GRIEF: The List: Healing your grief two minutes at a time #53

Hello, Beautiful Person!  Welcome back to “Healing Your Grief Two Minutes at a Time”.

This week we are getting down and dirty with our grief work.  Some weeks are lighter assignments.  This will not be one of them… but the payoff will be worth it.

It was my birthday this week!  🙂  It was filled with lots of fun festivities and celebrations but my grieving heart still found me through the bustle of the chaotic fun.  I found myself wishing my parents were still here to celebrate alongside me, to be a part of our family birthday brunch and to tell me my favorite stories of the day I was born.  So it got me thinking,

We need to stop and grieve what never was or what will never be again.

I know this sounds pretty depressing at first but hear me out. This past year, we have addressed our grief in how we miss the characteristics of our loved ones and how we miss the ways they have contributed to our life.  But a huge component of grief is accepting the heartbreaking reality that the events we hoped for in the future do not have the capability of coming into existence anymore.   I had so many of these thoughts floating around my head this week that it made me crazy.  So I thought, this must be what we’re supposed to do this week.  We are going to write a list of the things that never were and the things that will never be.

We are not just going to write the list, we are going to take time to think about each entry, honor it and truly grieve it so it no longer owns us.

As we allow our hearts to feel and mourn these experiences, we will begin to find healing and closure.  Most importantly, we have a list. Even better yet, we have a COMPLETED list.  We have brought our thoughts into physical form and have taken them out of our heads so they can no longer control our minds and muck up our brains.  This has been heavy on heart this week so I decided I would do my list alongside of you.  So here it goes.

THE THINGS THAT NEVER WERE OR WILL NEVER BE AGAIN:

1)  After moving to the opposite end of the state to raise my children with my mom, we will never be able to have that day-to-day interaction with her I was hoping to have for my children prior to our move.

2) My kids will never have their grandparents (from my side) at Grandparent’s Day at school or be picked up from school by Grandma or Grandpa.

3)  I don’t get to “really” attend a Mother/Daughter tea as the daughter again.

4) FREE BABYSITTING!

5) As Carole King sings, “it would be so fine to see her face at my door.”

And of course, we tell ourselves it’s OK… and it is OK because it has to be because they are no longer here. But that’s not what this exercise is about this week.  This week, we have to be brave enough to let it not be OK, at least while we’re working on our lists. Making everything OK doesn’t heal the wound.  It doesn’t help us move forward.  It is in our most vulnerable places that we find the greatest healing.  We must bring our thoughts into physical form, get them out of our heads and honor them before we will heal from them.

As my mom would always say, “Man plans and God laughs.”  God knows what he is doing with us.  It’s never his plan that doesn’t happen, it’s ours.  So this week, let’s make peace with our plans so we can let God get on with his.

We look forward to healing with you.  Be sure to share your list in the comments down below.

Love and Blessings,

Erin