Grief - It’s Like A Boat
Grief comes in all shapes and sizes. It’s like a boat that you immediately want to jump off because you’re seasick and throwing up over the edge. It rocks, then it’s steady, then it rocks again even harder than before.
Four years ago, my world was turned upside down. Complete and udder shock, and full heartbreak. My Dad, the person I looked up to for everything, the one who I was supposed to work side-by-side until he got grey and old, died. I always envisioned Dad and I farming alongside each other for good once I graduated college. I thought we’d work together until eventually 20 years down the line I’d have to make him retire. He always told me that I had to go to college so I could learn all the science behind everything. We were going to be the perfect team. He knew he could teach me all the farming things and I could teach him the newest and greatest findings on the science side. Dad loved to learn. He read every day and made sure he was up to date on all aspects of farming. He did mostly everything himself, with the help of two good men, who he considered family, and us kids. He thought the latest and greatest inventions in farming and agriculture were the coolest things ever and he’d try anything to improve his yields. He was a proud farmer. He had the utmost pride for his land and his work.
I’ll never forget the feeling when they told us Dad was “deceased.” As I fell to my knees out there on the side of the road I looked at all of the cotton around us and thought “what are we going to do.” A feeling I can’t even describe in fullness. It was as though time stood still but earth itself kept spinning… and I could see it. I felt like a ghost. It was like in the movies when they show a dead-persons view of when they look down after they die. Was I dead? I couldn’t fathom anything that was going on.
After Dad passed we spent two weeks in the hospital with my brother unsure how he would recover. We didn’t know if he was going to live, and if he did live was he going to know who we were, would he be able to talk or walk ever again? So many things had gone through my head… my brothers PICU stay was something I had to grieve as well. Not long after he woke up, he miraculously surpassed all of where the doctors had guessed he would be. He was still my same little brother, but different in the way we all were after the immense trauma we’d gone through. After everything, there were still so many questions with no answers. I just kept wondering if I was alive.
I must mention, I was in the thick of college at this time. I was 20 years old, and had two semesters left, but was home for the summer working with Dad at the time. After he passed I took the fall semester off, and ended up going back in the spring time… but when I went back for spring semester, another tragic and traumatic loss struck our family. My beautiful cousin Elyse passed. I’ll never feel like our time together was enough. She was the most beautiful soul and the best cousin and friend, which I miss dearly. I still to this day wonder why God takes the most beautiful souls so soon. A week before spring break, I came home to be with my family so we could lean on each other as we began to figure out how to live without our E… A week later, Covid hit and the discussion of lockdowns began. The loads upon loads of grief that were getting DUMPED on my shoulders were a weight I was just getting used to carrying. I lost not only two of my favorite people, but so much time in such important years of my life. I was 21 years old, struggling to figure out the world in mass chaos. I was a bad friend, a lost soul, and just a total mess. My entire future plans were to work with my Dad after college, but he was gone. I was stuck in a pandemic with no idea where I was going next.
For so long I was scared anyone I loved was just going to die. I was scared to love, I was so scared to feel. I had so many people messaging me after their experiences with death asking me if things get better, but at the time I really wasn’t sure. It felt like my world would never be the same happy place it used to be. While it sure is different, 4 years later, that feeling of emptiness has thankfully subsided. I owe it all to therapy, yoga, walking, and meditation. I cannot even imagine where I would be without my “hot girl walks,” and Melissa Wood-Tepperberg yoga and meditation. In the thick of my grief I also dove deep into reading. On Grief and Grieving written by Elisabeth Kübler-Ross & David Kessler was a major part of my healing journey.
Grief truly comes in waves, but it is a ride you must stay on. Without it you cannot survive tremendous loss. Without feeling, you cannot heal. My Dad was an emotional man. He was loving, he was caring, and he wasn’t afraid to feel. He made sure to show us it was okay to cry when you needed. Crying is how you release your sadness, your anger, your pent-up emotions – it all escapes through your tears. Don’t get me wrong, I still have those days where I just want to be sad, to lay in bed, and question why my life isn’t how it was supposed to be… but maybe in a way this is how it is supposed to be.
“The reality is that you will grieve forever. You will not ‘get over’ the loss of a loved one; you’ll learn to live with it. You will heal and you will rebuild yourself around the loss you have suffered. You will be whole again but you will never be the same. Nor should you be the same nor would you want to.” I’m not the same girl I was four years ago. I feel like I’ve lived multiple lifetimes in the matter of four years. I don’t recognize the girl I used to be, but now it’s in the best way. I had the best childhood a girl could dream of, I got anything and everything I set my mind to. I worked hard, I loved my family, and I enjoyed my life every day, and I’m working back to that version of myself now. The ride may be rough, but it’s worth it. I am strong, I am brave, I am beautiful, and I am loved.
Thanks for reading my grief journey. Even if you can’t see the light at the end of the tunnel - it is there. You are strong, you are brave, you are beautiful, and you are loved.
xoxo – paige 10/13/2023
