I’m walking alongside my dear friend as she grieves the loss of her incredible son. It is such an honor when someone trusts you with their grief, allowing you to hold their person in your heart while you hold them in your arms. It is intimate and messy and beautiful and hard and big, overflowing with every emotion.
One of the most beautiful parts of sharing her journey is revisiting and honoring my own early grief. Experiencing loss from this perspective has helped me remember and revisit things from the first year after Hart died. I was so numb, terrified, heartbroken and desperately trying to keep from succumbing to the herculean strength of my grief, that much of the year remains just out of reach, blurry shadows of memories. But, although many details are fuzzy, the feeling of being cloaked in so much love-unimaginable, active love, grace, support and innumerable acts of kindness and thoughtful gestures-is etched in my soul.
I have loved thinking about the incredible people who showed up and climbed into the trenches with me, holding my hand, holding my heart, and holding me up. These loves let me ugly cry, uncontrollably laugh and then cry again. They allowed me sleep, or try, and stayed up with me when I couldn’t even close my eyes, they listened when I needed to talk and sat with me in silence when I couldn't-all in love and without judgement or (obvious) discomfort, these amazing friends walked with me as I found my way through another day. And there simply aren't words to define this kind of love.
How brave and loving it is to stand beside someone who has experienced what is arguably every parent's greatest fear. People are seldom taught how to talk about such an unimaginable loss, let alone, how to support someone who has experienced it. It is scary, confusing and difficult to navigate, and trying to anticipate what someone needs is an exercise in futility, but the truth is, it feels that way for the person grieving too, and the best, most love-rooted thing you can do is show up and keep showing up as they travel this mapless journey.
Grief is tricky. It's full and empty. It's timed and timeless. It's joy and pain. It's fear and bravery. It's awesome and awful. It's fluid and unyielding. It shreds your heart to pieces and causes it to grow ten-fold. It's everything and nothing.
Grief is an ever-moving target and it is hard and raw and lonely-so, so lonely and every bit as terrible as you can imagine-more, actually. I've discovered you never miss your child less and that you can cry just as hard 19 years after they die as you did 19 days after. But sometimes, just knowing someone is there beside you is the only thing that gets you through until you find your footing again.
