Grief!

A subject that often arises for all of us, Spelties or not. Loss comes in so many different ways. Whether it is a member of our family, a close friend, a beloved pet, a business, a job, a child, a parent, a sibling, a partner, a loss of yourself, or your dreams. Even when it is not directly one of those for us, sometimes it is for someone we care about. Grief comes in many different ways and each person will react differently.

My grandmother died almost a year ago. She was the last of her generation in my immediate family. I became a grandmother four months later. Sometimes loss can also come in feeling like you are losing a sense of yourself. Regardless of why you are grieving, there are some basics about grief.

There are different degrees to how you will feel the grief depending on many different things. You need to grieve your way and you will need support from those around you. How each person feels support is different. I remember when my first daughter was stillborn and I was looking after a few children ages 7 to 9. One nine year old girl asked me why I talked about my stillborn daughter. I thought and answered quite quickly. My explanation to her was that when someone close to you dies, the grief is too big for you to deal with alone. So by talking about the person you share some of your grief. It is kind of like grief is a big ball and each time you talk about your loss you pass a little piece of that ball on to someone else. They are able to take that little piece and move on, helping you with your grief. I also told her that it was why grief often takes at least a year.

The other part of it is that in that year, you will find yourself doing things that you did the year before your loss and how you perceive those things is quite different. It either brings back memories or makes you think about how it would be had you not lost what was so precious to you.

There are many people in my life who have been touched by grief this past year and I am sure there are many more. My thoughts are often with them. Grief has also touched my life in the past year and for me, it brings to the forefront to be grateful for those in my life still.

Grief is not something you get over, it is something you can get through and I will go through it again and again because I care and I feel grateful that I am able to.