Hope & Happiness....

Hope  & Happiness….

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 used 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. 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 would die from a broken heart. Faking to be “ok” was both mentally and physically 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 some color again, although grey remains. Grief is hard never-ending work. It’s a journey that will always be.  Years later, I began to engage 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, because truthfully, the most valuable relationship I will ever have is with myself.  There is this new life I have which 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 and grieve the woman I was pre-loss, and after alot of work, I have accepted the woman I have become since losing Brian. 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 that evening on the day I turned age 40. But I sit here today, reflecting on the past almost 10 years since Brian died, now age 50 & all I can say is WOW!! I AM SOMEHOW MAKING IT!!! AND SO WILL YOU!! #Hope #doitforbrian