For 3 years I have felt like "I" was broken into many different pieces...I just couldn't begin to reconcile myself enough to put the pieces back together to find me again. It wasn't until recently that my delayed grief became too much to handle and I turned to a professional for help.
I digress..what I mean by 'delayed grief' is: Mom and Dad were buried Jan 3, 2010. I didn't get a chance to even start grieving for them when Rich started deployment. I was full-on in "go mode" - on auto-pilot taking care of my parents' affairs and my own with Rich gone...my youngest son moved away to California, my daughter moved away briefly, my oldest son got married, my best friend started back to college and all but disappeared, and my faith was totally depleted. I spent 2010 feeling alone in stunned shock and I didn't have the time or ability to grieve the loss of any of them.
2011 brought my husband home safely. We spent months excited and feeling our way through reintegration We stuck together like glue, traveled some, relished in the newness yet familiar feel of 'us'. Underneath the thrill the grief I didn't experience in 2010/2011 had turned to a seething bitterness somehow towards my parents for dying, my best friend, my husband for leaving me, my God for taking everyone, my work-mates, the blue skies and the flowers. I became someone I didn't recognize because the person I was before my parents died no longer existed. Once Rich came home I didn't think (too much) about grief...I was just damn happy again! In late October we attended a deployment ceremony for a friend; starting a roller coaster of grief that I couldn't stop. I began to remember and grieve for my husband's deployment, although he had been home more than year. I grieved for the day he left, the 365 he was gone and I was alone. I grieved for the days I woke only to get through the day so I could go back to sleep. My Mom and Dad were gone, he was gone. I cried for the weeks ...those long damn weeks - the weekends...for the Sundays.
Once the dam had been breached on my grief it snowballed through 2012 and then into early 2013 until I hit the 'wall'. I hit the point where I could no longer ignore or control my crying, my sadness, the sense of utter despair and loss, the bitter taste in my heart. The grief from 2 years prior had finally hit me and it completely wiped me out before I could see it coming. I-could-not-function.
Somehow Military One Source unknowingly paired me with just the right grief counselor. A counselor who is a Vietnam Veteran, a Christian (and I think elder or minister), and someone that truly 'gets it'. It's been 3 weeks (3 visits) and I feel like last week I made a huge break-through in the grief surrounding my parents deaths. He was able to help me reconcile the loss Biblically and in terms that I could understand. I haven't cried in a week over the loss of them...I haven't even felt 'sad'... I feel like I am finally moving from the Anger stage of Grief into Acceptance.
I realize this is a long post - but then again, it is my blog!
Peace!
