The Pain I Thought Was Keeping Her Close Was Actually Keeping Me From Her

My hands fell, palms open on the floor, slowing down the pace of my body as I dropped. With my face buried in the rug, wetted by tears and muffling my agony, I sang our song.

Though, it could have been any song.

This was my nightly ritual.

Sing.

Cry.

Exhaust myself until I was able to fall asleep.

I didn’t know any other way. She was gone and all that remained was the void she left in my life. I believed the only way to stay close to her was to stay in the pain.

I was lost.

Wandering with no compass, map, or manuals.

My future? It didn’t exist. No matter how desperately I tried crawling my way out of the pit.

So, I accepted it. This was my life now.

Occasionally I would find ways to fill the void.

Laugh with a friend.

Cry with a stranger.

Or go on an adventure with my kids.

But it always ended the same.

Me, on the floor, feeling all the pain that I had been hiding throughout the day.

I was alone.

She was gone.

Doing anything else, like finding joy in the moments we once shared, felt like a betrayal.

My joy remained separate from the life Ariana and I once shared.

It wasn’t until I found myself drowning that I understood: the pain I thought was keeping her close was actually keeping me from her.

I was holding onto the worst of us and calling it love.

If this is you, you’re not broken. You are doing what grief tells you makes sense.

You Are Only Betraying Yourself

It is normal to feel like we must exist in pain, because, after all, what is life without the person we lost.

We hold onto guilt and shame for all the experiences we are still having while they remain dead.

We are pressured to perform our grief for others. Afraid they will judge us if we are not “hurting.”

I spent a year lamenting to my journal about the guilt and pain.

So, if we stay underwater, drowning in our sorrow no one can validate the guilt we feel.

No one can tell us we aren’t suffering.

No one can tell us we didn’t love.

And, to some degree, it is loyal.

You are remaining loyal to the image you have created of your person. Loyal to what you would feel if they were the one left behind.

But, in the end, you are only betraying yourself.

You are walking around with a broken arm (grief) and banging it against the table (suffering), screaming out in pain.

Joy becomes difficult to hold onto when it is accompanied by the shame.

So, there has to be a shift and redefinition of the relationship you once had with them.

They Exist. Only Different.

I was sat on the couch, clenching the edge of the arm rest.

“I feel the connection fading. I am scared to no longer feel her close to me.” I cried to my therapist.

It was a moment of desperation. A moment when my guard fell, too tired to continue to hold up the shield. So, the truth spilled from my lips.

“You are still treating her like she is here. She’s not. CJ. You need to redefine what your connection to her is now.”

The words sharpened as they flew through the air into my heart.

I know she was right. But I didn’t know how to do that.

I still consulted Ariana on decisions with the kids.

Yelled at her.

And begged for her to return.

So, I nodded my head and left the session.

Permission

I didn’t know how to redefine my relationship with Ariana.

I made excuses.

And remained in my suffering, refusing to let it go.

Then, one night, face still in the floor I realized, there was no letting go. I didn’t have to “not feel any pain” to move forward. To find joy.

The pain could exist alongside everything else.

I could hold on to the whole range of who she was.

I could remember the joy AND pain.

I was only missing permission.

Permission to myself to begin living. Even in the smallest way possible.

Permission to not reduce Ariana down to just her death.

She was more than how she died. Your person was more than how they died.

Love isn’t fair. But neither is reducing someone you loved to only their most painful moments.

Their “last words” are not the sum of their life.

They are only a single moment.

Staying close to her meant remembering she was more than the pain.

And so was I.

- CJ

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How have you redefined your relationship with the person you lost? 👇🏼

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