Thursday 20 December 2018

Grief Isn't Something You Live Through, It's Something You Live With

a post by Ellie Batchiyska for the Tiny Buddha blog


“Obstacles do not block the path, they are the path.” ~Zen proverb

I thought the concept of a “cold sweat” was unreal and paradoxical until the evening of August 27, 2014. That was my first cold sweat. My first of a lot of things.

My heart jack-hammered in my chest.

I heard my pulse in my ears.

I gasped for air on my dorm room floor in New York, while my mom tried to calm me down on the other end of the phone in Los Angeles.

“It’s just a panic attack, sweetie. Just breathe deep.”

No, no, no, I thought. Panic couldn’t possibly evoke this kind of physiological response. My arm hurt, my chest hurt. Was it possible to have a heart attack at age nineteen?

I didn’t sleep for days after that. I was afraid I wouldn’t wake up again.

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I wish I had heard about living with it rather than through it when *my* father was killed in a road traffic accident. It has taken me a very long time to get to the point where I can accept that the feeling of loss will be with me until I die but that I *can* live with it.


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