Grief feels a lot like fear. It's like you're not afraid, but you have familiar sensations of being afraid. Some of these sensations are the fluttering in your stomach, the lump in your throat, the restlessness.
It's impossible to prepare for intense grief. This pain shatters a heart and a life. It destroys your mental, physical and emotional health. We don't have some magical life coach to guide us in the right direction of our own heart. Those who could, who knew exactly how it felt, who could describe in detail, wouldn't do it, would not presume to intrude on this most intimate part of our relationship with the people we love. Those who casually ask, " Aren't you over that yet?" clearly don't understand. And it's ok, you don't need them to understand. This is your battle you're fighting.
This is what I know about grief - If there was ever a second, or a moment when you suspected or knew you had been betrayed at the deepest level by someone you adored, and a splintering pain began to shred your heart, turn your world grimly unbearable to the point where you would consciously chose denial and ignorance about the betrayal rather than feel this way, that is one-millionth of what it feels like to grieve.
Grief isn't an abnormal condition, nor is it something to be treated with words. It is a universe, a world, unto itself. If you are called to enter this world, there is no turning back. We are not allowed to refuse that call. Grief is like nothing else, with the possible exception of the pounding waves of the ocean.
To the untrained casual eye, each wave looks the same. It is not. No two are the same. And each one washes away the old and washes in the new. Gradually, whether we believe it or not, we are being transformed.
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