Today I laughed.
I laughed because someone had said something funny. The person I was talking to, said to me; “Wow, it’s good to see you laughing. Glad you are over it”.
I stopped laughing and looked at her. In my head, I wanted to scream “WTF? That was a horrible thing to say.” What she was referring to as “it” was the death of my best friend and her husband. Before I could get the words out, I stemmed the tears in my eyes and felt a wave of sorrow for this person. For she is well of an age where she should have lost at least 1 person she’d have loved. If she felt one can ‘get over it” then she truly did not know what it was like to love and be loved with a whole heart.
I took a deep breath
I replied instead this way: “I am very sorry that you have either been so fortunate to have not lost someone”. “Nor have you loved someone so much, their loss is deep in your soul.” Grief does not disappear over time. Grief transforms. Life does need to go on without that person and one accepts it. However, one does not ”get over it”.
You stop counting by the days as they become weeks. Stop counting weeks as they become months. Stop counting the months as they become years. As each day passes, you have moments where you find yourself wishing you could share with them. Every milestone, birth, wedding, or holiday contains a space where the person should be. Songs that bring back waves of memory flood my ears daily. No, I am “not over it.” And I am glad. For as painful as these things are now, I know that as time goes by, I will be comforted by them. I am glad, that I had the chance in my life, to love people so much, and be loved back, that I can miss them this much.
The person I was talking to apologized and walked away. I am hoping, she was a little wiser, and more open, to finding someone in her life, that she could not