Does it ever get better?

“Does it ever get better?”

This question has been roaming around my brain and heart for the past 72 hours. It was asked in a Christmas card, addressed to my parents. While I can't speak from the point of view of a parent losing their child, I can speak to losing a brother. I wish these dear friends of my parents weren't in this situation, didn't belong to what I've come to call “The Club”. I wish no one I knew was in this club of heartache.

Does it ever get better? Yes, each year means you're still here to share the memories of Christmas’ past, childhood mishaps and all the good that was your loved one. You are here to share their story, their part in your history.

Does it ever get better?  No, the tears burn just as much today as the day you first felt your heart rip in two. The tracks seem to wear in to the surface of your cheeks. The saltiness is a fresh reminder that instead of laughter over a cup of coffee you're missing him/her.

Does it ever get better? Each birthday is remembered as if you can touch them. You sing to them, even if only under your breath, to remind yourself of the beauty of the life gone. You smile at the sun warming your face and feel the touch of their hand.

Does it ever get better? A song comes on and your normal day turns to tears and overwhelming sadness. You could be sitting in traffic or staring into space and that song, the song you shared, stops your heart for a beat and reminds you that they aren't here. As the years pass that song doesn't bring the gut wrenching grief, it turns to a calming balm on the bad days- a balm that you know is truly Heaven sent to remind you that they are still with you.

Does it ever get better? Looking at pictures of your loved one will change as the grief proceeds. One day you will be able to look at him sticking his tongue out on a family vacation or her rolling her eyes at you and instead of being taken to the worst day of your life, you'll hear him beg for a hot dog and fries because he’s “starving!” or her telling you that you're the worst parent because “all my friends are going!” You'll find a box of baby pictures and you'll be taken back to the day you brought that bundle of joy in to the world- including standing up your best friend for her New Year’s party because you went in to labor and you'll remember she didn’t believe you until she saw your preemie baby boy in the hospital. You'll find elementary pictures and remember just what a dork your brother really was. You will pull out her high school pictures and wonder what she was thinking to put those colors together, let alone got her hair that darn high. You'll be able to look at pictures from the days, weeks or months before they left this earth and your heart won’t feel as heavy as it did that very first year you were grieving.

Does it ever get better? Finding a shirt of his stuck in a box and that scent wafting up to your nose will have you bawling in that first year. Find that same shirt, smell his cologne in the fourth year and you just miss them so. You will cry both times, but it will be different.

Does it ever get better?  It becomes different. The rawness becomes less intense as years pass. The vast canyon you feel inside your heart and soul, it shrinks a bit year by year. The emptiness in your heart gets filled with memories of old instead of new and you adapt to it. Your memories of him/her become more vivid- you feel the wind in your hair on that beach vacation, you smell the grass he was cutting or you taste that awful cake she baked for you. You long to hear his voice one more time and in the still of the night or the overpowering loudness of your grief you hear him say “I’m okay. You'll be okay. I’m still with you.” And you take those words and hold on to them so tight that you worry you've changed them but then once again you hear “I’m okay. You'll be okay. I’m still with you.”

Does it ever get better? I find that after 7 years of missing Tony, things are never going to be what they were when he was alive. It’s not a matter of bad or good- just different. My birthday will never start with his call at 12:01 am- no one else can sing to me the way he did. Christmas shopping will never be as hilarious as it was with him- he got into the shopping cart and sang LOUDLY to everyone and never cared if people thought he wasn't right in the head. The 4th of July will never again involve the words “Don’t tell mom…” and that’s probably a good thing. The anniversary of his death is never going to be easy because I remember our last conversation, the look on his face as he was lead from earth to Heaven, the feel of his beard under my fingers as I hugged him one last time- all those memories pour in to that one day and I can get swept away. But he has also made things different in a good way- he got me to move out of my comfort zone in WI, he helped the doctor find what was going on with my heart and most importantly he helped me grow so that when the love of my life came back in to my world I knew not to let him go. I look at the world around me with eyes that see more than most; a soul that experienced grief on a deeper level than many will ever know; a heart that longs for what was and a mind that realizes it can never be.

Does it ever get better? After 7 years of grief I can honestly tell you that it doesn't get “better”. HOWEVER, it becomes normal to live with that hole in your heart. You learn to accept that your world is different. You adapt and you keep going with life, but it never, EVER, gets better.