Grief the Great Destroyer

 Grief the Great Destroyer

 

I believe through experience I have learned that grief could be one of the most powerful and destructive emotions. Grief is so complicated and takes us on a journey through every imaginable emotion. It insights anger, fear, carelessness, depression, hatred, sadness, and confusion just to name a few.

It can take a terrible tole on an otherwise strong family, sending everyone in different directions looking for some way to deal with the pain. Now compound that  feeling several times when a family loses eight people in about a year and a half. So many tragedies back to back and no answers on how to move forward because just when you think you are making progress someone else dies.

This is a scenario that is real to me because it has happened in my family. What once was a family filled with joy and happiness has dwindled to a family of stress and confusion with everyone dealing in their own way and no real progress just good cover ups.

Struggling to deal with everyday life when somewhere buried in our heads there is emptiness and feeling of loss so great that it ends up affecting our decision making and our bond as a family. Everyone thinking that nobody else really knows how they feel because everyone feels just a little different.

Stepping back just for a second you can see the pain and the hurt in someone else’s eyes and want so badly to help but how do you help when you yourself can’t quite figure out how to deal with it.

You can see what others can’t see and they can see about you things you are unable to see but as a family unit you have fallen apart. Sometimes just because you don’t want to burden anyone else with your issues knowing they have their own to deal with and other times just because you don’t think they get it.

Reality has changed and for each of the family members there is a sense of destructive behavior just at the brink waiting to take them down. After all why care about anything when nothing seems to matter except the horrible events that won’t go away.

An outsider looking into this can see much more and it saddens them to see what once was the family to be and now is the family that once was. How do you put back something that was stripped away in a split second and without notice taken to a faraway place? How do you put back the peace and happiness and strength that was stolen from this family and begin forming that bond again?

No matter how much love you have for one another there has been so much loss that the love seems to be sitting on the back shelf. One step forward and ten steps back seems to be the moves being made. With so many unanswered questions and a loss of answers will things ever be even close to what was.

To everyone who has ever had a loss in their lives I hope that someday you will be able to reach out to each other and hang on to what you still have and learn to let go of the pain to remember all the good memories and fun times you had with those who are no longer here. I hope that those bonds that once got you through the tough times begin to form again and the loneliness that you feel will be filled with all the love that still surrounds you. God bless those in troubled times.