Grief at month 6

I recently read a quote: "The days are long but the years are short" and that is exactly how I feel about this last half year without Gemi.

It is hard to believe it has been that long. I can still vividly remember those first few months, the long days and longer nights feeling a crushing grief - believing this pain could never pass and that for the rest of my life I would barely be able to get through the day because of the pain. However, time does heal wounds. That is not to say that I do not feel a pain for the loss of my girl. It is just the pain is more a dull ache in my heart and not a complete shatter.

I can also report that I am living with virtually no grief over this accident. I have come to the point where I know there is nothing I could have done. Clearly if I had known this may happen, I would have changed what I did. When you know better, you do better, and unfortunately sometimes when you know better it is too late to do better.

I do still live with certain anxieties. For example when Lee and Emma get playing sometimes and Lee may be a little rough, my heart jumps into my throat and I need to make it stop. I think this anxiety will probably be with me for a long, long time.

Now that I am on the far side of my trauma (truly a place I never thought I would be), I am trying to reflect on how I got here. I hope my experience may help others if they are ever faced with such a horrible tragedy.

1) I think I let myself feel the heartache at the beginning. In general I am a "stoic" person who suppresses her emotions, but this time I let my heart break and bleed.
2) Support. I have had great support from my family, friends and those in the virtual community.
3) Hearing worse stories. I  isn't that I take comfort in hearing the stories about people who accidentally did things that resulted in the death of a loved one, but hearing them talk about their pain and seeing that they could go on and forgive themselves, made me believe that maybe I could do that too.
4) Forgiving myself and thinking positively.  This took more effort than I ever would have imagined, but slowly I have been able to do this.
5) Being busy. The last few months have been really busy for me at work. Having things to do and being mentally busy have prevented me from being able to sit in the grief.
6) Exercise, sleep and vitamins - taking care of my heath, and keeping myself in a general good place has helped me cope with this and everything else life has thrown at me. I know when I get tired, I don't cope with anything (big or small).

So as far as the grief piece goes, I am in a pretty good place with it. There will always be a bruised piece of my heart over the loss of my Gemi. I also know I will likely face those bone crushing, suffocating days of grief from time to time, but truly for the first time since the accident I can say, "I will be ok."  Given this, I think this will be my last monthly report and will blog about it, if and when things change.

Thank you all for your love and support during this rather crappy part of my life journey!

Gemini