September 16, 2023
Grief can be cumulative. You endure the initial shock, and much like an earthquake, there are aftershocks … so many it seems you’re not just suffering one tragedy but an accumulation of tragedies.
Josephine had a saying she used when she reached the end of her rope, which happens to all of us who are grieving. “What else can go wrong?” she’d grumble. And sometimes the “what else” turned out to be something entirely unexpected.
While she was mourning the loss of her father, her car broke down and she needed a new alternator. To compound the misery, her car broke down when she was on the way to visit a friend who had worse problems than hers and needed surgery.
When you reach the “what else can go wrong” stage in your grieving — and it may happen more than once — pause, take a deep breath, say a short prayer for help, and then prioritize the crises that you have to deal with.
You’re not going to be able to handle them all at once because they’ll be too overwhelming. And you’re not going to make them go away because the aftershocks of grief can last a long time. But you will be able to take one at a time. You should look for relief in a sympathetic friend. And always remember, as the song says: “Nothing’s impossible I have found, for when my chin is on the ground, I pick myself up, dust myself off and start all over again.”
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No matter what you encounter on your healing journey, take it in stride and try to keep moving forward
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