When Grief Steals Your Breath
I couldn’t keep my son alive, but I keep as much of him alive as I can. As I write this, it has been six years, two months, and 23 days since our oldest son died. Actually, 2,274 days, 13 hours, and 43 minutes. 54,589 hours.
The grief ball hit my button today. It was the day each month I log into his Google Voice and send a message to myself to keep a little traffic going. I fear losing that—losing the three seconds of recording on his greeting where he said his name. After he died, I managed to get into his Google accounts and his other social media accounts. I converted his Facebook into a memorial account to protect it from spamming while keeping it up, for his friends and for me.
I have sent at least one message a month from his account after Google sent a notice of intent to shut it down for inactivity. Most months, it’s just one of the chores I do, something to check off the to-do list. The grief ball has been getting smaller, but today it hit my button.
You probably have a bouncing grief ball and a button. It’s like last week when we talked about the viral video featuring Coach Kara Lawson.
It doesn’t get easier. But we can learn to handle hard better. Grief never fully goes away, but we can breathe again.
How long does it take? As long as it takes. Don’t let anybody else tell you how long you should grieve. It’s your life. Take the time you need.
In my books, The Way of the Three-Year-Old Why and Medium Well: The Journey from Believing to Believing In, Dan and Grace Roberts deal with lifelong grief over what could have been for their daughter, Hope. You don’t get rid of grief, but you learn to live with it, and it flavors your life, making us whole, as Susan Cain wrote about in her book, Bittersweet. I hope that, in community, you find support for grieving whatever losses you might have experienced.
Donn King is The Confidence Cultivator. He is the author of The Sparklight Chronicles series of business parables and a professor of communication studies (which means “a professor of standing up in front of people and saying stuff”). He’s also a pastor, a speaker, and a communication coach. Reach out to donn at donnking dot com to see how he could help you increase your impact, gain influence, and build your career.
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