My Grief Journey: Finding Myself and Letting Go

The last few months have been filled with mixed emotions and a longing to understand myself better. It has been a time filled with processing memories and feelings that I had pushed down, and trying to piece together my past while working to build my future. I feel uncertain about who I am and am struggling to piece myself back together again.

I can go days without thinking about my grief and then something will happen that brings it right up to the surface. Suddenly, I have a tight chest, a feeling as if I can't catch my breath, and I am left thinking that the tears may never stop.

I had a beautiful moment at the centre in the Spring. A mother of an old high school friend came in and I got to tour her around the space. We chatted and I told her my story about why I opened the centre. She gave me a hug as she was about to leave, and just held onto me. The tears started and wouldn't stop. She told me how proud of me she was. These are words I know my mom spoke to other people about me, but not words I heard often myself. Over the next few days I replayed this memory in my head, the tears would still well up, but the sting slowly went away.

Part of this journey involves working through some of the painful memories and trauma from my childhood, and also learning to let go of some of the expectations that I have held for myself. I am taking time to discover who I am and who I want to be. It is also giving me time to reflect on what the legacy is I want to leave for my own kids.

I chatted with Gillian Behnke from Mom Camp about this on her podcast. (You can listen here.) I want to make sure my kids know how proud of them I am and how much I love being their mom. I want them to be surrounded by people that love them and build them up. I want them to have a community of people around them so that when I am gone, they still feel the love and support.

This weekend we celebrated my mom's 74th birthday. My sister came up for a girls weekend and we did a staycation here in Vancouver. We knew that we wanted to find a way to honor her and to create our own little ritual for her birthday. We woke up on Saturday, and it was pouring rain, which was impeding my plans to head to Stanley Park. We decided to grab brunch and then reassess our plans for the day. When we left brunch, the rain was starting to stop, and we decided to slowly walk towards Stanley Park and see where the day took us. We ended up at Stanley Park Brewpub, sitting on the patio, enjoying a beautiful afternoon. We spent time replaying old childhood stories and memories and Shari walked me through mom's last day. After many tears, we decided to pack up and make our way down to the beach.

Despite not being able to swim, our mom loved the beach. She and my dad used to stop and get a coffee and park by the lake in Kelowna, looking out over the beach. She loved the beach, but my dad hated the sand, so this was their compromise. It felt fitting that we ended our day at the beach, watching the waves and the sunset, enjoying a drink with our feet in the sand.

My mom would have loved that we spent time together, laughing and reconnecting. My sister and I found it quite fitting that we managed to take something mom loved and made it our own.

I hope that some of this resonates with you, and if you ever need someone to connect with, I love speaking with parents about this journey. You can find me at This World's Ours Centre in Vancouver.

Take care,

Koryn