No Words

Dear Friends,
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​A dear friend of mine and I were talking about those emotions I was feeling last week, specifically grief, in the lead up to and after last week’s blog post…her children have long since grown and formed their own families, but she was saying that even years later, she’ll once in a while have waves of grief over the time that her kiddos spent under her roof…missing that time and space even years later.  Another friend told me waves of grief hit her at random, in unexpected times and places, even years after her father passed.  In both conversations we talked about those experiences and feelings, and about the lack of words we have in our language to express those different types of grief.  The grief we experience when our kids have grown and gone is not the same as grief when we lose someone we love, but I think those emotions are all a form of grief, even if they manifest and hit differently.

Perhaps you’re in the middle of the grief of mourning the loss of a loved one.  Maybe it’s the loss of a dear animal.  Maybe it’s an unexpected or even a long anticipated change in your life.  Perhaps it’s a sickness in yourself or someone around you, or a change or shift in abilities.  Maybe it’s the change of a family dynamic or structure…or perhaps it’s something completely different.  

Grief is a universal experience, my friend, with some experiencing it more deeply and more fully than others, but with all of us experiencing grief throughout this life of ours.  I think there are times when we try to dismiss our own emotions because they might not compare to, they might not be “as bad” as the experiences of those around us, but dismissing our feelings does not mean they will go away…those feelings are still in our body even if we dismiss them as less than important.

Grief is a universal experience, but I don’t think we’re meant to walk through our grief alone.  So perhaps, if there happens to be grief in your life that you are walking through during this season, perhaps you might be willing to open up, to talk to those around you, to allow someone else in to walk with you in your grief.  We are not meant to live this life alone, in good times or in bad.

I hope you have an amazing week full of connection and vulnerability, even in the hard.

Love
Krista