I don’t honestly believe that #time#heals all #wounds. In some instances, like love, I do think that time can mend things and eventually open you back up to the possibility of a new love. However, in other areas (like loss), some wounds just aren’t meant to heal. Some people are irreplaceable, and they leave a void when you lose them.
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Even with such #loss, you may never find adequate closure. The wound may stay fresh, but you have to find a way to continue moving forward. I mean, you don’t have to if you don’t want to… but you should. The tough part about loss is that we humans like to believe in something called hope, and sometimes #hope leads us straight onto a path of denial. When you lose someone, you don’t want to believe it’s true. You don’t want to believe that the last time really was the last time. You hope it’s wrong. Even if you know for sure that it’s right. They’re gone. You still hope, against the odds, that somehow some miracle will bring them back.
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But nothing will.
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One of the scariest things I’ve learned about loss is that I have to depend on my #memory to keep my lost loved ones present. My mom said to me, about a year after my sister passed, that she’s been writing down all of her memories of my sister. She’s afraid she’ll forget something, and she believes forgetting dishonors my sister’s memory. My mom hasn’t completely moved on, and I don’t think she ever will. And I’m not even saying that she should. But I worry about her. I worry that she’s so focused on my sister’s life that she’ll completely lose the opportunity to live her own.
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Losing memories of my #sister#worries me too. I don’t think I’m all that great at grieving, honestly. I always have to be prepared to be the strong one; ready to pick up the pieces when anything goes wrong. I can’t let down the wall and be vulnerable if I have to be my family’s warrior. When the wall is up, you learn to smile a lot. You have to. A million things could be going wrong, but you have to keep it together. Show a brave face to people, so much so that they don’t know the difference between true happiness or the wall. They don’t recognize the wall because the brave smile becomes the default. Smiling is my #grief mechanism.
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Maybe it isn’t the best thing, because I’ll be the first to admit that I haven’t dealt with everything I feel, but at least I acknowledge that this is what I do. There are very few people that I let see the other side of the wall, perhaps because I worry that someone doesn’t reallywant to know everything that I’ve been through. I also have learned that, in the past, I trusted too easily. I don’t want to continuously repeat the same cycles.
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At the end of the day, you’ll find me #smiling. Every once in a while you may see some other emotion flash through my eyes, but I pick it back up and keep pushing. My baby sis would have it no other way, and it brings me great joy to keep working toward accomplishments that I know would have made her #proud.
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The wall is up high, but I know when to bring it down.
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