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Saturday, March 10, 2012

Embracing the Pain

File:Yellow sunset.jpgOnce I surrendered to enduring the pain of losing my husband, the process of healing began. It actually took almost a half a year to come to terms that he died. Only by calling out to God and feeling a peace slip into my soul, could I function during many days. It was too much for me to bear alone. The pain was wrenching. I just let it keep coming, day after day after day. It became a ritual to get through the day as a robot, and then cry and scream into my pillow every night.

The height of my pain went on for several weeks until I reached a climax. I reached a turning point. It felt as if I finally came to terms with my broken heart and felt comfort with the familiar hurt. Since the pain made everything real, that my husband truly died, I embraced it. Because I felt that once the pain faded, the memories would fade, and the memories were all I had now.

So as the intense suffering began to subside, the realization of wanting to keep my husband's memories alive, enabled me to embrace my grief. Each day I welcomed my journal time to grieve and reminisce. I'd sit down and journal my thoughts as I cried. This was my cleansing and my time of remembering my husband. Reality still felt overwhelming, so this was my way of living in the past and feeling comfort from feeling the pain. Does this make sense to anyone else?

3 comments:

Ferree Bowman Hardy said...

Yes, yes, yes! Makes absolute sense to me, Cindy! I equated absence of pain with forgetting, too! I vowed over and over that I'd never forget, and pain was verification that I hadn't forgotten. Talk about a cycle of misery! I don't really understand it, but it felt very important at the time, perhaps it was the only tangible way to validate the experience. Somehow or other, though, over the years, it has dawned on me that my freedom in Christ applies to grief, too. And that's a whole new book, so I won't even go there. But, I do want to say that I relate to what you wrote today, and I think you did a fine job of nailing down this slippery side of grief.

Cindy Adams said...

Thanks Ferree! It almost seemed that once I embraced the pain, was when the real healing began:)

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