Our HBIC, Ivy, shared a beautifully honest post about dealing with a “grief spurt” (as I call them), when something triggers a memory or that deep pit in your stomach of missing that special person you’ve lost either to death or some other circumstance.

My grandmother passed away on August 31st, and many people told me, “It gets easier, but every once in awhile you’ll be hit with the grief all over again, randomly. So don’t be surprised when it happens.” I believed them, but I had no idea it would be like this.

I went to Michael’s craft store today to buy some items for a Thanksgiving centerpiece I’m making to show on Home-Ec 101. I got most of the items I needed and thought, “Boy, Grandma’s going to absolutely love this centerpiece.” And then it hit me like a car slamming into a brick wall- Grandma’s gone. She’s not ever going to see the centerpiece.

Waves of raw, ragged grief swept over me…

Read the rest of her experience here.

It’s been 16 years since my daddy passed, and there are still moments, especially when I think about how much Daddy would’ve adored his little granddaughter.

Ivy, shares more at her personal blog about dealing with the mementos after the shock of the death, the funeral, and the initial period of mourning:

You pick up the pieces and go on with your life. But then you have to go and clean out the bits of that person’s life and you get hit with the grief all over again. We’ve put it off for a long time, but we have been cleaning out Grandma’s storage. She’s had this shit in storage for 15 years- books, junk, papers, more junk…

…I got a diary that covered January 1,1990 through April 24th, 1990. And an envelope that can be best described as an envelope full of crazy- my grandpa cheated on my grandma and she took notes and has all sorts of evidence of it, notes she found in my grandpa’s pockets, lists, every time she saw “the other woman” in public. It’s disturbing, and it’s like a trainwreck- you have to look, even though you know you shouldn’t.

As weird as it may sound, I’m keeping some of the crazy stuff. It’s a reminder of how bitterness can poison your heart and take other people’s hearts with you. It’s a reminder of how when your spouse cheats, you need to either cut them loose or forgive them with your whole heart, because living with the bitterness is Not. A. Good. Thing. …

…I think, after she died, I had put her up on a pedestal like she was when I was a little kid. Now, I can remember the good AND the bad, and that makes the hurt a bit easier, and makes my missing her a bit worse.

Indeed, I believe that in her grandmother’s humanity, she was dealing with the grief losing the one she loved because the betrayal, and in that is a form of grieving. One goes through the same denial, anger, sadness, then acceptance as we do in a death. We go through those stages in various orders at various times, and even with acceptance…something can throw you into the cycle again.

Newscoma also experienced that same realization of her beloved’s frailties as a human being throughout her grieving experience, and she shares that here.

Grief is a strange thing, and manifests itself in different ways for different people. I always pray for the wisdom and compassion to know when my own actions — and those of others — may be stemming from going through grief.