What I have written below is from my own personal experience and no two people are alike. With that being said, if just one person is able to take from my words and find the help or the reassurance or whatever they are looking for, it will have made my journey and my purpose more fulfilling.
Grief is not something to be afraid of, nor is it a bad thing. Grief is necessary, and it’s absolutely okay to grieve the losses in your life, no matter the size. There is no way of healing when you aren’t willing to face, feel, and reveal your grievances. If you’ve read my previous blog posts or if you know me personally, you know that I am very grateful for what happened to me. My whole life has been filled with one struggle after another, some inflicted by myself and some completely out of my hands. Regardless, I am thankful for the struggles that I have faced over the course of my life because there is so much beauty that has come from them. It may come as a weird thing to people that don’t fully grasp my situation or how I could ever be happier post-amp than I was before losing my legs. To shed some light on your curiosity, it’s as simple as, I am so incredibly happy with the way that my life is now. Each and every day I flourish, even though some days I feel like I have lost all hope and sadness pours over me, I am still continuously flourishing. With that being said, I had never really grieved the loss of my legs. I am not the type of person that outwardly lets myself feel and express certain types of emotions. For example, from the beginning, I was never the one to reveal just how much it bothered me that I became an amputee. I’m not saying there weren’t times when there were questions swirling around my mind, the “what-ifs” and the “whys” because there definitely were, but not as much as there should have been.
You see, it’s fairly hard for me to cry, especially at the hands of uncomfortable emotions. It takes a lot of time and built-up emotions to really let loose and have a good sobbing session. It’s so much easier to feel and express the happy and joyous emotions a person has because it makes me feel like I am a less vulnerable person. It took a long time for me to realize that part of the coping process is to grieve what you have lost. I mean, I was given these emotions for a reason. Each and every trial and tribulation has led me to where I am today, and I’ve got to say proudly that I am exactly where I want to be. Not everything that I have gone through was easy though. And there are certain things that I have realized by whim that I have never stopped grieving. The realization came to me one day as I was thinking back on said experiences and realized that I hadn’t stopped grieving because my heart still hurt to think about those situations. I have never stopped grieving the loss of my legs, although it may appear that way on the outside and to the world of social media. I have never stopped grieving the other major losses in my life either, like the death of my beloved Pawpaw, the loss of my family pet, Zorra, the end of my very first love, or not becoming the one thing I had always wanted to become, and so on.
The point is, is that it is okay to acknowledge what you’ve been through. Even when they were hard to go through. It’s okay to have wounds that are still fresh and even those that are scarred over. However long it takes you to grieve, it’s okay. Grief is a healthy and essential thing. Allow yourself to heal, and keep on keepin’ on.