My Story

Last week I began this blog in the hope that by putting words to paper about my experience with brokenness and grief, that maybe I could help someone who is in a place in their life where they can't seem to move forward from that terrible loss. This blog is for you if the grief consumes you to the point of numbness.

So you know how sometimes you see these horrible stories on TV like a murder, kidnapping or rape and you wonder how can someone ever come out of that... In the case of an unnatural death or unexplained loss you're even left wondering how the family of the deceased would ever cope. And that's just it, you may wonder yes or maybe say a prayer for them, but that's just as far as your concern goes. And it never crosses your mind that such horrible things could ever happen to your family until it actually does.

That's what happened one fateful day in February 2012. My family became part of these stories you see on TV literally. That day, we became part of a statistic you could say. So many things were said, so many stories were writ, so many people gave their two cents, but not that many people necessarily knew the truth; the truth about the life of my elder sister before death stole her away.

You notice the word "stole". I use this word loosely because its not used in the literal sense. However, its the only way I could describe how it happened because it wasn't that she died in an accident or of an illness, no, she died because someone thought she should. Yes, she was murdered.You may wonder how so easily I type out that word...murder. Well, I guess when you play it out in your head enough, you kinda become immune to the weight it bears. Its a word that unless you're in the health or communications industry,would only but whisper it or rather choose a less severe way to explain it. Maybe if you say it like.."she was killed"or even use the exact action.."she was strangled"...it doesn't sound as brutal as when you say "she was murdered". It feels final doesn't it? But that's what happened and now, we could only watch as our life's story was altered replaced only by images and things you never want anybody else to ever have to go through.

So not only were we grieving a loss so tragic, we also had to go through the media's portrayal of the story over and over again. See that's how the numbing happens...you no longer feel the loss but experience it and your body's way of survival is to just shut out all negative influences. I remember I didn't cry much during that time. But now, well, tears come easy and fast. I suppose I could say, I hadn't quite grasped the full extent of my loss. And it's only days, weeks, years later that it became clear that grief isn't a one-off experience. It's something you have to live with, and you are never the same again. But, there's a light at the end of the tunnel, things aren't always going to be dark and you will see that one day, you will forget the pain and bear the loss. One day, you will eventually heal. :)