"Grief changes us the pain sculpts us into someone who understands more deeply hurts more often appreciates more quickly cries more easily hopes more desperately loves more openly." –Author Unknown
I am not an expert on grief and loss by any means. My greatest teacher has been my own life experiences, and with the help of online courses and through much self-awareness, the main takeaway for me now is this: grief has to be endured; loss has to be mourned, not cured.
We live in a fast-paced, quick-fix society that (by its very nature) prompts us to survive and press on after a loss, to put grief on a time schedule, but grief calls us to sit in the ebbs and flow of our wound, to surrender to it, to feel sad or angry or confused or guilty...
I think most of us feel a certain level of discomfort and awkwardness when face-to-face with a bereaved person. As well-meaning people, we feel the need to at least say something, and so we pull out the old adage "time heals all wounds" in hopes of offering some support and comfort or in hopes of filling the silent void.
But rarely does "time heals all wounds" have the intended outcome, especially in the rawness of grief, when one's life is so hazy. Saying I am sorry for your loss or simply being there with a reassuring hug or a listening ear is often enough to show we care.
After the sudden loss of my mother thirty-three years ago, to say that I was in the throes of grief is an understatement. At the age of twenty-eight, a mother to two young children then ages four years and six months, my mother's death not only left an indelible mark on my psyche, but it forever changed me. I'd no roadmap or guidebook to help me figure out how to put my life back together for my children. I just got up each day and put one foot in front of the other.
"Time heals all wounds, Joyce," I was repeatedly told. And even though I believed the sentiment to be true because — if nothing else — it gave me hope that my grief would dissipate with time, that time would heal the gigantic hole in my heart, time didn't hold up its end of the bargain.
Time passed, and days turned into weeks and months and even years, but instead of feeling better, instead of "time" healing me, I often found myself cast adrift in a sea of grief, kicking with all my might to stay afloat, as the waves steadily tried to devour me.
In retrospect, time isn't meant to be an antidote for grief. Time is merely a "mourning period" to help navigate the choppy waters ahead, allowing us to find the inner strength to live within our new reality, with life forever altered.
In essence, time didn't heal me, but it did lead me to a healing God and my truest self.
However, the answer to the question, "Does time heal all wounds?" truly lies in the heart of the bereaved. Why? Because just as we are ALL unique, so too is our grief journey.
