I joined a club.

I joined a club.

It’s a club that no one signs up for and no one wants to be a part of.  

This club SUCKS (Sorry, Momma, I know you hate that word)! 

I joined the “Grief Club” on August 4, 2024,  the day my Daddy ran to the arms of Jesus. 

I never wanted to be a part of this club, but here I am. 

I’ve learned a lot.  I wish I wouldn’t have had to learn, but nonetheless, I’ve learned.

I’ve learned my grief is my own. While other club members are grieving their own losses, they don’t grieve the same way I do, and that’s OK.  Things or memories that bring me comfort may be hard for other club members.  I may need to clean up belongings or throw items away, and those items may be a comfort to others.  This is where grace and forgiveness have to step in, and communication needs to happen. 

My Daddy’s desk at work was always something I wanted to clean and organize.   I would beg him to let me reorganize his desk drawers, and he would laugh and say, “Stay out of my desk, I know where things are!”  After Daddy passed, to my youngest, his desk was hard to look at.  My sissy told me not to touch it yet.  My mom sat at his desk and cried and said, “What do we do with his desk?” and I said, “I know this is hard to look at, Momma, but look at this.”… and I pulled open the desk drawer, and she burst out laughing!  Grief is our own.  Others view the world and the people they love with a different perspective, and I have no right to tell them how they should feel. 

I’ve learned that there is no “SHOULD” in grief.  On days when I am feeling happy, I think I shouldn’t be happy, I should be grieving.  People ask how I am doing, and I feel like I should have an answer, and I just have no words.   I wonder if people think I should be “over this already,” and I worry what they think of me.  I may find something funny, and my laughter may come across as disrespectful while the other club members are hurting so much.  This is another place where grace and forgiveness have to step in, but this time, I need to give myself the grace.  

I’ve learned that grief comes in waves.  I can be going about my day at work, focusing only on the job needing done and it hits me out of no where..a memory…a Sound…a smell…It hits me so hard and so fast that I feel like my body has just been hit by an ocean wave, and I’m tumbling through the water and I can’t catch my breath. 

Other times, the water is calm, and I can wade into it, and it covers me like a blanket. 

I just have to remember how to swim. 

I’ve learned I need to keep my focus on “things above”.
When my focus is on myself or the world around me, I can let the sadness or anxiety or trauma fill my day and take over my thoughts and emotions.  My dreams are nightmarish, and I wake with such fear and anxiety.  When I’m awake, if I allow Satan a seat at my table and allow the thoughts, guilt, fear, aniexty to take over my whole body, where it feels like I’m getting knocked by waves over and over and higher and higher until I feel like I could drown…

BUT

…When my focus has shifted to God’s point of view and I try to view life from the other side of Heaven and I fill my mind and my ears with praise songs and Bible passages and podcasts my body goes from feeling like I’m drowning to the waves calming and the water is slowing so that it’s only lapping at my feet.

I’ve learned that guilt has no place in grief! I’ve had “the” thoughts.  The “what ifs” and “should haves”. 

My family was in an honored place, to be able to say all that needed to be said and to hear all that we needed to hear from him, BUT those guilty feelings and “if only” thoughts come and I’ve learned they don’t have a right to be a part of my grief story.  Those thoughts are not helpful and only hold me in place.   I can’t move on if I allow those thoughts to have weight in my head. 

I’ve learned I can step out of my grief to help others grieve. I lost my Daddy, but my girls lost their Papa.  I can be “in” my own grief, but when I see them “in their grief,” I step into mom mode.  It almost feels like I pick up my box of grief and set it on the ground by my feet, and then I pick the girls up and hold them. 

Just because it was my dad that we lost,  doesn’t mean that they can’t come to me and grieve the loss of their grandfather.  I want to hear them.  I want to hold them.  I want to help them through this. 

I’ve learned I’m not alone.  The ONLY thing that is good about this club is that you are not alone.  Technically, that part is not good either because it means that your fellow club members have loss and grief as well, but it helps to know that you aren’t the only one to go through it. 

I’ve learned it takes strength to be apart of this club. I’ve met many club members along the way.  I met some before I joined the club, and I’ve met many since.  They don’t want to be in the club either, but there is something to be said about having others to lean on. 

I’ve heard so many say that “Grief doesn’t get easier,” but a wise dear friend said, “You learn to handle it better.”

It takes strength to face our sadness and to let our grief and our anger flow into tears when they need to. It takes strength to talk about our feelings and to reach out for help and comfort when we need it. 

If you are a club member and need a listening ear, I’m here for you.  We are in this together, and I’ll grieve right alongside you.  You are not alone.