Grief’s Expiration Date

When have pain and suffering gone on too long? At what point should you pull the plug on your agony of loss for the sake of those sharing your journey? Or should you just tamper down your grief to make it more palatable for those who have the freedom to move on, so they don’t feel discomfort in the presence of your echoing hollow soul?

Grief evolves certainly. Given time, the initial raw pain and shock mellow out to background noise that changes volume both daily and throughout the year. With seven years of living without my daughter Jessica, she isn’t ever present on the surface of my mind now as she most certainly was in the earlier years. During grief “toddler” time, my brain constantly multi-tasked between whatever I had to do in the moment and the constant litany of pain, loss, confusion, and simply missing my child and wondering why, why, why, and who she would be had she had more years.

Now, I can single-mindedly focus more on the tasks at hand though when my mind is free and hands are busy, I still roam the hallways of death. Very occasionally, I make it to bedtime and realize I haven’t thought about Jessica, so I send her love and blessings and thank whatever Beings are in control that I’m no longer chained to the trauma of learning Jess is gone and adjusting to the chasms left behind in my life.

But the subconscious mind can be underestimated in its power. Coming up to Jessie’s birthday (June 16) and her death day (Nov. 10), I can’t trust my moods or emotions. Watch out, World! I think I’m doing just fine, and then I burst into tears or anger over something small or seemingly insignificant. I now realize that while the visible portion of the grief sildenafil india wholesale Here’s what every man needs to know. Regardless, exposures do show that it might be particularly convincing in treating particular sorts of ED, case in point, ED happening in perspective of prostate surgery. cheap cialis why not try these out The medicine must be online viagra appalachianmagazine.com eaten with water an hour before the sexual session is started. This range of scopes weigh around 27.8 hop over to here cialis uk ounces. glacier has adapted, the nine-tenths below the surface can still churn and cause mayhem. And you know what? That’s OK. The world can cope because I certainly wasn’t given a choice at the smorgasbord of life: “Yes, I’ll have three pieces of bliss, two slices of joy, six nuggets of fun, and then a large helping of peace, please.” Hardly. So, it is what it is. And that’s perhaps the biggest lesson of my life—that you can’t control most of what happens, and even your reactions are often involuntary. I look back in embarrassment and cringing at some of my behavior, not because I’ve been awful or immoral or even that mean, but because my words were said with a “feck you” attitude, or I just couldn’t care too much in the moment to conform to society’s protocols or norms. But again, it is what it is. Perhaps, the ultimate answer to the mystery of why we are all here is simply to practice adaptation and flexibility when life continues to throw curveballs, and then when those balls are aimed at someone else, to use what we’ve learned to be compassionate, supportive, and empathetic to others in their suffering.

So, will I throw out my grief like soured milk or moldy bread now that my daughter has been gone for nearly eight years? Nope, I don’t think so. She deserves better. I deserve better. I will always be her mother. She will always be my Jessie Bear. I can’t help talking about Jessica, my beautiful, bright girl who would be 33 years old today. I still long to hear her name spoken and stories of her crazy antics shared. I still listen, ears perked, for her voice, the echo that sounds in my heart. I still hurt when others appear to have “gotten over” her death while I feel at times that I’m still dripping heart blood. I know that the world is weaker and less beautiful without Jessie’s craziness and caring and intelligence making us laugh and think and question. Who would she be now? I can’t help but wonder. For that matter, who would I be without this devastating loss? Questions without answers. I can’t stop them coming, but I now refrain from chasing them down rabbit holes of despair—except perhaps on two days a year when I simply ask for space and grace to honor what was and is no more but will always be for this mother and child.

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