Margarita Hour

Some people don’t experience loss and grief until they are 50 years old; others are born into it. No matter what age you experience loss it will latch on to you and engrave itself into your soul. September is a month of grief for me. I don’t even have to think about it. My body reminds me every time it gets closer and closer to September. My first real introduction to grief was when I was a child and it changed almost every single part of me. A lot of times when I have talked to people about my loss they will say something along the lines of “over time it will get better”. I don’t believe in the phrase “time heals” in my eyes time is just an excuse to move on with life. Throughout my life I have witnessed people for the first time experiencing grief. Some older and some younger. With every person I see the same look on their face. I recognize the look of grief like I would seeing my own mother across the room in a crowd. The look is so recognizable because it looks like a part of them has left as if their soul is asleep and their body is mindlessly going through life. Grief is different from sadness or even depression. With seasons of sadness and depression you can remind yourself that if you keep fighting this will eventually pass. Grief never ever passes, it only changes shape. Ever since I was a child I was always sensitive. I felt everything so hard it would at times physically hurt. I would think of every emotion and dissect it until I didn’t know what to do with it and I would anxiously cry. This was the one thing that didn’t change after I had lost a person I deeply loved. If anything my feeling of emotion and empathy got even stronger. At a lot of points of time in my life I have come to the realization that I am not made for everyone. Since around middle school a good amount of people have told me that I am “too much”. They would say I talked too much, I joked around too much, I cried too much, I think too much, and I just felt way way too much. What do you do with this type of feedback? Do you stay true to the person you are or do you shrink yourself to fit into other people’s expectations? For a long long time in my life and even now sometimes this exact criticism ate at my heart. I would rather have people call ugly honestly. Those parts of me that people would criticize and even leave me at times for started to shrink. I would start to bury my feelings down in fear of being too much. As I have been thinking about this and thinking of the person that I used to be I started to realize something. Going through grief especially at a young age is like having emotional open heart surgery. It opens up the heart, takes someone out of it and closes it with something missing. You can’t live with a hole in your heart. It is impossible. I like to believe that when my father passed he gave me a part of his love to fill in that hole. My father was a very sensitive person and felt things to the deepest, most extreme levels. I could imagine that he could have been the person to understand me now. Instead he taught me a lesson. His level of depth and sensitivity was unfortunately the reason he passed. His death while being the hardest thing I carry with me also doubles as my biggest weapon. I will not let my sensitivity tear me down nor be torn down by people who do not like it. My love, care, loyalty, empathy, and of course deep feelings of sadness are not flaws. Instead they are gifts to people who are willing to receive them. Even in my sadness I think so much that I think about exactly what to do with it and what to learn from it. People still to this day tell me that I feel and think too much. That is okay. Once a person goes through grief your emotions, mind, and even body have a complete shift. People who have never been through that can not understand no matter how hard they try. Which is a good thing I would not wish grief on anyone but everyone at one point or time will experience it. Grief can be a chance to grow and a chance to view life in a completely different perspective. I am not ashamed of how I feel. It still is difficult for me to relearn that there is nothing wrong with my emotions. I still catch myself at times trying to push strong emotions of love and sadness down and avoid it out of fear. It is hard to go back to being as free and vulnerable as I used to be but I know that I have always been that person on the inside and I will be able to be that on the outside again. Do not be ashamed of the person you are. Your emotions are never too much with people that truly care and want to understand. As this season of grief and remembering is passing me I think of my father often and I see him in a lot of different places. I recognize that grief is hard, it is confusing, and it is the biggest signal of love. If you are grieving or have been through grief know that I love you and understand you and remember that your pain shows just how much love you hold in your heart. Thank you guys for reading and I hope you come back again.

Love, Margarita