Note to Self…
March 12, 2022
You cannot control losing those you love, but you can consciously guide how you respond to your loss and how you deal with sorrow.
You get to decide what the grieving experience looks and feels like.
Loss makes you realize how fragile and precious life is, how everything can change in a moment and never be the same.
Be patient with yourself as you find your way through unfamiliar emotions.
Pace yourself.
Give yourself all the time and freedom you need to walk with grief rather than run away.
Your job right now is to take good care of yourself. Be gentle with yourself and take it slowly.
When you make it through one day, you can get through another.
You do not need to look ahead. Focus on the present and continue to breathe.
Allow yourself to grieve in your own way, not how others would like you to.
Deep down inside, you already know how to mourn if you let yourself.
Offer yourself what you need, moment by moment, to move toward living again.
Allow yourself to readjust emotionally, spiritually, and physically.
Follow your natural, organic inclinations toward healing rather than trying to obey unrealistic expectations from yourself or others.
Sorrow is unique to you.
Your sorrow and your grief do not follow any timeline, and in turn, your healing will not have a timeline.
There are no shortcuts or quick fixes.
You will live beside sorrow as you merge the sudden loss of your loved one into your life.
When we lose our sibling, we lose a part of ourselves. We lose a piece of our past and a vision for our future.
We will never be the person we were before we lost them.
Others may want you to return to the “old” you, but that is impossible, as there is no returning to that person.
The person who emerges from the grief will be the person you will be going forward, and who that person will become has yet to be determined.
There is no timeline and no set path. There is only your path.
Don’t quit on yourself.
Don’t let grief define you.
Don’t give up on healing.
“You will heal, and you will rebuild yourself around the loss you have suffered. You will be whole again, but you will never be the same. Nor should you be the same, nor would you want to.”
~ Elisabeth Kübler-Ross
To honor you, Justin, I will make the conscious choice to move through my grief, mourn the loss of you, and heal in my own timing.
Justin’s Sister