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The Honor of our Grief

loss anniversary, Holland, MI

The loss anniversary of my Dad’s death

I didn’t realize just how significant a loss anniversary is till this month arrived. I knew on a level anniversaries have meaning but now I really know it.

“Grief calls us to open our heart in hell” according to Stephen Levine who works with the grieving.

For the last couple of weeks, I found myself to be out of sorts, kind of cranky and impatient at times, very sad and more tearful than I have been, and in need at moments of being left alone. A part of me has just wanted to sit someplace and stare.

Finding meaning during a loss anniversary

“Your loved one is in your heart, in your soul, and wrapped intrinsically into who and what you are. You will spend the rest of your life remembering, internalizing, and renegotiating all that this loss means to you in this lifetime,” so says author Ashley Davis Prend; Transcending Loss: Understanding the Lifelong Impact of Grief and How to Make it Meaningful.

The night before the anniversary of my dad’s death, I was taken-a-back a moment at the dinner table when I looked at my sister, mom and Uncle and painfully realized that my dad was missing. It didn’t seem right. It took my breath away. A part of me had been waiting for him to come back home.

I don’t recall having had that kind of recognition so keenly before. Our bodies have such a wonderful way of providing a numbing anesthesia at the onset of a loss which gradually subsides as time marches forward.

During a loss anniversary grief unfolds

Thank goodness this is a gradual unfolding process for if not we would be paralyzed by that fiery hell of pain. It is hard to believe a whole year has passed and in the very same breath time has stood rather still.

I know my grief is far from over and I won’t ever have that work finished. Our grief is a way we honor the relationship we have had with the person we have lost along side honoring our own selves and our feelings and needs.

I write in a journal which has been a helpful tool for me for years. It helps not only to write but to look back on what I’ve written.

My pain last fall was raw and new. Since then it has become more familiar. This loss will be with me forever and is what I will be working to integrate into who I am. I will be learning more of what this loss means to and for me as my life moves forward.

Grief is definitely work!

A loss anniversary is an opportunities to pause, to honor and to work on our grief yet more.

What are you learning in your grief work?.

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Grief Therapy can help work through the pain of loss anniversaries.

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