Grieve & Release

Have you grieved what Covid took away yet?

Me neither.

In fact, I didn’t really realize I needed to grieve until one morning when I was feeling down about being far away from my family. My husband listened patiently and then asked that very important question; have you grieved what you lost? Like really acknowledged and grieved?

I’m a pusher. I push through things. I don’t really like to stop and reflect. In fact, there are many things from my childhood and teenage years that I have no memory of at all. I like to remember the good. My camera roll is full of smiling faces and a never-ending roll of unsuitable pictures of my boys and our special times together. 

But grieve? No.

I just push through and forget the bad because who wants to live in that?

Not me

I don’t want to look back and see all the things I lost with covid. I don’t want to realize I haven’t seen my mom in over a year and it will be a long time before I see her again. I don’t want to realize that my babe will probably be closer to one-year-old before he meets my family. I don’t want to realize that my kids missed birthday parties and taekwondo. I don’t want to see that I left a place I loved and never really got to say goodbye to anyone. 

I don’t want to remember. I don’t want to look back. I don’t want to realize that life will never really be the same again. I don’t want to grieve.

Well, like any true Bhreagh moment, as soon as my husband said those words every single emotion - good and bad - that I had felt over these last 8 months flowed from my eyes in the form of tears.

He was right, I needed to grieve. 

I have a beautiful life. I am very blessed. I’ve been very fortunate. But that doesn’t mean it’s been easy. In fact, my husband and I have pushed through some really hard stuff in our marriage, family and jobs. But we’ve done just that, pushed real hard. 

But guess what, no matter how hard I push I just can’t seem to push through covid and this weird anger I have towards it. 

So here I am, finally grieving some beautiful moments that were ripped from me. Trying my best to place the right emotion with the right words at the right times. (Hi, I’m Bhreagh and I have the emotional intelligence of a 2-year-old!)

Have you grieved yet? Have you looked back over these last 8 months to see what you have lost? Maybe you're like me and you think you can’t grieve because you have been so fortunate. 

But friend, sit with me, take a deep breathe and allow yourself to look back, to grieve, to be mad, to feel desperate to push your way through, maybe even to feel like you are kicking your legs as hard as you can but you still feel like your drowning. 

Take a deep breathe and grieve.

Do whatever you need to to feel those feelings.

Then stop

Take another deep breathe.

Your going to be ok. You can do this. We will make it over this bridge together.

It’s in these moments that we truly begin to understand while the Bible talks about thankfulness so much. Because thankfulness breeds holiness and holiness is our calling.

In a world that tells us joy is right around the next corner, the Bible shows us that if we cannot find gratefulness in the small and hard moments we will never find it with the next great thing.

Sure we can grieve. You are allowed to grieve. You should grieve no matter what situation you find yourself in. In fact, I believe Jesus grieves and weeps with us in these moments but if we get stuck in that grief and wait for the next best thing our thankfulness and holiness will never grow.

We must see this situation, our situation through the lens of the gospel. We must grieve and recognize that God makes us holy in the hard. We must embrace those moments, spend time in them, then place them in our memory box and be thankful because thankfulness in small things will teach us to have joy in everything.

So, although I will always carry some amount of sadness about this time and very much look forward to introducing my newest babe to the family, I will turn that grief into deep and holy thankfulness one small step at a time. 

And now, instead of looking back and venting about the bad things that have happened I can vent about all the good and let my soul finally stop holding her breathe. 

Grieve, go through the process, then be insanely thankful that you had something to grieve in the first place.

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Ready?

Now practice it!

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