It’s OK to experience, PEACE

Life will take us through a gamut of emotions in our lifetime that we must deal with and continue moving forward.

One day I was discussing the death of my Dad with someone. I expressed that when someone close to me, passes away, I don’t always feel as if I express my sorrow/grief as I should. Sometimes it takes me days, weeks or even months for it to actually, ‘hit’ me. When it finally does, it manifests itself in different ways. I’ve noticed in the past that when it presents itself, it usually shows up as something totally unexpected, but I can always trace it back to its origin. 

Now, I do understand that everyone grieves differently, and perhaps that’s just my way of grieving. When my Dad passed away in January 2020, I was definitely upset that I would no longer be able to see him or kiss his cheeks; No more visits or laughter together; No more making memories together. My only option was to cherish and hold on to the memories that we’ve already made.  

I actually took comfort in knowing that he was no longer suffering and that his body was in a state of Peace and rest with no more sickness. I was even happy that he didn’t have to be here dealing with the dreaded CoronaVirus pandemic because his body was already vulnerable due to respiratory issues.  

When I shared this information, I was informed of something that would change my whole perspective of how I viewed this entire situation. I really didn’t have any regrets related to my Dad’s death. However, something kept nagging me about it. The fact that I didn’t feel as if I grieved or cried enough. I was surprisingly calmer than I thought I would be, and I felt like I took it a lot better than I expected for myself because I was very close to my Dad. So, when I wasn’t grieving (like I thought I should), I had feelings of guilt. However, it was suggested to me that perhaps what I was really experiencing was a sense of Peace with my Dad’s death. 

Truth be told, my thinking was in the total opposite direction of Peace. However, that revelation hit me like a ton of bricks because that was totally not the conclusion that kept presenting itself to me. When he suggested that, I actually breathed a sigh of relief because when I really thought about it, I realized that’s exactly what I’ve been feeling… a sense of PEACE… not Grief!!! However, I was struggling with feelings of guilt because of the PEACE that I was experiencing. But once I acknowledged and embraced it, I’ve been at Peace ever since.