i think the older i get, the better i understand grief. and the more willing i am to accept that it will never fully go away, and that’s okay. that’s good. it’s a sign that i care and love, even if it’s a hard feeling to move past. accepting grief as what it is, i think, is an important part of growing older.
i think it happens regardless of how close to a person i am. sometimes it can be this undying feeling of missing my grandpa, or sometimes it can be thinking of him when i see ducks because i know how much he loved him. or it can be something as simple as listening to a song from an artist who has passed, and appreciating them for what they gave while they were alive.
i think it’s normal, upon hearing about a death, to struggle with it at first. to have that sense of denial, to wish that it wasn’t true. i think it’s normal to think about the fact that they’re gone. that it’s an endpoint. it’s important to move on from this to appreciate a life that was lived and the things that were encompassed within it, but it’s far easier said than done especially when the wound is fresh. it took me a while to accept my own grandpa’s death a few years ago as what it was, and learn to accept the good things like the time he and my grandma took me and my brother to ride horses, or the saturdays i used to spend at his house, or the way he used to call me suzy for some reason because that was simply just his sense of humor. its the same sense of humor my dad has sometimes, too. it’s hard to look back on those still, but they’re good times. its listening to music from someone who has passed and appreciating the love and hard work they put into it, or watching old videos of them with their group, or appreciating how much joy they put into the world.
i think it’s normal to struggle with this, but i think it’s part of the acceptance process when experiencing grief. it’s hard, and everyone processes differently, but i think it’s important to one day be able to move past the when and why of their passing and to accept those good parts. the smiles and the laughs and the silly things they did, their passions and what those meant for both them and the people around them.
accepting grief, i think, is learning to accept that death is not the full end of a life. their memory lives on, and it’s important to honor their memory by remembering a life that was lived instead of just the endpoint of it.
it’s okay to grieve. it’s okay to struggle with looking back: that’s normal. it’s important to not rush the grieving process to find acceptance, but to let it naturally come to you when you’re ready (no matter how long that can take).
but i hope one day we can move forward and remember not just the end of a life, but everything that came before that. we remember their birthdays, we remember the places they loved, the food they liked, the colors they liked to wear or looked best in: those are all things done in living. we do it out of love.
i think to grieve a death is to continue loving in the present tense, no matter how hard it can be. and to accept grief one day is to make the choice to keep loving, even though it can be painful. and i think that’s important for living life and growing older.
