reflectionplace

Many people who have lost a loved one discover that anniversaries, birthdays and holidays can be triggers for grief. I have found this to be very true as we have tried to navigate through life without our daughter. Special dates on the calendar often fill me with dread and intensify my emotional turmoil; her absence is all the more noticeable on those days.

What I wasn’t prepared for was the unexpected triggers. I was caught off guard by the overwhelming emotion that can accompany simple reminders of Kayln. I found myself crying in the grocery store where we always shopped with her – I felt silly but I couldn’t help it. One day I glanced out the window and saw a car go by that looked like hers, and I actually thought it was her driving by for a moment. Then of course I realized it couldn’t be her, and that painful reality hit me all over again.

Now I know that it is normal to experience these triggers. The next time I catch a glimpse of a young blonde girl and momentarily think it is her, I will know that I am not going crazy. I understand now that it is simply a natural response to a reminder of my daughter, and a common reality of the grief experience.

Time is often given credit as a healer, but in fact time is a neutral party. Time alone cannot heal a deep wound; treatment is required for healing to take place. A significant loss causes a wound to the soul, and the resulting grief will not improve without the right treatment plan. The plan must be customized for each person. Treatment can include counseling, support groups, prayer, journaling, reading, exercise, rest, and many other therapeutic activities. If you are grieving, please do not wait for your pain to get better on its own, because the passage of time is not the cure. Instead, seek out a treatment plan to assist you in the healing process.

Most days, I am in conflict. I wish my daughter was still here, but I would never want her to continue to suffer like she did. Reminders of Kayln are often too painful to bear, yet I desperately need to hold on to her belongings. I need to let my emotions out through tears, but I try so hard to avoid crying. I want to talk about Kayln, but I find it too difficult to do so.

These are just a few of the ways I have found grief to be a paradox. Being aware of these contradictions helps me to understand the complexity of the grief process. Awareness then helps me assess if I am processing my grief in a healthy way. This brought me to the realization that in my conflict, I tend to do the opposite of what I should do. I force myself to act “normal”, to shut off the emotions and thoughts until I am alone. Or I keep busy so I don’t have time to think about it.

The more I understand and learn about grief, the more I realize I need to be patient with myself. I need time to reflect on the profound nature of our loss. Every time I look at a picture of Kayln, I long to talk to her one more time, to hear her laugh, to see her smile. I miss her presence in our home. Living without Kayln is very difficult, and being conflicted is an unavoidable part of adjusting to life without her.

As I have walked through the grief process, my expectations for healing and recovery have changed over time. In the beginning I imagined that being healed from grief meant I would one day be free from the pain. After all, if grief is considered a process, doesn’t that imply that there is a beginning, middle and end to grief?

In reality, my experience with grief has been much more complicated. Losing our daughter so suddenly left us in a state of shock for several months. During that time, all of the emotions I thought I would feel were overshadowed by emptiness – a vast and unending emptiness. As the shock gradually wore off and the reality of her absence set in, we were really just beginning to work through the pain.

Life will never be the same without Kayln, and missing her is part of my new reality. Instead of looking to put the pain behind me, though, I am learning to be at peace even in the midst of pain. I am working to discover what my new normal will be as I continue on this path toward healing.

One element of grief I have wrestled with is guilt. After losing our daughter, I spent a lot of time blaming myself.  I agonized over every decision we made, wondering what we could have done to change the outcome.  If only I had taken Kayln to just one more specialist, I thought, maybe her condition would have been discovered.

My self-blame was challenged in our grief class by the discussion of true guilt verses false guilt. True guilt comes as a result of my wrong actions. If I had done something to cause her death, that would be a source of true guilt. False guilt is when I take responsibility that doesn’t belong to me. Over time I realized that I was suffering from false guilt, because I know that we tried everything in our power to help her.

One Bible verse that has helped me with this false guilt states that God alone determines the length of our lives:  “You saw me before I was born. Every day of my life was recorded in your book. Every moment was laid out before a single day had passed” (Psalm 139:16, NLT).

Zig Ziglar said it this way, “God knows the exact time we will die. There’s nothing you can do to extend your lifespan one-tenth of a second”.  Grieving people need to let go of guilt that does not belong to them. Carrying the blame for a loved one’s death is an unnecessary burden that hinders our healing from grief.