PATH THROUGH GRIEF

Denial -Anger- Acceptance - Liberation

(Loosing a parent) .....I wanted to write this blog from years not months but i couldn't get past the sentence . But today something inside me triggered and words just kept flowing ,May be seeing loved ones go through the same overwhelming grief i went through fuelled this blog again.

In August 2020 i lost my father suddenly , one day he was there and next day i woke up he is gone , no prior warning ,no preparation mentally , he just disappeared from my life  . The only solace i got from his death is that he did not suffer any pain and died peacefully .

But from that day onwards the stages of grief i went through were immense it changed me to the core , It changed my personality , it challenged me in ways i never imagined existed.

How can a emotion or feeling change a person is something i could not correlate to this day .It might not necessarily be a parent for everyone ,it can be a loved one or animal or even death of a relationship brings us this overwhelming wave of grief.

So what is GRIEF?

Grief is an emotion that can change daily, bringing good days and bad, ups and downs. It is not linear or follows an expected path; rather, it takes more of a spiralling trajectory, spinning back onto itself at times, bringing confusion, distraction and numbness to things that once brought us joy. 

After the death of a loved one, there is an emptiness in our hearts and souls that never can be filled in the same way again. But this deep longing can bring with it the knowledge of the strength and beauty of the relationship we shared with our loved one. It can remind us that the love we enjoyed with them is not bound by time or space, but that it remains forever. This love and the bonds we form in life are precious, and the time and space we share is sacred.

If you are walking the path of grief, I encourage you to find time to spend with your grief, whether through journaling, talking to a family member or a counsellor, engaging in some form of expression of your grief through art or music, or simply by sitting quietly in a favourite chair and letting your memories (and tears) flow. Yoga helped me to connect to my father , it gave me a medium to communicate with him. I start my yoga session with meditation where my concentration is not about finding some mystic self control powers or the feeling of zen. I just imagine seeing my father sitting in his favourite chair and lost in deep thought and my son playing next to him and that daily visual imagination brings me immense joy ...Some days i take my imagination to a river bed or places he used to enjoy , it is always me, my father and my son sitting there quietly .We don't even communicate it looks like a post card picture but it has so much sense and the elevation of my relationship from living to imaginary is what brings me closure.

Spend time with people who are also grieving and take turns telling favourite stories about the person who has died. Often these sessions end-up being filled with laughter and light-heartedness, which is a wonderful way to honour your loved one.   

Certainly, I’ve changed fundamentally – some good and some less good.

For me i feel we are the extension of our parents as we come from them ..Every cell in us  is made from the DNA given by them so how can we even loose them ? Even when they are gone , they live through us their DNA is still living .I try to find my father inside me and in my son he is ever present .

Today i run a successful business , which i started with the ethics and knowledge he gave me . His immense love for environment and animals and plants has shown me how to care for them in a broader way. 

I started to care more for the relationships that are left , i care less for monetary things and more for people around me , I spend my wholetime finding ways to improve my business or improve myself as a human being ( I am sounding like a saint) i am nowhere near being a saint lol...But i am definitely a better version of whom i used to be .

Saying goodbye to a parent is one of the hardest things we face in our lives. It is also something that almost everyone goes through.Losing a parent brings with it many other losses, including all that that person gave to you. No other bond exists like the one between a parent and child. There is a channel of love—of giving—that existed between you and that parent, and that channel was specific and unique to your relationship, even if there were ten other children in the family. When that channel is broken through death, there is an emptiness and longing that often follows, for those things given and received through that channel are also gone.

“You are now forced to cope with the loss of that parental love and attention that was given uniquely to you, and that you depended on, possibly even took for granted.”

 Even as adults, we are seldom ready for the death of a mother or father. Regardless of our relationship with our parents, we will always be their children. Whether one is ready for it or not, the death of a parent can bring many losses and changes.  There are typically other losses, too, such as the long-term friendship of adult child and parent, the helpful advice, the emotional support during hard times, and the parent’s home where numerous holidays and celebrations have taken place. It is not unusual for us to feel being orphaned when a parent dies. 

You may have depended on your parent for advice or information, or for moral support, and now have to get by without that dependable resource. You may have become great friends with that parent as you became an adult, and now realize that you not only lost a parent, but you also lost a dear friend—someone who knew you in a way that no one else ever will. Adjust to this loss can be very difficult and take a long time, especially if you had specific ways of being in relationship with your parent, such as talking regularly on the phone every day, turning to that parent during times of stress because you knew he/she would just listen, gaining wisdom and advice on topics you knew she/he always helped you with.

The circumstances of your parent’s death may also impact the intensity of your grief. We may try to find blame with other siblings or carers they are under ,But in reality Death is beyond us , There might be a question whether can it be avoided have we not done things differently , The answer is simple ,We are mortals and death is something that is natural for us . We have to just accept the greater truth of life and move on . Honour the parents legacy and try to live in peace and if possible keep peace with people around us. Life is short lets not waste it with anger.

 Coping with the loss of a parent means learning to live without a person you have known for your whole life who will likely have played an important role in your growth and development. Parents have shared the important moments of your life with you and have been invested in your wellbeing.

After the loss of a parent you will feel emotions that may feel intense and unfamiliar. Grief is an individual experience and different people, even from within the same family, will process their grief and express emotion in different ways, at different times. Me and brother had a very different process of grief and in way consoling him made me to take the role of my father and allowed me to grow rapidly into a shade giving tree.

In short any one grieving today or have been in the process from many years just remember one thing . TIME IS THE BEST HEALER and at the same we need to find ways to cope and not just leave it to time.We may fail at times and end up where we started and cry for days , Just remember it is OK , It is a natural process and everyone has different time frames and coping mechanism and eventually we will survive.

LOVE YOU FATHER ....You made me what i am today , You give me the strength to fight every day . I cannot thank you enough for being my father.