The date is July 13th, 2020,

I am going to see my therapist,

Tears can’t stop flowing,

I wipe my eyes and send a text to a friend,

“Hey, today I am not okay”

“Where are you”, She asks

“In town, heading to see my therapist,

I should be done by 11″.

“I will see you then”.

I am early,

I get into a coffee shop,

I order a tea to kill the time,

I cant stop my tears from flowing,

I finish my tea, pay…

Then I start walking,

To the therapist’s office

I get there on time,

I am always on time.

“How are you today”, She asks

“I am not okay,

See, 5 years ago, I lost my father,

I have never grieved”

“Why” she asks

I was very pregnant then,

8 months,

When baby came,

There was baby,

Then other things,

I was never really ready to mourn him,

I was not ready really,

To let go of him,

So I tucked him somewhere,

Until I was triggered,

Two days earlier,

By a trigger of other losses I had experienced,

And on that day,

All weight of the cumulative losses was on my shoulder,

“Tell me about the trigger”…

Story for another day,

After loads of tears,

And a life giving vision,

“To purpose to make July great again”,

I leave the office.

I open my phone,

My friend has sent me a message,

About grief.

The ball, the box and the pain button analogy,

There is a ball in a box and in the box is a pain button,

In the beginning of grieving,

The ball is huge and it moves inside the box relentlessly,

Hitting the pain button over and over,

Regularly,

As time goes by,

The ball gets smaller,

It still keeps moving in the box,

But hits the pain button less frequently and with little less pressure.

The ball never gets out of the box.

But someday, it will hit the pain button with so little energy,

The pain will only be a dull ache.

We never really stop mourning, grieving, missing, those we loved and lost,

That which we loved and lost,

Whatever once we had and lost,

Some days, there will be no pain,

As the ball moves around without hitting the pain button,

Sometimes, there will be little, as the ball brushes by the pain button,

And sometimes, there will be splitting pain,

Maybe someone, or something triggered the pain, by hitting the box a little,

Or shoving it aside by a memory,

Or turning it upside down, by reminding you of the past,

And the ball just falls right on the pain button,

But as you walk through the stages of grief,

We hope to get to the point of,

Appreciating the person once lived,

So we can stop mourning that they are gone,

And it is at this point,

That the pain becomes,

A dull ache…

So I started the journey of mourning my father,

I hope someday,

It will be a dull ache…

One thing I know is, the ball is much smaller…

And to his memory,

I dedicate the 13 days to his memorial,

A post a day,

In his loving memory…

Whatever it is you mourn today,

The job lost,

The dreams gone,

The love ended,

The dear one passed on,

Chances never taken,

Trust the process,

Put in the work,

And someday,

It will be a dull ache…

Never, gone… Bu not really present…