Rebuilding a life isn’t easy especially when we may not want to, feel like it, or know where to start. When just getting out of bed makes us so tired we want to go crawl right back in. When we can hardly remember the way to the grocery store or our best friends phone number, when we don’t feel like cooking or eating or want to eat everything in our sight. When the phone never rings when we need it to and rings all the time when we don’t. When we feel like we have been forgotten and our friends have gone on with their lives. When someone starts to talk of rebuilding, we may wish they’d just get on with their life.
If any of the above resonates with you, chances are you are grieving the death of a loved one. There are probably people in your life who just don’t get it even if they sincerely want to help. Even though i’ts hard when someone says the wrong thing, it may be helpful to realize they are at least trying, while others make no attempt and will often do everything to ignore the griever. That can be infinitely more painful. Suddenly people we’d depended upon disappear.
As difficult as this can be, the good news is there will also be some people there for you, that you would have never expected. As a well-known grief speaker and author, Dr. Alan Wolfelt says, “Grief has a way of re-writing your address book.”
Being open and receptive to the ones who are there for you is a first step towards healing. They may be people who have already been in the peripheral part of your life or people you meet after the death. People come into your life for a reason, a season, or a lifetime. It takes courage and stamina to begin again, two things that are in short supply when you are grieving. Allowing those who want to understand to support you, drawing on their courage and stamina is a place to begin.
Deb Kosmer 2012