The Chain is Broken/Grief

Grief is. It lives. It It arrives at your door expectedly and unexpectedly and there is no way to stop every human being from experiencing it.

Grief has stages or so I am told. These stages range, in no particular order, from denial to acceptance. Their purpose is to take you to a place where your grief becomes dormant, but dormant does not mean dead.  You will awaken from that deep sleep and the reality of grief will take you back to when the death event occurred. Grief rises like a phoenix from the ashes and falls on you like a ton of bricks.

Imagine life as a continuous chain with many links. Each link represents a person; a family member, a friend, even an “enemy”. When a death occurs, that chain breaks and there is now an empty space where that connecting link once occupied. That space can only be filled with memories, but memories will never completely fill that space either. Some memories will bring a smile to your face for a moment in time and some memories will bring that deep sadness. It exacerbates the knowledge that a part of you left this world when that death event occurred.

Memories ease the pain. Memories null the pain. Memories dull the pain. But the pain never goes away. Even though it cannot be completely repaired, the act of grieving is an attempt to fix the link.

So grieve. Hug the happy memories and keep them close. But search as you may, the chain, once broken, will never be complete again.