The "Myth" of 'Getting Over It'

     I have a had a really hard time with people telling me 'I need to get over it' or asking 'are you over it yet?'.    You don't 'get over' the loss of a child.  Over time, you will heal enough that you can cope with it better, but you never get over it.  I found this amazing analogy that another 'Angel Mama' posted on another blog and I really want to share it here.  It has reminded me that it's okay to grieve and feel the deep pain of loss, but it is also possible to move forward over time.  My grief is important, because being sad about my loss helps me recognize how much I love my child.  I love the part where it talks about my grief being 'holy'.  It really is something special and sacred that connects me with Jackson.  I know that my grief will always be there, but after a while I can 'engage' it and rewrite my life around it.

     You don't get over it.  Getting over it is an inappropriate goal.  An unreasonable hope.  The loss of a child changes you.  It changes your marriage.  it changes the way birds sing.  It changes the way the sun rises and sets.  You are forever different

     You don't want to get over it.  Don't act surprised.  As awful a burden as grief is, you know intuitively that it matters, that it is profoundly important to be grieving.  Your grief plays a crucial part in staying connected to your child's life.  To give up your grief would mean losing your child yet again.  If I had the power to take your grief away, you'd fight me to keep it.  Your grief is awful, but it is also holy.  And somewhere inside you, you know that.  

     The goal is not to get over it.  The goal is to get on with it.

Profound grief is like being in a stage play wherein suddenly the stagehands push a huge grand piano into the middle of the set.  The piano paralyzes the play.  It dominates the stage no matter where you move, it impedes your sight lines, your blocking, your ability to interact with the other players.  You keep banging into it, surprised each time that it's still there.  It takes all your concentration to work around  it, this at a time when you have little ability or desire to concentrate on anything.  

     The piano changes everything.  The entire play must be rewritten around it.

     But, over time, the piano is pushed to stage left.  Then to upper stage left.  You are the playwright, and slowly, surely, you begin to find the impetus and wherewithal to stop reacting to the intrusive piano.  Instead, you engage it.  Instead of writing every scene around the piano, you begin to write the piano into each scene, into the story of your life.  

     You learn to play that piano.  You're surprised to find that you want to play, that it's meaningful, even peaceful to play it.  At first your songs are filled with pain, bitterness, even despair.  But, later you find your songs contain beauty, peace, a greater capacity for love and compassion.  You and grief --together -- begin to compose hope.  Who'da thought?

     Your grief becomes an intimate treasure, though the spaces between the grief lengthen.  You no longer need to play the piano every day, or even every month.  But, later when you're 84, staring out your window on a random Tuesday morning, you welcome the sigh, the tears, the wistful pain that moves through your heart and reminds you that your child's life mattered.

    You wipe the dust off the piano and sit down to play.  

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