Someone once asked me “what does time have to do with grief?”. My response was “absolutely everything”. Our normal lives are run by the clock and by the calendar. To most of us, time is precious. We don’t want to be late for anything. I have always told my children, if you are not five minutes early, you are late.
When we are grieving, our experiences still have so much to do with time.
Time heals all wounds– is a proverb that means that grief and sorrow will fade with time. According to licensed psychologist Heather Lyons, time equates to opportunity. Thus, how someone heals over time depends on how inspired they are to use that opportunity to share their present and future circumstances. It is true that time will change things. The overall intensity of your grief will diminish. In the years following a loss, life will slowly return. However, time does not heal wounds. How you decide to use that time is what will help heal you.
The First Time-these are extra painful days for grievers. I remember the first birthday, the first Christmas, the first vacation, and the most painful for me, the first Father’s Day without Jenelle and Amy. Each first makes us relive our loss and stirs up the intense pain once again. I dreaded each “first” well in advance. I knew the day would be terrible. I could feel the pain growing inside of me ready to escape. Then, the anticipated terrible day arrived, and it was just another day. Every day is terrible when you lose someone you love. Our minds sometimes make us think these “special days” are the worst. But they are just one more day without your loved one.
Does Time Stand still? Even though we are suffering from our loss, the rest of the world is determined to keep going. “How can you be having fun; my daughters are dead? How can you even consider laughing? Don’t you know my two daughters, Jenelle and Amy were killed last week?” It seemed like the rest of the world was totally unaffected by our loss. It was not fair! Unfortunately, as grievers, we need to understand that the world does continue to go on.
It’s Time to Stop Grieving! Unfortunately, others might try to put a “time frame” on your grief. We heard things like “it’s time to move on” or “get over it—you have been grieving for over a month now”. Friends and family are usually very attentive to our needs—up to a certain point. Then, they want us to be back to normal. They liked us so much better—before our loss, because they become uncomfortable being around us while we are grieving. Most people don’t like to dwell on our sorrow and don’t always appreciate the time that it takes us to “readjust our life to our loss”. They don’t understand that we are different people now than we were before our loss. There is never a “back to normal” after a tragic loss. There is just a “new normal” that involves everything you do or say because someone who was a big part of your life for so long, is now gone.
Looking back on time—as grievers, we spend a lot of time looking back to how things were when our loved ones were still alive. If we started to look forward, we would be imagining our lives without them. Most of us are not ready to accept this—at least for a while. Instead, we ask ourselves “what was the last thing I said to them?” or “was there anything else I could have done to prevent them from dying?”. It is much more pleasant to remember the good times, bad times, fun times, and sad times than to look forward and try to imagine our lives without our loved ones.
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This Post is republished on Medium.
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Photo credit: iStock
