Talking about grief (Part 2)

Talking about grief (Part 2)

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Moving forward

What does ' moving forward' look and feel like? Moving forward is not moving on! There is no moving on from grief and it is a phrase that indicates to me that that we have to leave our grief in the past to be able to continue our lives and from my experience this is not the case.

Moving forward I feel is a much gentler phrase to use as it means that life moves forward with our grief, our love and our memories. Moving forward looks very different for everyone one but I would like to share what moving forward has and will look like for me and I hope it may give some comfort to those also living with grief.

Nature

Connor absolutely loved being outside. He loved all the colours, sights and sounds. Connor particularly loved trees and looking through the branches so I find myself doing that more often now too. Being out in nature has been something that has really grounded me and has made me live in the moment like Connor did.

The power of a walk in nature is incredible and has helped get me out of a very dark place. I am very lucky to have a very special friend who walks with me and both of us and her dog go to some lovely places twice a week after work but I also at times take myself off for a walk which helps me think and reflect but also helps me switch off and just take in my surroundings.

Sitting on Connor's memorial benches at Anton Lakes and Newbury is also great for me because I get to spend some precious time in places that he loved. Visiting places we know our loved one enjoyed going to is not holding us back , it is honouring their memory and I feel this helps towards healing.

Talking

Talking about Connor is still my favourite subject and keeps his memory alive. At the beginning when we lose someone the focus will be entirely on why and how that person died rather than who that person was before they died. The conversations I was having about Connor was about the injustice surrounding his death and how difficult life is without him.

As time has gone by, the conversations I am having have shifted and I am now focusing more on who Connor was in the 24 years I was blessed to have him in my life. Connor's death was traumatic and to be honest still something I do not understand or accept but Connor's life cannot be all about his last couple of days.

Connor was much more than that. He lived a life that is so worth sharing and talking about. Connor without all the airs and graces, college degrees, material items or financial success was an inspiration just by being who he was in the most innocent of ways.

We live in such a success, money and status driven world that we forget to appreciate the simple, free and abundance of natural beauty in this world that Connor stopped and looked at every single day. I truly believe that what Connor taught me when he was alive feels even stronger now because I am taking more notice of who and what is around me and appreciating the simple things in life, what a gift he left me.

Sitting with Grief

Sitting with our grief is quite a powerful thing as it is about accepting where we are with in our grief and letting sit with us for a while. Reading or listening to my blogs you may feel that I have moved forward and I am doing pretty well but I will be honest with you I do have days where I come crashing down.

Grief is with me everyday and some days it hits me head on and when it does I just have to sit with it. At my lowest of times I take myself to places I know Connor loved to go and I find the beauty in sitting on a bench, usually one of his memorial benches and think about Connor.

Sadly times like these will bring back his last few days but when I am walking and sitting in the places he enjoyed the most, it helps me think about just how delightful he was and that makes me smile.

Finding meaning

I am a reader but also I love listening to meaningful and educational podcasts. I was looking through YouTube to find some sort of support to help me with how I was feeling. I came across a Mel Robbins podcast and her guest on her show was the renowned grief expert, David Kessler.

As I started to watch and listen he drew me in because here is a man, not only an expert in his field but he has experienced traumatic grief in his own life which includes his son, David who died at the age of 21. When I saw the title of his book, finding meaning my first thoughts were, there is no meaning to why or how Connor has died but David is not saying that. He is not saying that there is meaning to the death of a loved one but it is finding the meaning to live on.

I have mentioned in my other blogs that I have struggled with the fact that I am still here to tell Connor's story and I needed to find the meaning of that, why I am still functioning and doing the things I am doing after losing Connor. When David was asked by Mel how did he find the meaning after losing his Son, he simply said " I understand that freedom is found in reality and I have to live in reality. He goes on to say that " grief rips us off the road we were on and puts us on a new road, a road we don't know how to travel down just yet".

David Kessler explains in his book that acceptance is not enough and for him he needed to find more and I can resonate with that because there is more to Connor than his death and I am in discovering what that means for me going forward.

More Love than Pain

There is so much pain losing a loved one, it hurts like nothing else so how do we find more love than pain. It takes time and we find it only when we are ready to do so. For me Connor himself was all about Love and I cannot allow that part of him die with him. I have said before that if we love someone so very much then we are going to hurt so very much.

The pain I felt when Connor died was pain that showed me just how much I LOVE him, I use present tense rather than past because my love for Connor has not died. I truly believe because I love Connor very much is the very reason I am able to move on in a life with Connor physically not in it.

I also wish to continue the love he had in abundance for people and life. I feel I am honouring Connor and who he was by now feeling more love than pain.

This is really difficult to explain to people who may not understand my positivity after such a loss but the only way I can explain it is if I was to be stuck in my pain then what good would that do not only for me but for Connor and the legacy he left?

Thank you for reading or listening. In my upcoming posts I will go into more of what has helped me move through my grief to find a little bit of hope and light starting with the power of music.