Jordan Ghawi
My blog
A Post On Grief
August 7, 2012“Grief, you’ll find it comes in waves. When the ship is first wrecked, you’re drowning, with wreckage all around you. Everything floating around you reminds you of the beauty and the magnificence of the ship that was, and is no more. And all you can do is float. You find some piece of the wreckage and you hang on for a while. Maybe it’s some physical thing. Maybe it’s a happy memory or a photograph. Maybe it’s a person who is also floating. For a while, all you can do is float. Stay alive.
In the beginning, the waves are 100 feet tall and crash over you without mercy. They come 10 seconds apart and don’t even give you time to catch your breath. All you can do is hang on and float. After a while, maybe weeks, maybe months, you’ll find the waves are still 100 feet tall, but they come further apart. When they come, they still crash all over you and wipe you out. But in between, you can breathe, you can function. You never know what’s going to trigger the grief. It might be a song, a picture, a street intersection, the smell of a cup of coffee. It can be just about anything…and the wave comes crashing. But in between waves, there is life.
Somewhere down the line, and it’s different for everybody, you find that the waves are only 80 feet tall. Or 50 feet tall. And while they still come, they come further apart. You can see them coming. An anniversary, a birthday, or Christmas. You can see it coming, for the most part, and prepare yourself. And when it washes over you, you know that somehow you will, again, come out the other side. Soaking wet, sputtering, still hanging on to some tiny piece of the wreckage, but you’ll come out.
The waves never stop coming, and somehow you don’t really want them to. But you learn that you’ll survive them. And other waves will come. And you’ll survive them too. If you’re lucky, you’ll have lots of scars from lots of loves. And lots of shipwrecks.”
-Reddit user GSnow.
Jordan, that's such a true sentiment. I'll pass along something I followed after my wife had a miscarriage at 16 weeks a couple of years go. Just try to make today better than yesterday. Repeat as often as possible.
Also, your sister would be proud of something so eloquently written.
A beautiful metaphor to describe something so difficult.
This is beautifully written. I have continued to follow your story since hearing you speak from day 1. You have had nothing but absolute love and compassion not only for your sister but for all of the other victims. We frequently visit Lake Dunlap in New Braunfels, so this all hits a little close to home. I think of you and your family often. Jessica would be and is so honored to have a brother like you. God bless you in all that you do- Thoughts, love and prayers.
Conversation from Twitter
@amyt865 Read this yesterday. Wonderful & heartfelt writing. Can't even imagine his pain.
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