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coping with loss
For country artist Jessica Mitchell, music has always been an outlet.
The vet prepared the needle that would put Lily to rest. She gave Lily the needle and to everyone's astonishment, Lily got up and walked towards my husband. The vet has only seen this happen one other time in her 26 years as a vet. So she turned to my husband and said, "You have to tell her that it is time to go. She doesn't want to leave you so you have to tell her that it's ok."
The past 11 and a half years have taught me more than my life PM (pre-mommy). I have learnt to nurture and raise my children without my own mother to come care for us when we're sick, watch the kids if we want to go out, or simply call to ask the most mundane of parenting question.
When I lost someone two years ago, I felt like I was in an altered state of consciousness, swimming through a thick soup of paralyzing emotions, with no idea how long it would last. These four strategies are super simple and enormously helpful, and I want to share them with you.
Not knowing how to handle the subject of death and grief, people around us thought it best to never talk about it. They wanted to spare us from more pain and prevent the stirring of feelings. Family pictures were put away, my mother's and sisters' personal items were cleared out of our house and we were expected to move on and reconstruct our world as if nothing had happened.
Early one bright sunny morning a year and a half ago, my wife died of cancer. For hours I held her pills in my hand, convincing myself that I had no reason to live. I've never had cancer but I'm a cancer survivor, nonetheless -- and there's good reason for that.
What started as a regular holiday season for me ended up being the worst time of my life. After nearly three days of not knowing where my daughter's plane was and whether or not she was alive, I found out, on Christmas Day, that she had in fact, died.
They say that death ends the person, but not the relationship. Though I of course think of him on Father's Day, with every passing year, I continue to learn more about my Dad, by learning more about myself.
