I have written before about the changes one goes through when they are catapulted into a journey they did not choose. So often we have a choice about what road we take in our lives. But when you lose someone or something dear to you – you are placed on a path that you would have not chosen.

There are a lot of experts who say people shouldn’t change jobs or homes after the death of a loved one. That it could possibly create more feelings of loss and grief. I think I agree with that, only if the circumstances warrant doing nothing. I know in my case I had to do something.

I lived in a different state when my daughter died. I had just divorced her father just two years prior and bought a house close to her dad and to her school so that she could be close and that her life wouldn’t be so disrupted from the divorce. If only more parents gave that a thought – I believe there would be fewer messed up kids from divorce. But that’s a whole different topic – maybe another time.

After my daughter died, I returned to my job which I loved at the time of her death, but when I returned I felt like an empty shell just existing. Going the the motions that I had to do in order to pay bills and keep going. As winter fell the vail of sadness overshadowed my life and I would often barely make it home from work. I remember times that I would get into my house and just drop to my knees and ask God how am I to get through this. Why has this horrible thing happened to me.

I could no longer afford to stay in my home since I was not receiving the child support I needed to help with the payments. All the medical bills that had been piling up and needed to be paid. My world was crashing around me and all I wanted to do was grieve the loss of my daughter -yet the financial disaster that was about to take place kept me from doing that.

My family felt like I needed to move back to my home state so that I could have people around me to help support me. Brittany and I had planned on moving back to Indy long before she died, so I thought it would be good for me to go ahead and move. So I put my house up for sale soon after she died and that’s about when the market died too. Needless to say it never sold. I had already moved back to Indy because I had a buyer and then it fell through.

I tried everything to sell it, rent it – but nothing. In the end, I lost everything. I mean everything. In one year I lost my daughter, my home, my financial stability – all of it gone. A path I didn’t choose. A change I didn’t ask for. But got anyway.

Today as I sit here writing this story – not all of it is told – but I realize that as the 3rd anniversary of Brittany’s death is looming, I am still battling issues that keep me from moving forward. All I have ever wanted since she died has been to grieve her death and move on. Yet it seems as though every time I turn around I face another blow related to her death. It’s as if I get thrown back into that very time and have to relive it all over again.

That is why moving forward and creating a change has not been easy for me. This is not the whole story, but just a short glimpse into the trauma that has invaded my life. An unwelcome visitor who keeps coming back over and over again. Change does not come easy.  But I will keep moving onward in hopes that one day things will turn around for me.

Because if it doesn’t – I may not be able to sustain this continue barrage of attacks. It has taken such a toll on my health and well being. And for the most part I do it alone. Because no one gets it. Not even my family. They don’t understand. Why – because they have not had to live it. I hope they never have to.

I’m not trying to be negative – but this is what it is. I’m a fighter and I have been through so much now that I can only believe it will get better. But listen to me when I say that it has been a long fought battle and I have kept up the game face, not for me but for you. I think about the movie “A Few Good Men” when Jack Nicholson says “You Can’t Handle The Truth” – my friends until you have walked this walk – you just can’t know the pain I feel daily. You just don’t know how hard it is to get up every day and pretend it all is ok.

Change does not come easy.

until next time

m