Grief affects everyone in a different way, although we all still go through the different stages of grief.
Many years ago someone said to me that being estranged from their grandchildren was like a living bereavement, that phrase is now used by many as the perfect description.
All of us will have had friends and family giving us ‘advice’ on how to deal with this utter heartbreak. Of course they all mean well, but they have no idea at all of how it actually feels.
I wonder how many of us have been told to ‘move on?’
Grief takes over every part of our physical and mental well-being, so how on earth can you ‘move on?’
You can’t.
Just when you think you are feeling a bit stronger, it hits you again, that awful knot inside your stomach grabs you and turns you inside out, that feeling of hopelessness returns.
It may be a birthday, an anniversary, Easter or Christmas, these days are so hard.
If we acknowledge that these ‘special’ days are going to occur, and try to somehow find our own strategies to cope with them, we can learn to face them.
The grief of estrangement doesn’t disappear, it does become a bit more blurred as time goes on, it becomes part of our life, but we can grow our life around the grief.
Sometimes we can think that if we stop the pain of grief we are in some way forgetting our grandchildren, your grandchildren don’t live in our grief they live in our hearts.
We can think that if we start to feel a bit better, we might somehow forget our precious little people.
I promise that will never happen.
Life is short and we need to live it to the full, for the sake of our grandchildren.
Please don’t suffer alone, there is help and support for you. There is also hope, there is always hope.