Reflective Essay: How Grieving Changed My Life

Grieving
“The pleasure of remembering had been taken from me, because there was no longer anyone to remember with. It felt like losing your coremberer meant losing the memory itself, as if the things we’d done were less real and important than they had been hours before.” (John Green). In my opinion, loss is one of the worst things one can face in life. It hurts. It sucks. It makes you feel as if you are the one who is dead. People tell you to prepare yourself when you know a loved one is about to die but that is simply not possible. The doctors gave my paw-paw six months to live. So for six months we knew. I think in those six months I did the opposite of prepare myself. I spent all of my spare time with him. I stayed the night at hospitals on the weekends and completed my homework at hospitals on week days. When he came home on hospice, I checked on him daily, spent countless nights at their house, fixed his drink, watched wrestling with him and helped him
Some people laugh and some people cry. Other people shut everyone out. Not one person is the same. Grief also changes people as an individual. It changes their outlook on life, their personality and the way they think of themselves. I know because of what I went through. I changed into a completely different person. Sometimes I think that maybe his death helped me in a way that no one will get. I think it continues to help me to better understand how I react in traumatic situations and what I have to do to cope. This quote helped me continue to find my way to move on, “But grief is a walk alone. Others can be there, and listen. But you will walk alone down your own path, at your own pace, with your sheared-off pain, your raw wounds, your denial, anger, and bitter loss. You’ll come to your own peace, hopefully… but it will be on your own, in your own time.” (Cathy Lamb). Almost a year later, I still persevere to find my