Daryl Wood's Blog

There are lots of opinions about grieving and what it could, would or should look like. The loudest and most common message is that everyone grieves differently. I get that. Still, I have found myself one year and 17 days in wondering if the deep despair that envelopes me now and then is okay. I wonder because I feel some resistance from some of the people who have been trudging along this bumpy road with me. And I feel it from other people who randomly check in after many months and are somewhat surprised that I still have what Alan Wolfelt calls ‘grief bursts. And then of course I have wondered myself because in my state of uncertainty and memory lapses I can only remember a very few people in my life who seemed to be still struggling many months after a loss. Now I know that I didn’t see what was probably right in front of me.

Yesterday I went for a walk in what turned out to be a light snow storm. It was lovely and fresh. While I blinked away a few tears thinking how Doug would have laughed at what seemed like a misadventure I also blinked away the feeling that somehow I was not normal. It suddenly (which is an odd term for something that brews for a long time and finally surfaces) became quite obvious that I am normal.

It’s normal that I would be happy after my long meeting with my financial advisor this morning to clarify how I will proceed to keep myself secure in the years ahead. It’s normal that I would release a deep sob as Doug’s much loved John Deere tractor was loaded onto a flatbed and be driven away to it’s new home. It’s normal that I would laugh out loud with a neighbour over a silly anecdote that we shared. It’s normal that I would cry when friends left for the winter knowing I wouldn’t see these special people for at least four months. It’s normal that I smiled at words in my crossword book and cried loading up the wood bin. I am living life and that’s what life looks like when you are grieving. Or not.

We all have ups and downs every day but we often just give them a passing glance or handle them with a measured response. When you are grieving/mourning a deep love lost the downs can look like tears and whimpers of despair or even painful keening. Thankfully, they don’t last. I thought they would and still wonder when they consume me if this will be the time I fall too far into the darkness to ever recover. But I do recover because this is normal. It’s normal to laugh and joke and make personalized Christmas cards and bake cookies and walk in snowstorms. It’s also normal to sob into a pillow or call a friend to empty the raw emotions that need a place to land when it feels too much to carry alone.

So today I celebrate a new mindset hoping it will help me through the inevitable pitfalls that lie ahead. Grief is normal. Mourning is normal. I am normal.