It Hurts

Pieces of the wreckage from a grief stricken shipwreck float up to the top and make themselves visible when you least expect it. I’ve said it before but whether you are eating lunch with coworkers, walking down the aisles at the grocery store, or scrolling through pictures on your camera roll, things float up to the surface and they linger until someone gets them out of the water for you.  It could be minutes before a needed distraction or it could be days that you float alongside these reminders of a different time.  

What some people don’t understand is that once you have this wreckage at the bottom of your ocean it never goes away, ever.  They find it, they locate it, they tell you where it is but the wreckage will never all be found floating.  It stays hidden until a small piece dislodges itself and sneaks up beside you.    

The things I grieve the most are the things I’ll never get to experience with Charlie.  Not only that but I relive losing Charlie again every time I know someone else is beginning the grieving process.  I know the feeling of shock.  I know the feeling of “not feeling.”  It literally makes my stomach upset to relive it for them or with them.  I obviously have no idea exactly what they are going through but I stop and think about how I felt and if they feel even the smallest bit of that I understand it is hard (sometimes impossible) to endure.  If they experience more of it (if it is even possible to gauge grief or feelings in this way) I can’t understand how they endure.  You go through physical pain when you experience grief.  I still do.  

This is the hardest thing I have ever done.  It is the hardest thing I think I will ever do.