Acceptance is allegedly the final stage of grief, but there’s has been so much research done since Elizabeth Kubler Ross came up with the 5 Stages of Grief.
While acceptance is a very important part of your grief journey, I am fairly certain that is not where it ends.
So, what IS next for you?
There should never be any pressure for you to “move on” from your grief. I’m not even sure that is possible.
I wish I could tell you that the year mark gives you an epiphany and your broken heart magically gets put back together. Unfortunately for you and I, I’m not a magician.
What I do know is that we learn to integrate the losses we experience into our lives.
The people we lose are always with us, in some form or fashion. Over time we truly learn to carry the pain we experience differently.
I’m not sure we ever learn to live without them, we just adjust our lives to experience them differently.
When we hear a song that reminds us of them, can can express gratitude for the love we had for them.
When we see a picture of them, we may only cry for 3 days instead of every day for a month.
Little by little our grief begins to transform. I don’t mean you must experience personal growth from your loss, I mean it changes.
It will constantly change.
The year mark of your loss is a milestone, it will always be our honor to walk through grief with you.
We commend you on your bravery and commend you if you weren’t so brave. There’s always another opportunity to be open to the depths of pain that grieve gives us.
It is not an easy dive.
But the thing we ask most of you, please remember that we are always here for you.
-The Retreat Bereavement Team
