Grief

 

As some of you will know, we lost my mother to cancer October 2012.

 

Since then we have all grieved and continue to grieve heavily.

 

I saw this photo on my Facebook newsfeed and it had a huge impact on me. For the 22 months since my mums death, I have heard from many people that 'grief only lasts 2 years'. As much as I struggled to believe this, I wanted it to be true more than anything as there isn't a worse feeling than grief.  

 

Almost 2 years on, and I'm still grieving almost as hard as I was the week of my mothers death.

 

There have been times where I have wanted to scream at professionals/friends/colleagues, that they have no idea how long grief lasts because they haven't yet lost either of their parents and they certainly haven't lost them at such a young age.

 

As much time as we had to prepare for the death of my mother, it had no effect on how hard we grieve. Nobody has more or less right to grieve on any reasoning. Yes I knew my mum was going to die, we all do, but we still didn't knew when and it still effects us in the same way as anybody else's grief.

 

 

 

 

Coming across this image made me realise that there are other people out there who have lost somebody very close to them and realise that grief never goes away.

 

All these people who told me their view on the time scale of grief openly admitted to me that their parents were still alive and the closest person they'd lost were distant relatives or loose friends. As much as they would still have grieved for them, it may not have been as prolonged as the grief they will some day feel for the loss of their parents. They've read it in a textbook and a textbook can teach you very little about what grief feels like and nothing about the time scale of grief.

 

 

 

The image came with this quotation;

"No rule book. No time frame. No judgement. Grief is as individual as a fingerprint. Do what is right for your soul".

 

 

 

 

 

 

The grief when losing somebody close to you, will probably never go away. Don't let others who may or may not have experienced this grief tell you how to do it or how long you should do it for.