Grief

People always talk about grief and loss when someone dies. 

“One more smile, one more brush of hands, I’d trade everything for one more chance.” 

I’ve witnessed grief, and I’ve had my share of death. And yes, there’s a part of me that would give so much to go back, to rewind the clock just so I could sit in the person’s presence.

But beyond death, we grieve for losses in our own lives. And this grief, while less understood, is just as painful and overwhelming. 

“One more smile, one more brush of hands, I’d trade everything for one more chance.” 

When I say this quote outloud, the first person who comes to my mind isn't a relative I've lost to death; it isn’t even my old friends of whom I've grown apart from. 

Who I’m actually grieving is my birthmother. 

What we don’t realize is that grief isn’t something you just put in a box and bury. 

Something I wish I had been told years ago is this: You can still grieve someone who is still alive.

Up until now, I never realized the fact that I needed to grieve. And maybe that is why the Lord gave me a vivid dream of a mother who was in desperate need to find her lost daughter. When He gave me this, it showed me just a fraction of the grief that she was feeling, and in turn, made me realize that I, myself, am grieving. 

And so, as I came to this conclusion while writing a letter to my birthparents, in honor of  Mother’s Day, I commented on how much I just wanted to be able to hug her and tell her just once, in person, how much she did for me--just like how the mother in my dream so desperately wanted to do the same and hug her long lost daughter.