Seven Years Ago - Another step into grieving a loss.

Seven years ago, I was in Sichuan Province, China helping to support a community impacted by the Sichuan Earthquake 14 months earlier that had devasted the local landscapes, communities, and lives in the areas surround Lushan, Sichuan Province. This was a part of my international field placement where I could put into action many of the things that I had learned as a student learning about international disaster psychology.

Seven years ago today…. 7200 miles away in a suburb in Los Angeles, I lost someone close to me. This person who I will decline to specify represented a father figure in my early adult life and even more so to one of the people closet to me. I was anticipating this loss for some time, as this person was on palliative care and then transitioned to hospice shortly after me starting my field placement going to China in late May 2014.

Seven years ago, I felt the over-whelmed power of anticipatory grief mixed with separation anxiety, struggling with attachment issues that stemmed to my early childhood, and dealing with the uncertainty of what would happen over the course of my field practicum.

Several year ago, my heart broke. It broke for the people home struggling with the grief, the shock, the pain, the trauma, the anger, the rage, and piece of the puzzle that was now missing. The right words to describe this experience still is not easy for me to find. It is welled in emotion. It is consumed of rumination. It is grounded in the raw vulnerability that I had to face day in and day out 7200 miles away from my loved ones who needed me.

Seven years ago, things changed. The people closest to this loss evolved with time. Some processing the loss, some pushing it down, some letting anxiety rule at times, some finding meaning in the loss, some searching for acceptance, and some seeking to work through tasks of grief.

Seven years ago, I began another grief journey as part of a person living with a life-time of grief…. the tasks of grief, the cycles of loss, the reminiscing, the nostalgia, the commiserating, the seeking of connection, the pure eruption of emotion…. is all valid. It all has a space. It all needs to be heard, to be felt, to be allowed to exist. Why?

Seven years ago, I learned what it means to continue to being human. Part of being human is to grieve. Grieving takes time. Allow the time no matter how long. Allow the time for it to run its course, to allow for growth, to allow for meaningful connection. To allow for humanity to experience suffering and perseverance. And even just maybe grieving will help you as it did parts of me to find a sense of resiliency during loss.

Allow yourself to grieve, to move through the loss, to feel, to heal, to be brave and let go of suffering.