by thegriefreality

Grieving in Plain View

For me, it means the amount of times my eyes have been raw from crying and when asked if I’m okay, I haven’t shared it. I simply mumbled I’m fine, as my hands shake from trying to hold on to memories so desperately.

It means the days that I haven’t cried, but you have been on my mind, every day since you left.

It means the taste in my mouth when I feel the weight of the world pressing on my shoulders. When I remember you aren’t here, when you said you always would be. So many people have said the same. And they left too, or rather, this time, it was their choice.

It means my heart breaking in a room of laughter.

It’s the moments when people didn’t even want to ask me how I am because your death made them too uncomfortable. It’s the fact that your death makes people uncomfortable. It’s that I have to preface my emotions with gentle suggestions “they don’t know what its like”, “they haven’t lost someone before”, when someone responds insensitively.

It’s the fact that when I want to open up about grief, I pick the bits people will understand, and keep the things I’m truly struggling with too myself. My heart can’t handle another insensitive comment, or someone saying “I was only trying to help”.

It’s that I always have to think hard for everyone else, who is so careless with me.

It’s the constant thought of what I would get you for Christmas. It’s the lack of presence that I stumble upon when I wake up in the night after a nightmare.

Grieving in plain sight: the fact we will all grieve yet society is so uncomfortable by it, that the griever has to protect everyone else. Every day.

And it gets so exhausting.

What does grieving in plain sight mean for you? Let’s start a conversation. And maybe, a revolution.

Evee x

38 thoughts on “Grieving in Plain View”

  2. “It’s the fact that when I want to open up about grief, I pick the bits people will understand, and keep the things I’m truly struggling with too myself.” Yes, this is all too real and relatable. Thank you for sharing.

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  3. This is so relatable…like I mentioned in one of my blogs…some struggles are extremely personal and must be fought alone…others even with their best intentions might not really be of much help…we are our best chance at dealing and healing 🤗🤗

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  4. Pingback: The Grief Reality – Featured Blogger of the Week December 11, 2020 | Ups Downs Family History

  5. It’s the time scale, for grief has none. Grief tends to ping us back to a moment and totally mess with the here and now. If it is important to us to keep these things in, yes we will smile and struggle to keep the downer from others, but that Beloved we are not alone, there are plenty of us doing this smile to help keep the happy in the room. My love to you in each of your uncomfortable exhausting grief moments.

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      1. I’m going to change my blog post direction, in that I’m going to post some glean of whatever I can to bring the joy, the gratitude, the positive to the surface. For this is the day after the Winter Solstice and the light will start to stay longer each day, the buds of flowers will open, the spring birds will start to churp… Onward!

  7. Just catching up with the recent Grief reality posts – Evee & Katie – you write soooo beautifully 🙂 Evee: yes I remember well protecting others from my raw grief & worrying about how they are going to feel about the fact that my husband died…completely bonkers really that the griever protects others from pain, whilst they are enduring unimaginable pain themselves.

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  9. I remember a young mother whose husband had died much too soon–also of cancer. She told her coworkers, “When I cry, don’t worry about me. I just need to cry.” I appreciated her warning and honesty. Too often bystanders try to alleviate the pain and they can’t. She gave permission for others to allow the grieving and not feel compelled to help.

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  11. I have come to think the old traditions of grieving (wearing black, for example) were extremely wise – everybody knew you were in pain and had to be respected in your pain rather than expected to “move on”. I wonder why we lost this along the way

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  12. Thank you for being so real in your post about grief and in how it qffects us. I lost my daughter on May 27, 2020. Her name was Corrie. I write qbout her on my blog named for her, and I wrote a poem called Unlit qbout the reality of the holidays without our loved one.

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  14. Death, a natural part of the life cycle, saying this as a former Critical Care Nurse, makes most people highly uncomfortable. It’s all right to hurt. It’s all to go through the range of emotions it brings up. It’s what makes us human. Embrace and nurture yourself in all the ways you can. The simple things are what help make the pain bearable. With time it will ease. Never forget. But ease…and you’ll have an angel on heaven smiling down, proud of how strong you have become.
    Much love and prayers!!

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