Acceptance

Acceptance is often confused with the notion of being “OK”. In truth, we seldom ever feel ‘OK’ about the loss of someone we have dearly loved. This is about accepting the reality that our loved one is physically gone. That now we live in a new reality. And we grow, often very slowly and very reluctantly, to eventually accept it. We learn to live with it. It is the new norm for us; life has been forever changed and we must and eventually do readjust.

Finding acceptance may be just having more good days than bad ones. As we begin to live again and enjoy our life, we often feel that in doing so, we are betraying our loved one. We can never replace what has been lost, but we can make new connections, new meaningful relationships. Instead of denying our feelings, we listen to our needs; we move, we change, we grow, we evolve. We may start to reach out to others and become involved in life again. We begin to live again, but we cannot do so until we have given grief its time.