Can there be a Happy Ever After?

Somebody asked me the other day, ‘does time really help make it easier to stop feeling the pain of not being able to have a child’?

Someone else asked something similar, ‘what can I do to stop the grief’?

A third person wanted to know, ‘how long were they likely to feel this way’?

These are questions I get asked so often, by so many and I truly wish I had a magic answer (or even better, a magic wand) to help ease the suffering.

Part of the remedy is ‘in the suffering itself’. You do need to go through it in order to come out of it. Going to the edge and backing away means the black hole or monster that you fear always sits there waiting to suck you in.

How long the suffering will last for, in my experience falls into two elements. The first is the ‘intensity’ of the suffering, which clearly will be more severe over the initial days, weeks and months and the second element is ‘longevity’ with regards to not only how long the suffering will last but also those moments where it has subsided and then arises once more – how long does it then last (and to what intensity).

The loss will always remain and consequently the pain will always exist, though eventually what happens is the space between the intense / long periods of grief and suffering becomes equal or bettered by longer spells of not feeling it to such degrees.

If you drive a car or ride a bike, imagine a Pot Hole in the road and in the beginning you are always going over this pot hole and it is jarring and then one day you notice the pot hole has been filled and the journey (life) feels smoother. HOWEVER, over time bits come out and maybe a small hole appears once more, which slightly disrupts you and other times it might be the full hole has emerged once more and this completely throws you off course once more but you will find it’s being filled more often and more quickly.

Time does help and suffering / processing the pain will also help. Does it end, does the loss ever fully subside or go away – the truthful answer is, no it doesn’t, but it does change, will become less intense and won’t stay around as long.

The other thing that will help is ‘purpose’. The pain arises from something that’s been taken, leaving a hole. When you find something that can (in part) fill the hole, this will be helpful. What becomes your purpose is the million dollar question and is a topic for another day…