SOMETIMES IT’S A CLOUDY DAY

The one thing I’ve learnt about grief is the funny way it creeps up on you when you least expect it. I’ve been feeling okay lately and then suddenly today it hit me while I was in the car on the way to the dentist – of all things!

Until someone has experienced the raw pain of grief and all the emotions that go with it, you cannot imagine what it is like. It doesn’t have to be a loved one, in my case my father, but a pet or the end of a relationship or funny enough even an era or period in one’s life.

For me the best way to describe it is as an all encompassing blanket of raw undiluted pain – not just something you get when you break your arm, that you get over and forget after a while. This is a deep, gut wrenching searing one that can take your breath away. I remember feeling for months like there were times that I couldn’t breathe properly. It would suddenly hit me without warning and I would be left struggling like a flapping fish out of water. I find that the stupidest and silliest things can set you off. A smell, an image, a picture, a place and particular a song – for me that immortal one “Time to say Goodbye”, for Mom it is Perfect Love – a song they played at their wedding to set off the waterworks. Boy! it can be hard sometimes, but I try to remember that my Dad is at peace and one day I will be reunited with him until then I will have to face many days –some cloudy, some sunny and the challenge for me is to honour his memory as best I can.

Until we meet again Dad....