HOPE

Aug 19th is the day of HOPE so with that, I happily say…

It’s weird as I utter the words “I am happy”.  I pause for a second, take a breathe & say to myself “it’s okay to be happy”. I use to feel so guilty if I even uttered a smile those first few years after Brian died. I know that’s very normal in child loss. I didn’t know it then. But I earned the right to be happy. It’s a very different type of happy, of course, but seeing as though I thought I never feel that emotion again, I will take it in its current form. I turned 40 on Jan 18, 2014 & 10 months later Brian would die in a car accident. I spent the first few years of my 40’s in complete survival mode. I truly mean survival mode by not dying by my own hand or death by drowning myself in alcohol to numb a pain most could never understand. My heart literally felt like it would give up on me and I die from a broken heart. Faking to be “ok” was exhausting. The following years after that I began working on my healing, trying to embrace my life & what that looked like without Brian here. The light had broken through the darkness & I could see in color again, although grey remains. Grief is hard never ending work. It’s a journey that will always be.  When early 2020 hit & the world stopped spinning as we all knew it, I began to really engage in life, within myself & what was around me. I was no longer “asleep”. With that brand new discovery brought upon a new life that I wanted and needed for myself.  I made a hard choice that August by wanting to be on my own, but I knew that was what was best for me. And the most valuable relationship I will ever have is with myself. The last two years have been filled with this new life where I found me again which also includes  my grief & the waves that come along with it. I accept that my grief journey is forever. Brian is my son, how could it not be. I honor the woman I was pre-loss because she was f’ing awesome, but this new woman, she is unstoppable. My 40’s were not what I had thought they would’ve been when I was standing a few rows back singing at Luke Bryan’s concert in Tennessee that evening on the day I turned age 40. But I sit here today, the day of hope, reflecting on the past 7.5 years since Brian died, now age 48 & all I can say is Damn!!  I AM SOMEHOW MAKING IT!!! AND SO WILL YOU!! #Hope #doitforbrian ❤️💛💚