On Grief and Grieving: 10 Years In

This week marks 10 years since my Dad passed away. 10 years of learning how to cope with losing someone so important in my life, and understanding what grief actually feels like. If you’re fortunate enough to not have experienced the loss of someone close to you, you might not spend too much time thinking about what grieving really is. And if you have, you might be spending your time wondering whether what you’re feeling is “normal”.

Now before I get into this, I am no expert, but I have done a lot of reading and learning over the last decade. I’m going to talk about the things that have helped me, the ways that I deal with living with grief, and hopefully some reassurance that whatever you’re feeling, you’re not alone.

Misconceptions about Grief

The first common misconception about grief is that it’s a phase…grief is a journey, and it’s one that we all tread differently. For some, grieving might be a period of time, but for most of us, it is something that we carry with us for the rest of our lives. I think a lot of people’s frustration stems from this…they think “oh it’s been x years now, I should be fine, everyone else is”. When actually, the grief others are living with is still there, but they’ve just learned to live with it. 10 years on, and I still get struck by it from out of nowhere and it absolutely floors me…and I don’t think that will ever change. If someone has been such a huge part of your life, missing them is going to be a daily emotion and not something you can sweep under the carpet.

Which leads nicely onto another misconception… “grieving” doesn’t mean that you’re reclusive, sat alone crying all of the time. Grieving can look like you’re out with your friends having a nice time, it can be being on holiday or celebrating a big milestone. In fact, chances are these moments are the ones where you are most struck by grief. For this reason I will never miss a Rammstein or Metallica UK tour. Because they were such important bands to my Dad I feel so close to him there, even though they’re watched through tears it is a huge part of my grieving and healing process.

In our happiest moments, we reflect the hardest on those who are missing from them.

Never feel like you “should” act a certain way, or that there’s this great expectation of you to just “get over it” and be back to “normal” again. I use quotation marks for these words because these are such throwaway terms that get banded around. I’ve had things like this said to me in the past, and they can be so damaging. It makes you look at yourself and wonder why you aren’t the person you used to be. Chances are, you never will be that person again, because that person hadn’t experienced their world being turned upside down. You learn to live with what has happened, and you will rebuild yourself around the loss that you’ve suffered, but you will never “get over it”.

Living with Grief

I think the most important piece of advice I can give, is that it’s okay to grieve. In fact, it’s more than okay, it’s a huge part of processing what’s happened and it’s really important for you to sit with it. For the first few years I tried to ignore grief, and all that happens is that it comes back to bite you even harder at a later date. Ignoring it really doesn’t help, and although I know it’s not as easy as just making it happen, it’s so important for you to try and embrace it.

Over the last 10 years, I have dealt with grief in so many different ways, and now I have my tried and trusted ways to get through the hardest moments. I can now listen to the songs that I used to have to rush to turn off if they came on the radio; they may still bring me to tears but I would rather hear those songs that were important to my Dad instead of running from them.

One of the hardest steps has been moving from getting upset at mentions of my Dad to loving talking about him…keeping his memory alive is so important, but it’s one of the hardest things to do. Telling stories and remembering good times with your friends and family is so difficult, but over the last couple of years it’s something that’s become so important to me. I love talking about my Dad, and I don’t want any mentions of him to be a difficult subject that people avoid speaking to me about. I’d much rather us laugh and cry together telling stories of the good old days, instead of feeling like we can’t talk about him because it’s sad.

This week marks 1/3 of my life being without my Dad, and if I think of what I’ve achieved in these last 10 years, I think he would be proud. In fact, I know he would be, which is a huge driver for me to keep going. I have become much better at practising gratitude; I try to live in the moment and appreciate all of the little things so much more than I used to. Memories are the most precious thing that we all carry, and I think sometimes it’s easy to lose sight of that. I am thankful for the memories that I have, and that I experienced such a wonderful relationship albeit one that was cut far too short.

“I carry the things that remind me of you, in loving memory of the one that was so true.”

Myles Kennedy

If you are struggling through the loss of someone, I hope some of these words might have brought some comfort and sense into the things you’re feeling. Please reach out to me if you would like to talk about anything or ask me any questions, this is a subject so close to my heart and it’s one I think needs to be less of a taboo.

Emilie

The Female Engineer