So, here's the deal. I'm not a poet, In fact, I typically avoid writing poetry, but I woke up with these words in my head and I had to write them down. That was a couple weeks ago, and I've hesitated to post it because I was afraid how it would be seen.
Not because I'm afraid people won't like it, I don't really care what people think regarding my poetry skills; I'm amateur at best. But I was afraid to post it because it gives the impression of sadness and while there is a sadness in grief, over the past year I've also learned the beauty in grief.
I miss my parents, and that's a good thing. I want to be missed when I'm gone as well. But the emotion of grief has also taught me so much this past year. It's so much more complex than I ever thought it was before. I used to think that grief was just being sad, but I have learned that it's not just that. I'm not even sure that they are sort of the same thing.
I think that grief is the bridge that helps us cross over from sadness to moving on.
In my psychology classes over the years, I learned about the stages of grief, and we can categorize them if you want, but it doesn't really work like that for every person. If I had to define my grief, I would say that it is memories. Little memories and big ones too. When they come, especially through everyday little things, I've started to record them because I want to always be able to remember those things.
For example, at a fireside Sunday the speaker talked about the old church primary song, "Little Purple Pansies" and I realized that the song I thought my mom had made up (She had a knack for making up silly songs) was real. Whenever she saw Pansies - and most especially in the fall and winter time- she would sing that pansie song. I wrote that down to remember her and the pansie faces she loved.
I have a knack for getting paper cuts, the hazards of a lot of filing at work, and for some reason, I seem to get paper cuts in groups and usually just on one hand at a time. This last week, my right hand was all bandaged up with cuts when I got another cut. I shook my head at my own clumsiness and in that moment I thought of my dad, who when I was little would tease me about always injuring one side of me. One time when I stepped on a upturned nail, he pulled it out of my foot and while I cried, he comforted me by saying, "well, at least it wasn't on the side with all your other injuries!" Which made me giggle and forget some of the pain I was in.
I think those memories are grief. They are at times tinged with sadness, but most often than not, they bring a peace that lets me know that everything is okay.
But as my poem says, there are days that the grief comes hard and fast and not in slow and trickling memories.I've learned to appreciate those days as well because they are human days that we have to have in order to get stronger.
Grief doesn't go away in just those well defined stages-grief stays with you and turns you into something more. It turns you into the person that those lost loved ones know you truly are-who they see you as. And that is why it is so important. And so, as you read this poem, remember, it's not in sadness that it was written, but in growth and in grief.
And don't forget:
