How to cope with grief

Grief comes in waves you’re not sure you should dive towards or run from.

Waves that retreat momentarily, allowing your mind to wander, to dream, your heart to breathe just a little, until another wave crashes upon you.

Soon, you’re not sure if the water is around you, or within you, or both.

Where you end and the water begins becomes blurry.

Your heart feels alive and thumping and as if it’s falling apart at the same time.

Grief and love merge, inseparably.

One moment you’re sure its grief, and yet it arrives only to remind you of how deeply you loved.
The next moment you’re sure its love, and yet it reminds you only of how deeply you’re grieving, again.

If it weren’t for your body you’re sure you’d melt into the ground, never to be seen again, sometimes wishing the floor would invite you to.

Grief takes up living in your heart-space, and then invites itself into every other part of your body and life without your permission.

We are shown how deeply we love through undulating grief, that is commensurate to how much we loved that special spirit.

At times your prayer is that you loved a little less, so that you may heal a little more.

Yet how brilliantly we were gifted, to have someone there that made each day feel less alone, each celebration a little more special because they were there, and each moment of our lives a little more meaningful because they were there to see it.