Grief or Love?

Most of us have unfortunately felt some sort of grief in our life. Grief is the natural reaction to losing someone or something that we love. People deal with grief in many different ways. Some people even say that there are stages when it comes to grief. I recently just lost my dad and grandpa within a couple of months of each other and what I am learning is that what I am feeling isn't necessarily grief, it is also love.

When we found out my dad was super sick, it took less than a week for him to pass away. It was shocking and I didn't really know how to feel. It felt like a bad dream and I would wake up any second to my life being normal. But, unfortunately, that wasn't the case. I was in denial and did not want to think about my dad at all for the first month. I avoided thinking about him, crying about him, and even doing things that reminded me of him. I was protecting my heart from feeling any sadness, but even when I did those things I still felt the emptiness.

Being from a small town it was overwhelming with the amount of support we had from people. Everyone loved my dad and it was super hard to see so many people upset about him passing. I knew my dad knew a lot of people, but it was crazy to see how much people really cared. It made it really hard to completely avoid the situation because no matter where I went, I would see someone who knew my dad.

At first, I couldn't even remember the sound of his voice, even though he was a daily in my life. It was like my brain was protecting me from the pain. It freaked me out because I was scared that I wasn't going to remember my dad when he was such an important person in my life. It was like I was trying to act like it didn't happen, even though I was there for his last breath and there at his funeral.

After his funeral, I had to put my grieving on hold because my grandpa was being manipulated by his only living child left. My "aunt" who I don't claim anymore, used her brother dying as a chance to come into my grandpa's life at his weakest time and act like we weren't part of the family anymore because my dad wasn't alive. She isolated my grandpa from everyone and wouldn't let us see him when our normal was seeing him almost every day of the week. Me and my siblings just lost our dad and because of a crazy, greedy person, we weren't able to lean on and also be there for my grandpa who just lost his best friend. It was heartbreaking.

Flash forward a couple of months of dealing with that and I finally get to go back to college. It was weird leaving home knowing that when I come back my dad won't be there, but it was nice to know I didn't have to deal with my "aunt" anymore. When I got to college was when I feel like a different stage of grief began. I would cry every day about missing my dad and almost everything would remind me of him. It was almost six months since he had passed and I felt like it just happened yesterday.

After getting into a new routine and schedule, I felt like my emotions weren't as high. But then my grandpa passed away. That hit me hard. Because of my "aunt", we felt like we lost months with him and we always cherished our time with grandpa. He was truly amazing. Losing my grandpa was hard because he was my biggest supporter and made working hard towards my goals so fun. He helped me believe in myself and gave me so much confidence. It was really hard losing the two most important men in my life, but when my grandpa died, it was the first time I really felt like I needed my dad and he wasn't there for the first time ever.

This is when I started to feel like life didn't matter anymore. I didn't want to move on from this time in my life. I didn't want to leave these guys in the past. They were a part of everything I did and they were a big part of the reason why I did the things I did. I can't imagine accomplishing new things without them. They both were heavily involved in my athletics and now that I am doing track in college, some days it is an absolute struggle. I wish they could see me, I wish I could talk to them, and I just wish they knew there is not a moment where I don't think about them.

Since I just transferred colleges, it is extremely hard to try and act normal with my teammates. Some days are rough and I do not feel like talking to anyone. They have no clue what I have been through and I don't want them to think that I am a complete weirdo. It is so hard to be grieving and to be having a hard day, but having to pull it all together and be so fake for a couple of hours at practice. It is honestly exhausting.

Currently, I have good days and usually two bad days a week when I am really just missing my dad and grandpa. I feel so empty and sometimes grief can be very overwhelming. I have read so much about grief and how some people think grief is love and then others think they are completely different. After going through this, I can definitely say grief and love are completely different but are big parts of each other.

Grief is so painful, there is no way that it can be love. Love makes you feel happy and warm inside, where grief is like a hurricane of your worst feelings. I truly believe that when I feel overwhelmed with grief it is because I have this crazy amount of love that I can't give to my dad and grandpa. I think that is when the emptiness and sadness kicks in. Holidays suck. Anniversaries of deaths suck. Doing new things without them suck. Accomplishing things without them suck. All days without them suck.

Grief is terrible, I don't wish it upon anyone and I don't think it will ever go away. But, I have to remind myself that I am so blessed to have had people in my life that made it so hard to say goodbye. I was able to have an amazing 20 years with each of those men and they taught me that I can do whatever I set my mind to, how to be strong, how to never give up, and most importantly how to love and be loved. I know they are still cheering me on and I want to create a life worth watching for these incredible men.

Side note:

When people say it gets better, it doesn't, your mindset will just change, and instead of feeling helpless like I did you will become empowered. The pain is still there, but it will help you achieve greatness. I seriously believe in all of you going through a loss. It is terrible but makes you so strong.