Capture Your Grief Day 18: The Grief Shift

There is not one day when your grief magically shifts from heavy and unbearable to light and manageable. It just doesn't happen. Grief shifts back and forth whenever it pleases, and pays no attention to the things you want. You could pay your grief a million dollars to do what you wanted, and it would simply take your money and run. Grief is a dirty, sneaky player in the game of life.

People say that it gets easier, but that's not entirely true. Living without your baby doesn't get easier, we just get stronger. We learn to live within our grief, learn to carry it in everything we do. The grief becomes a natural part of us that we'd rather not have on our backs, but it latches on and never lets go. Some days the grief is light, some days it is heavy, but it is always there.

I wish I could tell you that one day the grief will shift, and that its weight will be less of a burden from that day forward, but I can't. I can tell you, however, that your grief will continue to shift back and forth and back and forth. It will wear you out and occasionally smash you to a pulp. But you will learn to appreciate the good days, and you will learn to manage the bad ones. 

On the days you wake up with grief already clinging onto you, just take a deep breath, and know that you can get through it. You have done it many days before, and you can do it again.