During the first year after I self-published my book, which I had been working on in private over the previous five years, several of my friends and family were quite shocked that I undertook the endeavor at all. “Wow, you wrote a book?!”
When it came to the question of “Why?” most people assumed it was for therapeutic reasons – that I needed to process everything I had been through and get the pain out of my system through writing. That’s partially true, but the main reason I wrote the book was to tell the outcome of my journey, an outcome that I never thought was possible: New life after paralyzing loss. I never imagined a new life would be possible. But it was. And I am living it.
So, I decided to go back and stitch together every painful detail I had documented in my written journals (that’s where the therapeutic benefits occurred), and every agonizing step along the way because they all led to a place that I didn’t think existed. A place of love, peace and joy. That’s the shocker. How could the agony of my grief journey lead to such a place? But it did.
And if a new life could happen for me, it could happen for others. So, I decided to write my story to help those suffering and lost in their own grief cave and hopefully provide a glimmer of hope that it really is possible to build a new life after devastating loss.
The term “grief cave” best describes my experience, which is why I used those words in the title. Unlike many more adventurous souls, I don’t like caves at all. They frighten me and give me a claustrophobic feeling of being trapped. A cave cuts me off from the outside world, isolates me, intensifies every negative thought or emotion and puts me in an environment where I feel like I’m losing my mind.
The good news is the cave has a way out, an exit. I’m not trapped inside it forever, unless I decide to stay there. For me, that exit appeared after I learned the lessons it had to teach me. And that’s exactly what grief is: A teacher. With a different set of lessons for each one of us.
But I’m getting ahead of myself. I need to start at the beginning, long before I knew a cave even existed.