Remember Me: Pain Of A Loved One Passing

What is an anniversary? It’s a date that remembers an event that happened in the past. It is a cause for celebration. It is a cause for remembrance. It is a cause that is filled with both rejoicing and mourning. March 26 was the one-year anniversary of my mother's passing.

Just like my father’s anniversaries before her, this one-year marker is the hardest anniversary to swallow. A year may sound long but it is not. The loss is still fresh, real and painful. The first anniversary is a reminder that this experience is real. Your loved one is no longer here, physically at least. At the one-year marker you are still digesting life without your loved one. During that year you still try to call their phone or seek their advice and want to hear from them. You are still overcoming your routine of having them around in your everyday life. Before the time of the first anniversary you can still count back and think that only a few months ago you could have touched them or heard their voice.

The first year is the hardest anniversary. The first year you can still count the months your loved one has passed. At the one-year mark you tip the scale, speaking in terms of years versus months to how long ago they passed. It is a scary transition because no matter how hard you fight you can’t stop the calendar from moving forward. You look back and evaluate your life, think of the past in terms of months. For example it’s been four months since my loved one passed. You can’t believe in eight more months it will be a year. Those months seem far away. Feels like you won’t ever reach that marker, a star just out of your grasp. On occasion you will get lost in a daydream about your future. That’s when the reality of your loss starts to sink in. When you think ahead and realize when you look to the future, one thing will be a guarantee, your loved one will not be there in your life, physically at least.

The first year is a pain in your heart. It takes many months, years, for you to actually digest this jarring reality and realize this is your life.

During the first year there are many highs and lows. Ups and downs, sleepless nights and nights that turn into days where all you do is sleep. This is your own personal journey. Only you can understand what you are feeling, so only you can decide what you need to do to be healthy.

As you approach the one-year mark you may hear such ugly remarks like:

"Move on"

"It’s been a year, that’s long enough"

"You are still sad?"

"Everything happens for reason"

(The list can go on and on)

Many times these "words of advice" come from people close to you. People who don’t understand or share your level of pain. You start applying pressure on yourself to move on, convince yourself you are damaged, broken or grieving incorrectly because you still feel sad and cry while others appear to have moved on. You yell at yourself to move on, get over it already. Tell yourself grieving is ruining your day, your mood, everything about you. You thought when your loved one passed a year ago you would have moved on by now. You thought a year later you would be have worked past your sadness. But you didn’t understand the pains of grief and how six months feels like two weeks.

You have to listen to you, in fact after the one-year mark you have to start listening to yourself more now. At the one-year mark is when the world moves on.  The world doesn’t forgot, it remembers, however the day is just like an ordinary day for others. It is painful for you to remember because the loss is on your mind and shaped your life.

Anniversaries are funny, it’s a moment to remember all the moments, all the memories. I recall my father's one-year anniversary – that day was one of the hardest I can remember. I had finally gained enough courage to look at pictures of him. For lack of a better word, looking at those pictures crippled me, temporarily of course. Those pictures made me miss all that I couldn’t have, I went back to  feeling like I did during the first few months after he passed away. I was worried this sadness was going to be my life, I expected to be on this road forever.

I want you to know there is no time frame to grieving. You have to do what you feel inside yourself. Don’t absorb other people’s energy and feel like you have to "move on." You will discover through time how much you have moved forward. I promise you this: you will not feel hurt or pain or lost your whole life. You will be healthy, as long as you love and listen to you.

You feel pain after losing a loved one, don’t go looking for more pain.

~ Happy Readings

Follow me on twitter @tmtscancer and like/share me on Facebook. Also check my website here and blog here