There is a different definition of grief that I have decided to adhere to- what it means for me and how I have decided to embrace it. A grief counsellor told me two months ago exactly what was going to happen to me, my stages that I would go through, and that I was going to hit rock bottom in about 3 months. Really? Wow- without even knowing me she said that- albeit with good intent, which I understand. But I also believe negativity, doubt, and worry lead one to self-fulfilling prophecies. This journal might get preachy- and I am sorry for that, but I know differently.  I am now starting month three and I am feeling stronger, happier, and emotionally and spiritually and physically healthy.  I am proving her wrong.  🙂

Labels and stages, as so many like to define grief by, are not levels- and grief to me is levels. Levels with the ability to step up and forward or step back and down, or sideways- however many times and as how often as we need to. It doesn’t matter and it is a life-long process. There is no order to follow and no expectations that should be placed. What matters is keeping your eye on the end point- which is the beginning point to your new understanding and an appreciation for all the blessings in your life. Defining grief by normal standards is like pinning it to mean, median, or mode. We are all different and unique in our grief experience and to choose one point value for all is simply not right. Case in point. I just made a new friend last month. She is close to my age. She has 3 younger children. Her husband of 45 years of age passed away suddenly without any warning from a brain aneurysm. She didn’t have time to prepare or to say to him what she wanted to say. I had eight years to ground myself in knowing what might happen. She’s at a different level. Not a different “stage”. How should she define her grief? Both our vantage points are drastically different, but no less painful than one another.

I feel the missing link to all the writers and teachers of grief is the overwhelming connection to spirituality we have. Death is a crossing over not a “dead and gone”. When we pay attention to the signs from above we see and feel the continuum and learn to love and embrace the fact that we are never alone. There is no disconnection, but there is a physical separation that is inescapably painful beyond belief for a lot of people. It is fire in the heart. I am afraid that this is where so many of us get stuck. We have to change our perspective on grief and understand there is a physical separation but the connection will always be there. We can learn to live in that connection and not in the separation. My healing has come so fast and I will not fall victim to the mass definition and expectation of what has happened. My choice, because I have one, is to live in that connection to Jordon, to move forward with my new life and all that it gives to me and Jackson, and not the separation.