Before I knew grief I thought there was a way to do it. You cry for a little while, feel sad, maybe scream and break some things, and then one day you wake up and you're over it. How naive I was. Grief isn't something you get over. It's something you absorb. A piece of you becomes grief and here's the funny part, you never want it to leave. Deep grief can only exist where there was deep love so each day you welcome the grief because it reminds you of how much love you have. The deal with grief is you are allowed to do it how ever you want to. Whatever makes you feel better, do it! This is no one else's concern. Each of us is very different and grief affects us in so many unique ways. Don't let anyone tell you any different. Some days it is enough to just inhale and exhale. You don't have to hold it all together. You don't have to do anything, but live. Every single shaky breath you take is beautiful because you are choosing to live, to share yourself, through the pain and suffering, with the world. That is the most beautiful gift you can give. You keep on living, but you decide what that looks like.
"No person has the right to condemn you on how you repair your heart or how long you choose to grieve, because no one knows how much you're hurting."
Want to cry your eyes out and look at pictures all day? Do it. Want to hang out with your friends and laugh and dance? Do it. Want to leave your baby's room exactly the way it was? Leave it. Want to pack everything away because it hurts too much to look at? Pack it.
You are allowed to feel confused and ask questions. You are allowed to scream at God and ask Him why. You are allowed to sob until your chest hurts and lay in bed staring out the window. You are allowed to hold his blanket or her lovey (heck take them with you wherever you go if you want.) You know what else you are allowed to do? Laugh! You are allowed to enjoy life and it doesn't mean you aren't still grieving. It just means you are choosing joy in the midst of deep pain.
Is it hard for you to talk to people? Is your patience short and your empathy at an all time low? That's ok too.
Some people keep an entire room full of memories and some hold on to a single photo. Some choose to grieve out loud and others do it privately. Some people don't want to talk about their pain while others would love to talk about it for hours.
You may question everything and think "did I say his name enough today?" "Have I cried yet? Is it ok if I don't?" "Am I allowed to laugh today? Will people think I'm weird or that I didn't love him enough?" I laughed at my son's funeral and talked to a lot of people because that's just how I chose to feel that day. I wanted some joy in my life. I also sobbed my eyes out and secluded myself. My biggest tip to you is feel however you are feeling. Period. We were given human emotions and feelings for a reason. Don't try to ignore them.
Just know that no matter how you are grieving, you are never doing it alone. Though we may outwardly show grief in different ways, we all feel it inside. That deep gnawing pain that feels heavy and empty at the same time. That longing for everything we lost. That feeling of intense separation between being in the before and the after. Grief is hard enough on it's own. Let's not complicate it by trying to do it the "right way." Grief takes it's own time in each of us and changes like the seasons, but we will all meet up at the end where we realize that we are lucky to have had something so beautiful to grieve at all.
"The reality is that you will grieve forever. You will not 'get over' the loss of a loved one; you will learn to live with it. You will heal and you will rebuild yourself around the loss you have suffered. You will be whole again but you will never be the same. Nor should you be the same nor would you want to." -Elisabeth Kubler-Ross