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Wednesday's Woe
"Time Heals All Wounds"...Or Does It?
by Tommy and Angie Prince
They say, "Time Heals All Wounds" ...
Is that statement true?
Three weeks ago was Merry Katherine's birthday. Our forever-19-year-old "Teen Angel" would have been 23-years-old. One week after that, we "celebrated" our 31st wedding anniversary by ordering a take-out dinner from Bone Fish. Our son Nathan graciously picked up our dinner for us so we could eat in the privacy of our own home. Holidays and "celebrations" just aren't the same any more...
In some ways, time heals some of the pain of grief.
Even the frequency of the waves of grief diminish.
But in other ways, the passage of time aggravates grief's pain.
The intensity of pain has changed, but certain pain and discomfort seems to increase with time. For example, our enthusiasm for the celebration of certain days has diminished. We cancelled Thanksgiving and Christmas and our birthday celebrations this year, because we could not "celebrate" another special day of her not being here.
We don't eagerly anticipate the holidays; we dread them...
The passage of time increases the dread of the approaching, otherwise-happy, celebratory days.
In other words, we are incredibly sad that Merry Katherine is gone, and we cannot play pretend just because a so-called "holiday" is here.
As it is, it's been very tough to go through the other holidays over these past 3 1/2 years since her death. The first Christmas without Merry Katherine (just four months after she was killed), I think we were numb, so we went through the motions of "celebrating" by sharing our gifts to one another in a different room than where our usual Christmas festivities were held...
Our second Christmas without her, we could not be at home at all to "celebrate" Christmas. It was just too painful to do the normal, usual happy celebration when we were not at all happy. So we handled the discomfort by "changing scenery" and going out of town to be together on that major holiday.
But now we are to the point that we can't even bring ourselves to go through the motions in any way.
Time has taken care of some of the intensity of the pain, but by the same token, it seems the pain just increases from year to year with more and more holidays without her...
Birthdays and holidays pile up; it is ANOTHER birthday without her and ANOTHER Christmas without her. It is just too painful, and the special days without her are only going to increase in number.
There is something to the "Accumulative Grief" theory - the more grief you experience, the harder is the grief to come...
Does Time heal all wounds?
3 comments:
Hello Tommy & Angie,
I have commented before. It has been eight months since I lost my son Nickolas. I do not believe that any amount of time will heal the wound that is in my heart. Right now I totally agree with all that you have written. Nothing is the same for me. I rarely want to go anywhere, let alone "celebrate" anything. I don't know how long I will be around, but, when I think of the potential number of years I might have to remain separated from my boy, well, it seems like that is just additional torture added onto the loss. Holidays, birthdays, and other special days will always pale in comparison to the love, joy and happiness my son brought to my life. When my son died, it was as if a bright light was suddenly extinguished and I was left to live in the darkness of my grief. A veil of sadness now shades my eyes, my heart, and my soul. Time does not heal anything. Time mocks me and seems to enjoy my suffering.
Angie... I agree with your changing grief experience Sweet Friend ~ God knows how much I appreciate & Love you!!
Hugs,
Danielle :o)
I cannot even begin to comprehend the grief you must feel; I am a Mother of a 19, 18 and 16 year old and my heart stops every time I hear the fire whistle blow.
I will keep you and all who have suffered such a horrific loss in prayer.
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