Founder's Insight
I started grieving young. Before I was ten, I'd already lost family members and people I loved. When I look back, I feel like I've been grieving for most of my life.
Some losses came after years of knowing it might happen. Others were so shocking I could barely breathe. One of the most important people in my life was killed when an excavator struck him in the chest, in the prime of his life. The shock triggered my PTSD, and it took me years to recover. Just weeks after his death, I was pregnant, carrying new life while barely knowing how to process the loss. I've often wondered how much of that grief my son carried with me.
I've also lost loved ones to murder. My grandfather was murdered, and years later, my boys lost their grandfather to murder too. Watching your children live through such a shocking loss is its own kind of pain.
I've grieved the end of marriages, miscarriages, friendships, loves, businesses and lives I had to accept were no longer mine. I've grieved giving up the things I used to numb myself, and versions of me that got through more than I knew how to feel at the time. I'm still grieving some of those parts of myself now.
My mum was sick for so long that I spent decades, thinking she might die. She had been pronounced dead twice before she eventually chose to end her life through assisted dying. I thought I'd already grieved so much of losing her. I thought her passing would bring relief, for her and for me. But when I watched her die, the grief still overwhelmed me. It triggered my PTSD again. No amount of bracing can prepare you for watching a parent die.
I'm grieving my dad while he's still here. He has Alzheimer's and dementia, and I miss the man I've known my whole life while I'm sitting right beside him. It's incredibly painful. It's hard to explain that kind of loss until you've lived it.
Feeling grief has always been the hardest part for me. My instinct was to run from it. When the feelings became too much, my body would shut down, a way of protecting me that began in childhood. Since getting sober, I've had to face losses without the things I once used to escape them. Especially the shocking ones. I'm learning to stay with feelings I spent years trying not to feel.
Grief is the price we pay for love, but knowing that doesn't make it hurt any less. I'm grateful I got to love the people I've lost. I wish I'd had more time with them. I'll always miss them. And I'm becoming a little more patient with myself when someone passes now, as it seems to happen annually with me. I can miss them, have days when it feels unbearable, and keep building a life I want to be here for.
