on school.
Several months later I found out the police didn't think it was a murder-suicide. There was a third person there. I'll never know fully what happened that day and why Mark and that girl had to die.
In May my granddaddy who was living with my family and I went into hospice care. He had leukemia. I wasn't ready to face another loss so soon after my friend Mark. My granddad held on for several more weeks. While he could still talk, he told stories (some we had heard for years growing up and others new). We clung to every word of his, not wanting it to least. We sang his favorite hymns to him. There were family with him always. He kept telling each on of us how much he loved us. Later he was unable to talk and he slept most of the time. My mom had us read a book about the final days and the signs of death in preparation. No matter how much we prepared the blow to my heart wasn't any less. I was at work on June 7 when my mom called me to tell me he was gone. It was the day before my 24th birthday.
During the aftermath of both these losses I was surrounded by so much love and support. People asked me "are you okay?"
It turns out that question brings no comfort even though I know it came from a good place. I just kept saying "I'm never going to be okay again. Not fully."
They finally switched to asking me how I was holding up or how I was doing that particular day. Having people regularly check on me was helpful even though I really just wanted to withdraw and pull away.
Even now I go through weeks where I'm seemingly fine. I'll be joyous and feeling almost like myself. There's always that ache though. An ache that'll never go away. Then one day I'm back there again....flashing back to getting those dreaded calls.
It's still impossible to fathom that they aren't here anymore. They're just....gone. Some days I want to give up but I know there are people counting on me and needing me. I keep going because of them.
