Between August 2020 and March 2021 was a heavy season of grieving for me. My grandfather went to heaven in August, I suffered a miscarriage in November, and my mother-in-law was called home to Jesus in March. Fortunately, if you can say that, this wasn’t my first season of grief; I learned the hardship of grief early in my life. At the young age of 23, my biological mother passed suddenly.

You don’t think about the passing of your mother. Although it’s impossible, you tend to think of her as immortal – someone who will always be there. That wasn’t the case for me. Everyone around me still had their mothers, so no one could understand my pain. They didn’t know the void in my chest that never leaves, the constant heaviness that hurt even to breathe, and they didn’t understand that a part of me died and I would never be the same. Actually – at the time, I didn’t know it either.

Since I had already endured the pain of losing a loved one, I thought I knew how this season of grief would be; however, I thought wrong. Each season is different because your relationship with each person is different. And losing a baby is another type of grief, but I’ll leave that story for another day. One difference in this season from the first was my relationship with God was stronger. So today, I want to share three things that helped me in my most recent season of grief.

One – Talking about my memories with my grandfather

My grandfather lived with us since I was 16 years old. We lived in a humble two-bedroom house; I slept in the living room while he slept in my room, so he was involved in many milestones of my life. For example, I took my driver’s test with his car. He helped me purchase my first car. He was present for my high school graduation. And when I was younger, I was told that he would go to a children’s boutique in the Dominican Republic to purchase a dress for me as a birthday gift. He did that for the first five years of my life. My mom would then get professional pictures taken of me in the dresses. To this day, I still have the pictures. So, sharing all these stories and memories with whoever would listen was helpful for me.

Two – Going on a trip to the beach

My husband’s birthday is August 13, and I planned a trip for us to Anna Maria Island. My grandfather passed on August 10 – just three days before the trip. I was so conflicted if we should continue with our plans. On the one hand, I wanted to celebrate my husband’s birthday, but then on the other, I didn’t want to seem insensitive to the situation. Since we couldn’t receive a full refund, we went for three instead of going for four days. And I am so glad we went. It’s hard to continue your day-to-day routine when your heart is so heavy, and this trip helped us get out of routine. It gave me time away from everyone to process my feelings and distract my mind for a few days. Also, I feel the closest to God at the beach, which was therapeutic for me.

Three – Staying rooted in God’s word During the Heavy Season

As I mentioned above, you can’t do business as usual when your heart is heavy. So, your schedule and routine are all messed up. However, in this season of grief, I was intentional about continuing my Bible reading. I continued my daily Bible plan and enjoyed reading the Bible at the beach. Listening to worship music while going through the miscarriage was comforting. And during my mother-in-law’s passing, I signed up for an online Bible Study; although I couldn’t log on to the calls, I continued to do the study, and it helped me stay mentally and emotionally stable.

These are things that helped me during my heavy season of grief. I know that everyone processes grief differently, and grief doesn’t look the same for everyone, but I hope my experience can help one person. And if you haven’t experienced grief, I hope you save this article and use it as a resource to help you during that difficult time.

I want to leave you with a Bible verse that came up multiple times during this season and reminded me that God was with me.

Psalms 147:3 NIV – “He heals the brokenhearted and binds up their wounds.”

With Love, Heidy

What helped you during your season with grief?

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