If we’re going to talk grief myths, this one needs to be outed: the myth that the first year is the hardest.
After Dan died, I had no idea what to expect. The “journey” of grief felt like I was peering into a long, dark culvert with no way but through. There was no way around it and no short cut.
I didn’t know how long the culvert was. I only knew the pain was gut-wrenching and hope was the light I couldn’t yet see but had to be somewhere ahead.
That first year, grief was a cavernous, physical pain. Deep sadness was a constant cloak. Every waking moment, every thought, every plan and conversation and memory was laced with loss.
We marked off all the firsts. The first birthdays, the first Christmas, the first anniversary.
Big firsts but also hundreds of small firsts.
The first dinner where his chair stared at us empty. The first Sunday he wasn’t in the pew. The first basketball game he missed; the first parent meeting I attended alone; the first grocery store trip without buying his favorites. The first drive home from a long beach day – a good day – but a silent drive while the kids succumbed to sun-induced sleep and I manned the drive he always had.
Year one had lasts as well. The last time I wore his ring. The last time mail came for him. The last time his truck sat in the driveway.
“If you would pray for us for one year,” I’d answered when friends asked what they could do. {And they did. Only eternity will show all that those prayers did for us.}
I had no experience walking through the dark culvert of grief, but intuitively I thought the hardest part would be behind us in a year.
Uninitiated to the grief club, I didn’t know grief’s second year might be harder than the first.
A friend graciously warned me. She’d lost her dad as a just-turned 20-year-old and later, her only sibling. Her mom had grieved a husband and son.
“My mom thought the second year was harder,” she’d offered on one of our coffee nights out.
I tucked her words away as a possibility, but certainly didn’t want it to be a self-fulfilling prophecy.
But as that first year turned to the second, the numbness of grief lifted. Family and friends and God himself had given us a soft landing. The pain had been intense, and yet cocooned in the fog of grief.
By the second year, there was no fog and reality hit hard.
Life had resumed full force, my kids were moving forward and needed to move forward, but what in the world did my future look like?
After long days of single mothering, single schooling, single everything, going to sleep alone wasn’t the hardest part. It was waking up every morning to the harsh realization that this was life now.
If I had one word to sum up that second year, it would be despair. Deep gulfs of despair would suck me down for weeks at a time as I felt the full loss of what had been and would never be again.
When I felt nearly pulled under by a wave of despair, the only thing I knew to do was to pour it out to God. On paper, in prayer, in my van alone – I would cry out to God.
And then I’d open God’s Word. Every morning, I’d exchange my despair for God’s hope; my perspective for God’s promises.
And without fail, every single morning, God lifted my head. It didn’t matter if I was in Leviticus or Ephesians, scripture refocused my eyes and my heart to our good and sovereign God, our defender, our provider and the one who promises a hope and a future.
The first year was so hard in so many ways. But going through all those firsts didn’t magically make the grief disappear the next year. The second year of grief was hard in other ways.
That culvert of grief? It got darker in the middle.
But a culvert has two openings: a way in and a way out.
If grief is getting harder, it doesn’t always mean you’re stuck. It might get darkest in the middle even as you’re moving forward.
Keep doing the hard work of grief. Hold to God’s promises. Each step moves you toward the light even when you cannot yet see it.
I found this to be true as well. When both my parents passed (1 year 4 months apart) I knew things were going to be different. I just didn’t realize how different! I look back now and see that first year was a big blur! The second and third years were the hardest for me. I had a wonderful support team and a WONDERFUL God that kept me going! It was easy to stay stuck in one place, but God kept nudging me forward little by little. He helped me realize that the pain of losing a loved never goes away, you just find new ways to help deal with it.
That’s so true, Patricia, that the loss is always there. Thank you for sharing — that’s a big loss and life change to go through in a year.
Your journey is very similar to mine regarding my parents and my huband passing within a 6 year time span. I felt so alone and orphaned. I retired from my job waiting to die. I had given up! I had no hope, no joy. My children were grown and did not understand my grief and loneliness. BUT GOD!!! I praise God for His presence in my life because without Him I would not have continued on living. God had something more for me. I went back to work and I’m so glad I did! Life is great now, even though sometimes I get melancholy and think about my loved ones, but God is there with me speaking into my heart. God bless you Patricia.
Thank you Lisa…true and thought provoking….I can make use of this in Christian counseling and as I lose loved ones in my own life…..my brother in law also told me the same for him was the entering into the second year after Teri’s death ( ALS took her , my lovely sizter)….than you again and God Bless you, Michele
Michele, I’m so sorry for the loss of your sister. I was grateful a friend shared with me so that when year 2 rolled around, I wasn’t sideswiped.
I think the second year is hard also because I expected to magically feel better when the first anniversary of my husband’s death rolled around and, just like you don’t feel any older on your birthday, the marking of a date does not make a difference in grief. My husband passed away in June 2012, it was around October 2013 when I started to feel the grief lift. Holidays that year were better, not as sad, that’s when I knew I was coming out.
Molly, it feels good to feel good again, doesn’t it? Thank you for sharing. I’m sorry for the loss of your husband.
The worship leader at my church has written a song that reminds me of this so much! It is on YouTube Tim Readnour – I’ll Keep on Loving You. This video is in his kitchen, but he has since recorded it. I hope you will listen and that God will comfort you always.
Thank you, Beverly. I look it up!
Thank you so much for your wise words ! They are helping me to understand ( as much as I can ) and help my sister as I walk with her after the recent loss of her beloved husband.
Oh, Kathleen, she is so fortunate to have you walking with her! My sister was such a sweet listener and encourager for me.
I really like this, Lisa, and the photos you took. Isn’t that something. Each point of focus speaks to a different aspect of loss. Your writing wrings out some of that pain… it drips along the pages, and yet… I hope by sharing it, there is some relief, if momentary. You are dying fully, yet fully alive…it’s the paradox of salvation. Yet, may the sun of righteousness come with healing in his wings, covering it all with his goodness.
Good to hear from you, Brinly. <3 So thankful God covers it all with his goodness.
I’m walking through the second year right now after losing my grandparents and my daughter only months apart. You’re right about the physicality of grief during that first year…I think even my hair grieved with new grays and frizziness. The second year feels more hopeful in many ways. I’ve survived one year so suredly God will carry me through more years as well. But it doesn’t feel easier, just different…maybe more expected. The triggers still throw me for a loop…hearing another mom call her name for their child or picking out Halloween costumes for my here girls only. Still feeling the hurt of the missing from the bottom of my soul. But also feeling God stretch and grow me through this season. Someone told me that the loss of a loved one doesn’t grow smaller, but rather we grow bigger around it. Thank you Lisa for sharing your heart here. It helps!
Rachel, I love that saying– that we grow bigger around the loss. What the enemy means for harm God uses for good. I cannot imagine the pain, but I’m praying for you now as you parent your other girls.
Thank you Lisa
When I read your posts, it feels like you are reading my mind and writing what is on my heart. I’m also a young widow, over half way into my second year of widowhood. I’ve been told year two is harder by an older widow friend. I always thought the goal was to survive the first year and things would be better.
In some ways this year has been worse. Reality has set in, with the fog gone, like you said and it’s depressing. My kids too are progressing and getting closer to leaving home and going to college and my hopes and dreams seemed crushed. The despair is so deep sometimes it’s hard to breathe.
I can’t walk away from God at the hardest time of my life, but it’s a struggle to feel peace from Him when my world seems shattered and I can’t see a light at the end of the tunnel.
Lisa, you just described it. Despair is so difficult. The only thing I know to do is exchange the lie of my feelings for the truth of God’s Word. He has so much for you. <3
I relate to your sentiments for sure. It’s only entering 7 months for us, but when so much is shattered, it’s a struggle to keep faith, though we know He is our hope. Prayers to you.
Thanks for sharing this. Very helpful for us to know this as we walk with friends. There can be no assumptions or expectations with grief, it seems. I have always heard the “first” year is hardest. Thank you for this series and exposing these myths!
Yes, I’m sure each grief journey is different — for some the first year might be hardest. That’s okay too. Thank you, Beth!
138 days. I feel poisoned with no light, no hope in sight.
Oh Susan. My heart hurts for you. The hurting and missing does feel hopeless sometimes still for me, but I know I don’t grieve without hope. Please know I just prayed specifically for you. Love in Christ, Rachel
Susan, I’m praying for you now, sweet sister that you will feel the strong hand of God walking you through this darkness. Grief is hard work. Praying psalm 27 for you.
You are so right about being numb and in a cocoon the first year. And everyone moves on, so you have to as well. Hugs to you for being brave every day! I can’t imagine how it has been for you.
Yes! I was just talking about that weird phenomenon where everyone’s life moves on per usual and the grieving one feels utterly shattered. Thank you, Sarah.
This is so helpful (and absolutely hard to read and think of you going thru that Lisa). After we got thru a few of our firsts (without my mom)…mine and my twins 1st birthday, 1st thanksgiving, 1st Cmas, etc…we thought we had jumped some major hurdles and maybe going into the New Year would be easier. Of course it wasn’t. Starting the New Year without her was so hard because of the realization that we had her in 2017 but not in 2018. It seems so wrong. We know God is faithful and we are really just beginning this journey of grief, but new things trigger the grief and it seems so very difficult to function at times and move forward.
Thanks for sharing. Love you sweet friend
Carol, there are no shortcuts with grief. That is a hard place — where we know God will bring us through and we just want to be there already, without such pain. God has so much heart work for us IN the hard place and you will be a different person for it. xoxo
In the last 18 months I have been diagnosed with breast cancer and lost my husband of 50 years. Celebrated 1 year cancer free and now my daughter, her husband (boys 2 & 3) are going into the mission field overseas for an undetermined amount of time. I thought when I was a year cancer free and through the first year of widowhood things would be easier. The fog lifted, this year is so painful but Christ is with me. Reading this has described me to a tee. How can you be hurting and moving to the light. I am struggling and find myself less outgoing. Your words are healing and am trying just to accept my emotions. Thank you so much also to the comments. I am trying to accept each day and hold on to God’s promises.
Helen, I’m so sorry for your loss coupled with the hard of a health diagnosis. In that wilderness season, there is only clinging to God and asking him for strength to sustain you and full healing. Give yourself much grace physically and emotionally to absorb and process all the change.
My mom died June 7, 2018, then Dad died 6 months later on Dec. 8, 2018. My mom and I were best friends and I took care of her last 3 months of her life. Dad had Alzheimers. Im in the deepest, darkest hole. Feel alot of guilt. Just laying on my bed from morning to night. God seems so far away and silent. Im 64 years old, no appetite, have lost 33 pounds. Deep despair.
Kathy, you have had back to back losses ushering in lots of life change and grief will surely affect appetite, sleep and so much more. There are no shortcuts through grief but there are steps to move forward. Small steps that will help you move forward little by little as you process your loss. Daily getting into God’s word to lift my head and remind me of his promises when life felt so heavy was life changing. Praying too that you might find a local grief counselor through the Association of Certified Biblical Counselors. Much grace to you and praying you’ll feel God’s comfort.
Thank you for this article. Your words are mine also as I finish the second year after my husband went home to Jesus. A friend did “warn” me of the hardness of the second year. And like you, I have cried out to God and He has faithfully accepted my tears and carried me through every single day. I still wake up wondering if I’m not still asleep without Tom next to me. I’ve learned to lay quietly for a while, first figuring out what day it is and what I have to do this day. Then I talk to God before I even put my feet on the floor. God has also shown me this year that it’s okay to not be okay. I think I expected like you share to “get through ” the grief and be okay again. While I may be okay sometimes, my life will never be the same. My focus has become on our Lord and doing the work He is putting in my life. I mentor with several people going through their own losses. As Paul writes, we are comforted so that we might comfort others.
God is good always and I know He is preparing a place for me and Tom and I will be together for eternity praising Jesus! Thank you again for sharing. Blessings!
I recently found my husband dead in bed after getting up n making coffee n having my devotions. The process of finding him n calling 911 n my son to come home n his sister n husband. It was horrible n still raw. 3months in n still raw. I don’t see my son n don’t see my sister in law. Everyone’s in there own direction n it’s eating me up inside
I’m so sorry, Pat. Grief is so hard…cry out to God who is always there. Cry out when you physically hurt or when your lonely or when people disappoint and God will always, always meet your need. Takes a long time to begin to get through that raw pain. But God is faithful to do it. I am praying for you now.
I lost my son to a brain tumour on September 2nd 2018. He was 32. I took care of him for the year before and watched my handsome, loving boy, lose everything. His fiancee, job, license and everything physical and mental that goes with a left temporal lobe tumour. I stayed with him in his room at hospice on an air mattress beside his bed during the last month of his life. I held him in my arms the last hours if his beautiful yet painful life. I struggle with, did I do enough and did I tell him everything I wanted to while trying to remain in control and brave. I prayed so hard and had so much hope. The miracle never came. I also lost my mother to ovarian cancer at 26 and she at 47. It hasn’t been yet two years since my son died and I just turned 50. I’ve been sick for over 4 months and can’t seem to get better. I look so much older too. My faith has kept me going knowing I will see them both again but I also think I am sick because my heart has literally broken. I want to find the joy but it’s not coming…
Sharon, my heart breaks hearing the pain in your words. Grief is hard work and it takes a great deal of time to process this kind of deep pain and loss. Oh how I wanted to rush through and get to the place where joy was restored, but we can’t rush grief. God promises us an abundant life and that’s not a platitude. It is ours by right as his children. But, God also gives us space to grieve. He is a God of lament as well. He understands! Jesus wept and God bottles every one of your tears. Praying for you today that you will see God’s goodness all around you even as life feels hard and that God’s word will lift your head and encourage you to tackle this day.
I just came across this. My husband passed away unexpectedly 5/2/22 and the words you express are true. It seems to be more difficult as time slowly passes. My son and daughter and me are trying to maintain and rebuild, but there are so many secondary losses even in the excruciating loss of all he was to us. Thank you for this inspiration.