I recently wrote to a complete stranger how loss was all your thoughts and emotions smashing together and exploding leaving you broken, unfocused and looking for any distraction not to feel….
It has been weeks since I have written any thoughts or feelings. Hoping to create a sense of normalcy to our lives I bake all the things I have in the past. Feed your feelings, right? Christmas is around the corner and D’s memories fill me and protectively I try to push them away. It’s a fine line between honoring his legacy and the cracks in my heart.
I have been busily filling my time with distractions not wanting to sit with or examine how I am processing the loss 1 year 4 months later. Is is easier? When distracted, yes, when sitting with it, no.
Easy is not the right word to express moving through loss. As I sit my instinct is to avoid and mask the pain. When you shove feeling down for so long it is challenging not to fall back into the pattern.
As the boys and I decorate the tree I share stories around the origin of certain ornaments and I feel joy and sadness in the same moment.
I am stuck between keeping traditions from our many Christmas’s together and creating new ones. The sadness of the boys not having their dad and the joy of how they have grown into such amazing young men.
I am humbled by their ability to show such grace. I learn from them each day.
I instinctively seek out strong male influences for both of them. Aleks very clearly voicing how he misses this connection. Adryan, more reserved, seems to pull away. He struggles with loving and losing.
I am shifting when it comes to my life and what my purpose is. Never had I imagined I would be so focused and intentional with life. The gift of the boys, is D and I came together to have them and my purpose is to support and encourage them as they grow through their live forever changed by the missing piece of their heart. Nothing comes before this and being their role model is a daunting role to fill.
They each process in their own way. Aleks by working hard to fill the void and Adryan by pushing back on everything, trying to find his way.
Our connection is so strong we can identify what is going on with each other and discuss it open and honestly no matter how uncomfortable it is. Not a simple task with 2 teenagers.
We are achieving this through these commitments to each other:
- Say what we feel, no matter how ugly we think it may be
- Be kind to each other in all things
- Say I love you, you can never say it too much
- Share your world
- Go on adventures together
- Call each other on our crap
- Hug and hug some more
- Laugh so much it hurts
- Share secrets
- Take interest in each others lives
- Respond not react
I am moving away, shifting from others expectations, and through the eyes of my boys, carrying the legacy of their Dad, finding the balance between new beginnings and cherishing the memories.
It is a simple task however far from easy.
Blessings and Much Aloha….
Redefining Grief 