Sometimes,I find photos on my phone that I don’t understand at first glance. Before, I spotted myself in the blind spot mirror taking the photo, I was like “Now, wtf is this photo?”😅 What on earth was I documenting? And why?

Like most everything else, I was looking at this photo through the lens of a grief journey. My grief journey.

From what I could decipher, it was either after my car was involved in an accident or when someone broke the window. I don’t know which..does not matter now.

That was all before. Before May 2018. I never truly understood the demarcation grievers had. Never truly understood how marked in stone it was. How everything irreversibly changed. But it’s true what they say. Life is never the same. It’s funny sometimes, I will randomly just divide things into before and after. Music, clothes, food, places, books, TV shows, photos such as this one. 

I know it’s before. It just is. And the reason I know is that in the aftermath of losing mom, I would not have cared less about a broken side mirror. It might not have even registered. I might have numbly gone through the motions of getting it fixed or whatever.That’s how I know it’s before. There I am in the side mirror taking the photo. I wouldn’t. Unless I needed it for something. 

Grief..deep loss upends everything, turns things upside down. What made sense one day, no longer does the next.  And it’s hard and we want out! Out of that pain and hurt now! But it doesn’t work that way. Grief is a journey, one we all must take at one point of other in our lives.

I mean, for me, I am getting back some kind of equilibrium, listening to old music again, writing, even taking frivolous photos every so often, eating my favorite dishes, laughing, caring, loving again. But it has taken me over two and a half years to get here.

Do I even have a point to make? Yes, it’s don’t rush your grief. A gentler grief will come, just give it time.