Audio sessions for coping with grief.
Eli Zaret lost his daughter, Alison, to suicide in 2018. He began a journal to chart his emotional recovery and the growth he experienced along the way. Writing helped him purge his grief as well as to develop a new outlook on his life. The italic portions in various entries indicate his journal entries. The non-italic portions are his later reflections.
"Grief is like the ocean; it comes on waves ebbing and flowing. Sometimes the water is calm, and sometimes it is overwhelming. All we can do is learn to swim." – Vicki Harrison
I’m a member of a fraternity no man ever wants to join. Membership lasts a lifetime, and although there are no dues, the cost to enter comes at the heaviest emotional price.
I can see how my thinking has evolved since those first few awful months. Early on, I realized that in order to swim back to the surface and breathe again, I’d have to get to where this was about me and not just her anymore. I thought, “Yes, I’m stuck in the mud, overwhelmed with feelings of emptiness, confusion and fear about my ability to recover. But I won’t recover unless I stop analyzing what actually happened to her and focus on what’s best for me.”
No man ever steps in the same river twice, for it is not the same river and he is not the same man. — Heraclitus
Heraclitus was a Greek philosopher from about 500 BC, who viewed permanence as an illusion because the world is in a constant state of change. Some changes within us come gradually and subtly over time and some can be thrust upon us instantly and with no warning.
Continue reading "Alison Diaries: No man ever steps in the same river twice."