WHY THE SECOND YEAR OF GRIEF CAN FEEL HARDER THAN THE FIRST
Surprisingly, the second year of grief can feel even harder than the first, and we’re here to prepare you for the second year. It is filled with lots of obvious milestones, and the second year often brings a quieter kind of sorrow. If you’re wondering why your grief feels heavier in the second year, you are not alone! For lots of us grieving the death of someone we love, the second year is when the reality of the loss begins to settle in and penetrate more. If this is where you find yourself today, there is nothing unusual about your experience – and there is nothing wrong with your grief. We prepare you for the second year.
WE PREPARE YOU FOR THE SECOND YEAR
We also prepare you for the firsts. The first birthday without their voice, the first holiday with that empty chair, and any first anniversary that you can’t imagine surviving! Those days seem to blare from the calendar like mountains you can see from miles away. Family checks in, friends may text and call, and the world makes room for your sorrow, because everyone understands that the FIRST year is SUPPOSED to hurt.
WHEN EVERYONE ELSE HAS MOVED ON
We prepare you for the second year.
I remember the year after my son passed away, I received at least one card in the mail a weekfrom folk who were assuring me that they had not forgotten my dear one. But once that second year anniversary passes, the flowers have faded, and the casseroles stop being delivered. The messages start to be delivered less and less, until one day they quietly stop altogether. Our lives resume familiar rhythm, yet beat to the cadence of our loved ones absence. People don’t mean to leave us behind. They simply assume we’ve found our way through! What they don’t realize is that grief has only changed its language.
WHY THE SECOND YEAR OF GRIEF FEELS DIFFERENT
For many of us, this is often when the fog begins to lift. The numbness that faithfully carried us through the earliest days begins to loosen its grip, and underneath it waits the painful truth we were never meant to face all at once. Our minds and bodies really do know better than we do sometimes how to deal with this. We block out the pain.
This really happened. They are not coming home.
The reality of their death begins to softly settle in; then all at once, like snow covering everything you thought you recognize, we find ourselves grieving; not just the day they died, but every ordinary day they will never again be part of.
The first year is survival.
The second year is awakening. For me, it was not an awakening to “healing,” but it looks more like yielding to what I cannot change. The hope and healing have developed along the way, but that second year was pivotal in what the future might look like. Family and friends might see us laughing occasionally, and they believe we’ve crossed some invisible finish line! But they don’t hear the quiet longings we still have in our hearts, do they? They can’t feel the ache that arrives without invitation in the grocery store or at a stoplight or in the stillness before sleep.
Grief has never followed a calendar.
If the second year seems heavier than the first one did, do not be fooled into thinking that you are moving backward. What it usually means is that our heart is finally strong enough to carry what our mind couldn’t in the previous months. The love for our person is patient that way, and it reveals itself in layers and allows us to bear only what we can hold at that very moment!
When we feel we are at a point of acceptance, it doesn’t mean that we are FORGETTING. This has been a huge point of contention on this path, and something I am working through almost daily. I’ve been tricked into thinking that yielding to the seasons of life where sorrow doesn’t necessarily overtake me means I am somehow leaving my loved one behind. Almost like if I’m not weeping and sad, I’m not honoring his memory. This couldn’t be further from the truth! I am learning to breathe in a world that no longer holds the spirit and soul of my son. I still carry him with me everywhere. The love isn’t something I was ever supposed to see down.
COPING WITH THE SECOND YEAR OF GRIEF
Although I am now seven years beyond that terrible day, I do remember that the second year, the year, where all of the”first” had passed was one of the most difficult. If you’re in that second year and feel more alone than ever, let this be your reminder: There is nothing wrong with your grief. There is nothing wrong with your love. Some losses are so profound that they echo long after everyone else has stopped listening, and perhaps the second year isn’t the year grief becomes easier! Perhaps it’s the year that love finds its deepest voice.
If you’re struggling through the second year of grief, you aren’t doing anything wrong. You know that grief doesn’t move in straight lines or according to a calendar! Our love didn’t expire after 12 months, and neither will our sorrow. We all have permission to grieve at our own pace, and the second year might be quieter, but we don’t have to walk through it alone.
Please reach out to us via the form on the website or call: (502) 791-9938. We understand.