Last week during therapy I was asked to describe the physical sensations I feel when I think about Quin. I couldn’t and it bothered me a little that I couldn’t but I just couldn’t figure out what the words were. I went to my grief group - specifically for parents who have lost children - and asked them how they would describe it.
The answers were heartwrenching, accurate, and strangely powerful.
There won’t be a lot of my own thoughts in this post, I just want to share some of their words. If you’ve ever tried to imagine what it feels like, read on. Though I promise you, if you don’t know, you don’t know...
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A deep longing, an ache in my soul. A hole in my heart.
It's excruciating. It feels like shaking, but not quite. It vibrates through my body, causing unease.
For me, it varies. In extreme moments, I feel it as nausea. Often, it feels like heaviness in my chest or uncried tears always just behind my eyes. Sometimes, it feels like a bottomless pit inside me. Other times, it's a thick numbness, which I think is my body’s way of saying it's too much to handle.
It feels like I am constantly screaming his name inside my head.
I remember feeling like my chest would explode. I struggled to breathe in those first weeks. I had a tingling sensation in my breasts, like when I nursed him, as if my body was telling me I needed to take care of my child. Other physical effects included a shock of gray hair within two weeks and the sudden cessation of my periods, even though I wasn’t near menopause. I haven’t had a period in six years.
Exhausted, numb, achy, distracted, empty—just a few words that come to mind.
Chest pain.
My pain is immense, often taking my breath away and causing anxiety.
It feels like someone is choking me. I feel numb, but when I see videos, I crumble, like he’s there but I can’t reach him. It’s an awful life.
It’s indescribable, really—just a dull, continuous ache.
Sometimes, I feel a warmth come over me, and my heart smiles for a moment. Then I remember he’s gone, and I feel very sad.
It felt like I couldn’t breathe. Just catching a breath was so hard.
It depends on the day. Some days, I feel grateful that he’s experiencing peace on the other side. Other days, I want to vomit when I think about how cancer tortured him and robbed him of the life he deserved. It’s complicated for sure.
Heaviness in my chest.
From one mother to another who has lost her child, there are no words.
So much love.
A nauseous heartache.
I literally felt my heart break. Now I truly understand what it means to have a broken heart.
Empty, numb—a huge part of me is missing.
A punch straight to the heart that rips through your soul.
It feels like I can’t breathe or take a deep breath.
Physically, even after four years, it’s still complete exhaustion, depression, frustration, anger, sorrow, lack of energy, not wanting to get out of bed, and constantly questioning everything about their treatment.
Sometimes, it feels like I can’t catch my breath when grief sneaks up. Other times, our life together seems like the most amazing dream from which I’ve woken.
I feel broken. I’m a shattered piece of crystal held together by love. I feel every crack, and in every crack, there’s love. But there’s also immense pain. It will always be this way. Great love brings great grief.
Sad, empty butterflies.
When I try to explain my daughter, I can only say that being around her was like floating in a calm, sapphire-blue body of water, the sun warming deep into your soul. She made you feel that everything would always work out if you just believed in your strength, in love, and in God.
It feels like a huge punch in the gut, a gasp for breath. Then the tears flow.
The week it happened, I told my husband that my heart was in literal pain. Tears fell even when my mind was blank. It’s the worst pain a human can imagine—there are no words. Eight years and eight months later, I still feel lost, angry, cheated, and eternally broken. When I’m quiet, my thoughts go to my son. When I’m enjoying myself, I wish he was here. My grief is an endless urge to have my son close, but an emptiness remains because I never will again, on this earth.
Like a punch in the gut, with tremendous anxiety.
I feel like I’m teetering between heaven and earth. I weep for the part of me that’s fragmented, the part that knows no time. It lives in limbo, waiting to be together again. My pain is violent, as if my body was violated. It’s as if everything that makes me human, the ability to love and create life, was ripped away. This pain has no bounds; it is raw and limitless. Only I can know it. No therapist can understand this pain until it is upon you. No words, only feelings.
A gaping hole.
It feels like I’m being choked, or something is stuck in my throat, making it hard to breathe. My heart feels like it’s in a vice, being squeezed so tightly that I can feel my pulse through my whole body. It feels like I’m being crushed, unable to move. A year later, the physical pain is less intense, but it still happens unexpectedly.
Despair. Empty.
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