After almost three decades, I still miss my daughter. But losing her taught me that grief is something to venerate, not deny
Grief is not a medical disorder to be cured. Grief is not a spiritual crisis to be resolved. Grief is not a social woe to be addressed. Grief is, simply, to be felt in our hearts and our minds and our bodies.
I’ve been writing about grief since my child died in 1994. I can remember – at the time – questioning myself. Was I grieving too much, for too long and too intensely? But a small, still, thankfully wise voice within my feminine self rejected these intimations. I knew that this precious relationship I had lost was worth every tear I shed. Every cell in my body hurt – a physical pain that emanated from the tips of my hair to the tips of my toes. I couldn’t eat: eating was for the living, and I was still uncertain I was alive. I couldn’t sleep because thoughts of her haunted me. I didn’t recognise myself in the mirror. The yearning for her was so intense that her absence lived in the centre of my heart. I was changed and I knew it would be an irrevocable loss. I died with her that day and, after nearly three decades, I still miss her.
