Good Grief

I’ve written a little in the past about the similarities I find between coming to terms with a chronic illness diagnosis and the stages of grief. It’s been on my mind again recently for different reasons: the idea that just as grief rears its weepy head every so often so does the same feeling of loss that comes with having an incurable illness.

Lately I’ve been missing my beloved Grandmother quite a bit and recalling how I felt when she passed away.

 

*I didn’t at any point say this blog was going to be a rollercoaster of non-stop fun so get off now I’ve you’re not tall enough to come on this ride*

 

My sweet Granny Peggy died when I was in my early twenties. I was in the first flush of romance with my first ‘proper’ boyfriend and heading on a holiday. She died in hospital, I was there, thankfully, along with the rest of our close family. She was ‘ready to go’; she told me as much many times, and now that I’m older I understand why a little more; then I just couldn’t bear to hear the words. I didn’t want her to go and selfishly wouldn’t so much as contemplate the thought, choosing instead to do everything aside from putting my fingers in my ears shouting “LA LA LA” to avoid the conversation. She wasn’t being selfish; she was just tired.

 

My Gran was my salve. We lived in the flat downstairs from her for many years, the whole of my childhood in fact, and she was a safe bosom to run to whenever I felt overwhelmed, sad or just needed someone other than a parent to listen to my childish nonsense. What I always remember most about my Gran was her sense of humour, she laughed a lot and loved to hear us laugh. She loved to throw me back and give me ‘French kisses’ (her version of this was just pecking my neck until I giggled and wriggled away like a happy eel), we danced around her kitchen a lot and she let me draw on almost all of her treasured possessions. I wrote her poems and stories and she lauded them all with praise worthy of a Pulitzer.

 

So reminisce aside what does all of this have to do with Crohn’s Disease? Well the grieving I do every so often for my Grandmother feels painfully similar to the grieving I do for my life pre-Crohn’s. Right now I’m flaring and feel decidedly awful most of the time; when this happens it sends me into a flurry of anxiety. I worry about how long this will last, how it will be remedied, what adjustments I must make to my life and what it must feel to live with or be around a person such as myself struggling with keeping it all together and not finding much room for anyone or anything else. Sound familiar? Grief is all-consuming and unpredictable just like chronic illness. It strikes when you least expect it and lingers for much longer than you’d like.

 

But sometimes, you forget. Sometimes you feel good and that’s OK. It’s OK to revel in feeling happy despite loss. It’s OK to remember happy times and not feel guilt for what you could or should have done during the bad. So when you are struggling with illness (or grief) and feel lost try to remember the good; and that that good will come back around in time. Focus on what you have and not what you have lost, because sometimes that’s all we can do to get through. xo