To Those Who Are Gone, To Those Who Sleep In Our Hearts

If there is something that life does not prepare us for, it is for death. Our heart is used to breathing in breaths of energy, vitality, happy memories and the occasional disappointment.

Now, how to assume the emptiness, the absence, the non-company of those who were so significant in our day to day? It is something that nobody instructs us to do, something that almost nobody assumes is going to happen to them.

We are sure that today, you have more than one absence in your mind, voids in your soul that you long for every day. Is there a correct way to cope with the loss of a loved one?

The answer is no. Each one of us, within our particularities, has some strategies that will not be more useful than others. However, there are some essential guidelines that we invite you to learn about with us. We just hope that it helps you, because remember: whoever leaves, never leaves completely. It continues to exist in your memories and sleeping in your heart.

Ways to say goodbye in your heart, ways to assume absence

There are several types of losses. A long illness allows us, in a way, to prepare for goodbye. Unfortunately, there are also those unforeseen, cruel and incomprehensible losses that are so difficult to accept.

Few experiences like losing a loved one awaken so much emotional suffering in us. We feel so overwhelmed that the most common thing is to be paralyzed. The world insists on moving forward, when for us, everything has stopped abruptly.

Nor will it surprise you to know that losses are conceived as vital moments where many more dimensions are included apart from the emotional one. There is physical suffering, cognitive disorientation and even a crisis of values, especially if we follow some kind of philosophy or religion.

It has been our turn, and as such, we have to assume it, and somehow “rebuild” ourselves . This process, as you already know, involves a duel, which usually lasts a few months. Living it is necessary, we will never forget the loved one, but we will learn to live with that absence.

Let’s now look at the most common phases of the duel:

• we cannot assume what happened. We fight against reality and deny it.
• It is very common to be angry with everyone and with everything, we look for a why, a reason why that loss has occurred. It is something normal that can last a few days or weeks.
•  This stage is vital to overcome the loss. After the misunderstanding comes a small approach to reality. We already accept talking to other people and even to ourselves. We see everything with a little more calm.
• essential, cathartic and essential. Each one will do it in their own way, there are those who will find relief in tears, others will seek solitude to release little by little … It is something necessary.
• After the anger, after that first approach to reality and the subsequent emotional release, acceptance comes calmly.

The need for each of us to grieve is as necessary as allowing ourselves to be helped. Who does not accept, who does not liberate and learns to let go of the person, remains stranded in a pain that will prevent him from moving forward.

Accept non-permanence, learn to “let go”

We could talk to you about the need to be prepared for adversity, but in reality, it is about something much simpler: assuming that we are not eternal, that life is moments to live with intensity because no one has a permanent quota in this world.

We also know that for many, some of these words will not be of much use. There are unnatural losses, no parent should lose a child, and no person should lose that partner, that part of their heart that gives them life, strength and courage.

It is not easy, nobody warned us that life was going to bring us those moments of pain. And yet we are forced to live, because this world is unforgiving, it flows fast and almost out of breath and forces us to keep breathing and beating.

And do not hesitate, you must. For those who are gone and for yourself, because living is honoring the one you loved, taking them with you every day, smiling for them, walking for them. Open your heart and give yourself permission to move on, to shine for them.

Images Courtesy: Catrin Welz-Stein