The Dark Side Of Grief

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There's this dark side that I have been wrapped up in, consumed in, and hidden in for months now.

I see, now, that it was a place of safety. It was a place of healing.

But, oh, how that healing hurts. And that healing can be really scary sometimes.

The ones who grieve and have grieved, there is a side you don't get to see. You don't see it when you pass them in the grocery store or see them out and about running errands.

Sure, they look a little sad. They may even look a little beaten.

But there is a side you don't see.

You don't see them wrestle in the ugly pit of darkness. You don't see them thrashing about as if they are truly being beaten.

You don't hear those anguished questions of "why" uttered.

The ones close to me have. My husband. My sisters. My parents.

They have seen it. They have witnessed it.

The dark side of grief is incredibly ugly. It is incredibly painful. It is incredibly dark. It is incredibly lonely.

There have been amazing people who have taken my hand and walked with me but it is still very lonely. No one can take an once of the pain away.

I realized this the day we buried Emmerson and Vivienne.

My sisters and sister-in-law put together a little dinner at our house after the funeral. I was present physically but not mentally or emotionally. That day, I mainly stared. I couldn't follow conversations. I had no desire to eat. Laughter seemed like a foreign language to me.

I remember as people started to leave I wanted to desperately cling to them and beg them to take me with them. I thought, if I could just leave this place, it will all disappear. If I could just leave this place, I won't feel this pain. 


I also remember feeling deep anger as these people left. I was very aware that they would return to their normal lives once they got in their cars. Where was my normal? 


There was no escaping the pain. There was no getting around that profound, empty hole. I had to go through it and I. DID. NOT. WANT. TO!

The dark side of grief is feeling nothing and everything. It is losing all desire in everything that you once found joy in. It was wanting, begging, pleading for anything to come along and make the pain stop. I understand how addicts become addicts now.

A lot of people would ask me how I was doing physically. If I was healing physically. I would nod but I didn't really know. The pain of losing my girls trumped any other pain that I may have felt. I did not feel physical hunger until three months after goodbye. I know I went days without eating. What was the point?

The dark side of grief is keeping all the blinds shut and wishing the sun wouldn't shine. It is feeling completely pissed off that it came out. How can it continue to shine when the world as you knew it had stopped?

The dark side of grief is wanting to stay locked in your house but wanting to escape at the same time. But once you left your house, you want back in. You wonder where you fit in this world. You don't belong with the masses who are going on about their lives as if they will live forever. As if bad won't strike them.

The dark side of grief is not being able to sleep but not being able to get out of bed in the morning. It is such a heavy weight that ties you to the floor and it seems impossible to even get dressed.

It is looking at your parents and knowing and feeling that you are so much older than they are. It is feeling like you have lived a lifetime. It is looking in the mirror and seeing someone who has aged so many years in so few moments.

The dark side of grief is weeping every single night till the body hurts and you are left wondering when you will be all dried up.

The dark side of grief is ceaseselly praying for your God to take you in your sleep. It is begging Him to stop your heart.

The dark side of grief is looking at a bottle of pills and wondering . . . if I take them all . . .

The dark side of grief for me wasn't that I wanted to die, I just lacked the desire to live. It wasn't that I wanted to die, I just wanted a way for all the pain to end. It was just that I wanted it all to be over. I wanted the suffocating, unbearable weight of pain to be taken from me.

The dark side of grief is ugly. It hurts. It sears. It burns. And you just want someone to take it all away. Or for someone to be able to turn back the hands of time and undo the mess that is now your life.






Stephanie