The Ugly side of grief
This blog is not for the faint of heart or squeamish. I said I was going to keep things honest, and I’ve been pondering whether or not to post this for a while, but here goes. I’m going to be keeping it real. Really, really real. Probably too real for some. (If you are a grieving parent, this is your HUGE trigger warning.)
I’m going to talk about the ugly side of grief. Not the “inspirational quote” kind of grief. Real grief. The grief that comes when your only daughter is smashed so hard by a tractor trailer that they won’t even let you see her body before it’s cremated.
I’ve dealt with many types of grief before. I have no living grandparents. My sister died unexpectedly from pneumonia when I was 24. My cousin died of cancer. My sister-in-law died after a long and painful fight with numerous medical issues. My dad died of a heart attack. My stepmom overdosed on pills and alcohol after my dad died. And now, my mom is slowly dying of pancreatic cancer — fighting it the whole way.
None of these losses — NONE — even come close to holding a candle to the grief I feel about losing Libby. I have cried and cried over losing these people that I love. But the death of my daughter is something more. It has irrevocably changed me as a human being. I am no longer the same person I was up until I received the call telling me she was in an accident. It is grief — but it is SO MUCH MORE than grief. It is, quite literally, indescribable.
But I am going to try to peel back the curtain and give you a glimpse of what it’s like for me (and, if you’ve lost a child and you’re reading this — I suspect it’s what it’s like for you, too). This what it’s REALLY like — behind the scenes. Behind the writing and posting on social media, the going out with friends to get out of the house, the family game nights trying to keep my boys and I close together. (Again— some of these pictures are not for the squeamish, so stop here if that’s you.)
I’ve cried about every type of cry there is since Libby died. There are the public, “tears silently running down the cheeks” cries, the “I’m so sad I just have to get it out” medium-sized cries, and then there are the “I am so hysterical I literally can’t breathe and want to die” cries.
The above pictures are from one of those last cries. I cried so hard that I actually broke a blood vessel in my nose and blood started pouring out onto my desk and lap. I was in my office and ran to the bathroom, where I just stood there, hunched over on the sink for support, while the blood gushed out of my nose and I sobbed and choked.
I don’t get nosebleeds, like, ever — so I have to tell you, it scared the shit out of me. And then the whole PTSD thing kicked in, and I kept looking at the blood splattered on the sink and my arms and my face and then I started screaming because all I could think about was the blood I saw all over my son Max the night of the accident (he was driving the car when Libby was killed). Max was covered in so much blood that night, and I remember standing next to his hospital bed wondering which blood was his, and which blood was his sister’s.
I took this photo after visiting my daughter’s memorial at the accident site. I put some solar-powered flowers at the site so that it would light up in the dark. I cried pretty much the whole time, and kept getting startled by all of the fast-moving trucks that barreled their way past me as I worked.
When I was done I stood up, walked down the embankment to the side of the road — so close that when the trucks passed by, my hair blew into my face. I contemplated walking out in front of one of them. “It would be quick,” I thought to myself. “I’d die right here where Libby did, in the same way.” I counted six trucks as they passed me. One of them honked.
That honk brought me out of my own head, and I ran back up the embankment to my car. Then I started sobbing and screaming “I HATE YOU!!!!!” at EVERY. SINGLE. TRUCK. that rolled by. I screamed those words and cried for around 20 minutes that felt like a lifetime — and then I took this photo to remember what I felt like, started my car, and drove home.
I took this photo while trying to fix my mascara after sobbing on a public train while on my first vacation after Libby died. I wrote in a previous blog (HERE) about little girls sitting front of me and how painful it was. I didn’t post this picture when I wrote that blog because I thought I looked terrible and didn’t want to put it out there. But I said I’m keeping it real in this one, so here it is.
These photos and stories? They just scratch the surface of the ugly cries and overwhelming feelings of sadness, emptiness, anger, and injustice that I’ve felt. There are so many other ugly aspects of grief when it comes to relationships, work, identity loss … but I’m overwhelmed enough right now that I will save those for another day.
I’ll still keep posting my inspirational quotes and helpful tip videos and all of those other things that I do which are ALSO part of the grieving process. But today, I just needed to acknowledge that grief doesn’t come all wrapped up in a pretty bow.
