I Am Not Stronger Than You

It’s interesting to me that so many people think that I am so strong.  In my lifetime when I have suffered a loss, whether it was my grandma, my brother, my pets………..they have thought that I just bounce back so well.  It’s really not the case.  I am just as fragile as the next person.  When I suffer a loss my heart hurts just as deeply.  I sob, I cry incredible, ugly tears.  I have just never had the opportunity to “stop life” and openly suffer.  I have always had life to continue with.  My suffering has mostly been when I am by myself. 
 
I never stop hurting from the loss.  I loved my brother, my grandma and everyone of my pets.  When I have a glass of wine I always “cheers” my brother’s raku fish that I was going to give him for his birthday….but he died 3 days prior.  I look at my daughter and I think of my grandma.  And often, out of the blue, I will shed tears for them.  I miss them.  My heart breaks for their loss.  The other day I was sitting on my floor by a piece of exercise equipment that my kitty Akua loved to scratch the handles. I spied the scratches and I sat there and bawled like a baby.  I scroll through photos and I see pictures of my other kitties or my mom’s dog Luna that I didn’t get to say goodbye to and I start to cry. 
 
I am not stronger than anyone else.  I do not feel less pain than anyone else.  I do not bounce back quicker than anyone else.  I just do not share my pain with others.  I have been by myself for a very long time and I have learned that I must continue on.  My pain must not take over my life because I have to keep going.  I also know that they want me to keep going.  They are with me when I mourn them. And I mourn them all at some point each day.  The degree is different each time.  I have no expectations of my grief.  I know that it can be a brief moment, a thought or it can be a tsunami wave………….but none of it can or should stop my life.  And often, my mourning and honoring of them is a smile, a laugh, a wonderful memory. 
 
Don’t think I have a magic trick to mourning.  I hate it, but I love it at the same time.  It gives me the opportunity to think of them, to honor them, to be so very glad that I loved them.  And if you know me, you know that I also know that they visit me often.  There is peace to be found……..they are still here, just differently.