Grief

Day 144 / 365

Suffering is weird. You can sometimes look at it as a good thing. Like they say in gyms — No pain no gain. And other times it can break you so much that you start questioning the point of everything.

Then there are times when you enjoy being sad. That’s where the term “Tears of joy” comes from. It’s funny how our bodies have the same response to extreme happiness and extreme despair.

Often when I look at children I wonder what changes when we grow up that we stop smiling that much. For children, it seems as if the default setting is happiness. A child could cry and scream but you just hand them a chocolate and they will start laughing again. How pure and simple childlike happiness is. What the hell happens with age that we lose it?

It could be that grief is a necessary component of growth. There is this great quote I remember that human beings are like tea bags. In order to see what’s inside them, you need to put them in hot water. So maybe the path to becoming stronger requires us to suffer. And maybe we need to become stronger in order to then provide and care for our own children, ensuring that they get their fair share of happiness.

Sadness is poetic. We are lucky to have sad moments. Grief tells us more about ourselves than anything else. It’s in our lowest moments that we find out who are true friends are. It’s when we are at rock bottom that we are able to muster up the courage to do better than our best. It’s through suffering and struggle that we discover our true strengths.

Greif can come from anywhere. It could be a song that makes you miss a person that you don’t have any more in your life. Or it could be a Monday morning that you are not looking forward to. Or it could be betrayal from someone you trusted the most. Grief can even come from things that you thought you had gotten over long long ago.

There is no getting away from it. You just have to live through it, keep faith in yourself, and keep moving forward.