Forever Grieving

I’ve been thinking about grief for a few days now. The impact it has had on my life, my choices, my mental health, and my purpose. I’ve thought about how I continue to try and process over and over again, but it continues to remain the same weight of despair as it did after I made it past the shock stage following the death.

The amount of time I’ve spent thinking about it I believe to have been brought on by a conversation with a patient. He shared the pain he continues to feel on Mother’s Day having lost his own mother, as well as the pain he feels the following day due to his brother being kidnapped and murdered the day after Mother's Day.

Everything he shared about his feelings, I,too, feel.

The void, the pain, the frustration and anger.

The lack of control.

There were four deaths that were particularly difficult for me, of which I still have yet to truly process. There has never been time to slow down and sit in that grief to let go. And yet, at the very same time, if I’m being brutally honest, I’m fearful of sitting in it, so I don’t allow myself to make the time.

I lost my “second mom” just 3 months after the loss of a very close friend. I lost my soulmate in July of 2024, while I was in Florida with my eldest for an extremely important surgery he needed to have. I lost my post-high school boyfriend just after going back to college for my sophomore year. I lost aunts and uncles, grandparents, and what can only be described as an absurd amount of friends.

The opioid epidemic took a strong hold of my friends and peers, and at one point, myself as well. I never stepped into the street opioids, but did abuse the painkillers (Vicodin) I was prescribed after my knee surgery sophomore year of high school. Suicide also has been extremely prevalent for our generation and the ones behind us, even more so than I believe it to ever have been in the past. Children and adolescents are showing a higher rate of diagnosis with Anxiety and Depression.

I have too many black dresses, and far too many prayer cards.

I know all of our local Funeral Home owners simply because every year there’s been at least 4-5 funerals/wakes to attend. Every time I walk in and we say hello, they just shake their head empathetically and stress their sympathy to me all over again.

Truth is, grief sneaks up on me at the strangest times. It’s not holidays or birthdays or anniversaries really, though those milestones are painful, it’s the everyday things.

I want to call my “second mom” when I’m struggling with a personal situation, when I’m proud of myself for an action or lack there of, when I need to be called out for my behavior or feelings, and when I just need a break. I want those Sunday dinners back, and Pizza Fridays. I want my kids to experience and remember the back to school ice cream outing (AND clothes shopping), the Halloween mazes, pumpkin carving, and Christmas Eve brunch. I want to hear her voice, because sometimes I just can’t hear it anymore. I want to want my favorite pie from a local bakery, but it’s not the same when it’s not with her.

I want to hear my close friend, tell me “I love you, Little Mama.” I want to go back to the night before he died, and hold his hand, while he took his last breath. I truly hate the fact that he died alone, with a great deal of pain, shame and suffering in his heart.

I want my soulmate to be on the other side of the phone line. I want to hear him talk about his faith, his hope and his progress. I want to be training for another Half Marathon with him. I want to hear him get on his soap box and spit his truth, without a care in the world for whether or not everyone is listening, because it was always worth it if it was even just one person benefitting. I want to hear him tell me I’m beautiful, that he misses me, and mostly that he is so excited to come to Connecticut to visit.

I want Purdue Pharma to be dissolved and sentenced to life in prison because of the tremendous amount of deaths caused by their painkillers, dishonest business practices, and lack of accountability.

I want to go back in time and stop the streets from selling Fentanyl, painkillers, and Heroin. I want everyone on Suboxone and Methadone not to have to remain on it for the rest of their lives.

I want detox and rehabs to be 100% successful 100% of the time. I want people to talk openly about Mental Health, to drop the stigma, and have the entire population of the world feel safe to ask for help, to be provided the help, and for all people to receive the same impeccable treatment regardless of religion, race, gender, age, employment status, housing status, nationality, sexual preferencd etc.

But it doesn’t matter what I want, because reality is quite the opposite. People will continue to die, tragically and unexpectedly, and in so many instances, because of timing.

Wrong place, wrong time.

I will continue to try to process my grief at some point, but the weight is just to heavy to carry and prepare to drop right now. I do hope for myself, and others that are experiencing similar feelings, we eventually find some sort of peace and serenity. Until then, I’ll do my best to use the pain to motivate me to continue helping others. And I will try to find a positive belief system for my relationships in life that isn’t,

“Everyone either leaves or they die.”

Truth is, for now, it’s still the only truth I know for certain. People don’t stay. Everything is temporary.