Grief is one those things that you kinda know would happen sometime in your lifetime but you always assume that it won’t happen until you’re in your twilight years. That’s really silly! I should know because I thought that and then at age 16 my grandmother died and I didn’t think things could get any worse.

Grief

Fast forward to my mid-30s and my marriage ended. Fast forward to nearing the end of my 30s, last year to be precise and my aunt died a month after being diagnosed with cancer. Swiftly followed by her sister less than 6 months later, who also died from cancer and my mother.

The previous losses don’t really prepare me for the kind of loss, pain, and grief that you go through when you lose your mother. There are moments in the beginning when you think it’s all some kind of joke. Or when you first wake in the morning and for a second you forgot, then it comes rushing back to you and hits like a ton of bricks.

The Pain

The pain is sometimes unbearable and then you somehow make it through the day, then the funeral, then before you know it, 2 months have passed by. You think of her every single day and then you have to deal with the firsts. The first mother’s day. The first birthday. The first Christmas. I’ve had 2 so far and all I can say is you just need to keep breathing.

Comforting Words

You keep breathing although there’s a hole in your heart. You keep breathing through insomnia, the tears, and the loneliness. The only words of comfort I can give you is that no one is walking in your shoes. No one gets to tell you how to grieve, or how long you can grieve for. As much as I find this annoying, it is a process that’s all your own.

My mother died on the 23rd February 2018 and my life will forever be changed.