As the new year dawns, I want you to know that my grief isn’t the only thing I have felt in 2023. It has been a powerful force in my life but has allowed me to understand my joy and love better by contrast. It has been something that I have adjusted to and worked through, around, and in partnership with. This grief has been humbling and deep but at no point did I feel like I couldn’t get off the floor, I just didn’t know when I would.
This year has been more firsts and some seconds, things I wish I could have experienced with my mother in my corner: a job change, more holidays, travels, and success that I would have shared with a mid-day call. But in those moments, I found not only my weaknesses but my strengths.
I have found ways to smile at things my mother and father would have loved, laughed at or joined in on. This grief has allowed me to relive some of our best moments. It has allowed me to find peace in the lessons that they taught me.
It isn’t perfect and feels uncomfortable in my chest most days, but the discomfort isn’t the only thing I feel. I can feel the love that I still have for them as I say goodnight and turn out my light. I can feel their personalities in mine, reminding me who I came from, what they were made of and how that built me.
This grief has changed me and sometimes it overwhelms me but it can’t break me. I can spend as long as I need on the floor of this grief because I know that my parents want me to stand back up again. There is a power in moving through this slowly. There is a bravery in making sure that these feelings are felt. It would be nothing to simply move on — compartmentalize this portion of my life and keep going. But I am moving through the layers of the love I lost.
It isn’t perfect and thank goodness it isn’t. Mourning isn’t about timing it’s about change. Grief leads you to the new person you will become. It leads you to where the love of lost becomes a comfort something you rely on when you need it most. Grief leads you to the person that you need to be and you can’t rush that.
So as the new year dawns, I know what comes with me into 2024. I know what I carry and its heavy but not unbearable. It’s the perfect mixture what I lost and what I need remember to move forward.
As the new year dawns I bring with me grief and love, tears and smiles, heartbreak and joy as I continue to build the me without them.
Love Ray
