When Grief Feels Like Riding a Broken Merry-Go-Round

I have been told grief is a sign of great love. I know that is true because I greatly loved my son, Lincoln. But what nobody tells you is how messy and unnatural grief feels. Nobody tells you there are days when it seems almost as if that horribly tragic, life-altering event never happened, when it seems like you never lost a child. Then suddenly you feel so taken aback that you were happy, that you had a bit of normalcy without your child. So you begin to feel angry. You’re angry for feeling normal.

Nobody tells you that you might forget — and I mean completely space out on — your child’s 3-month birthday (if they were alive, of course), then the next day cry your eyes out for feeling like such a horrible mother. In reality, you did nothing wrong other than survive. You keep going day to day, minute to minute, and occasionally things like that will slip by. Because if you stop for every one of those moments, you wouldn’t be moving forward in life. You’d just be standing still, waiting for that next moment.

Something nobody tells you about grief is it’s like a broken merry-go-round. You got on expecting the ride it seems like everyone else is experiencing. But now it won’t stop. No matter how loud you scream, how much you beg or how many tears you cry, it isn’t stopping. I believe it’s both a blessing and a curse that life doesn’t stop during grief. You think, but how can I possibly keep going on with my life when my child is dead? Yes, I said it. That ugly word nobody ever wants to use when talking about child loss. He isn’t lost, I didn’t misplace him. He died.

Life keeps going. I believe that might be one of the saddest parts of losing a child or a loved one. Life just keeps going, like nothing ever happened. Like your whole world didn’t just shatter.

Simply put, I don’t know how you keep going. I can’t explain how I did. Looking back, I remember closing my eyes, forcing back vomit and just getting out of bed.

There is no secret to it. You just do it, however you can, at whatever pace you can.

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