Life After Loss

This originally appeared on: A Daughter's Love

This is me the day after our wedding. Our first stop was Jersey Shore Medical Center in Neptune, NJ to donate our flowers to the patients at the oncology hospice unit and then the cemetery to put the remaining flowers on my father's grave.

My grief has changed me. My life is so different post grief. Things that were once paramount now seem so trivial.

Prior to my father's passing I never would have dreamed I would be spending the day after my wedding at the cemetery, crying. I never would have imagined I would be leaving my bouquet on my father's grave. Don't brides preserve this stuff? Not this bride, I wrote, "I love you Dad" on the handle and left it on the grass.

Missing my father and my other person of significance has stripped my soul. I see them both in my dreams, during happier times when we were all healthy.

My grief is teaching me that strength does not come from muscle and brawn. True strength comes surviving a horrific loss that leaves you vulnerable wondering if you can continue on. Wondering if you are good enough or strong enough to continue.

True strength arises from ignoring the chatter and rising up from the darkness.

My grief is teaching me that the deepest forms of pure joy and happiness are often felt by those who have experienced gut wrenching pain and sorrow.

Here I am the day after my wedding at my father's grave. Crying. Wondering if I am good enough. Wondering how I survived a major life event without my father and my other person of significance.

My husband snapped this photo and immediately hugged me, reminding me that when the waves of grief are overwhelming he is my light and hope, my lighthouse in the distance calling me to the shore.