My Journey with the Moon

This is my journey with traumatic grief…

On the 4th December 2019 my whole life changed. One phone call at just after 8am, I think your brother is dead. Falling to my knees, praying through tears that this wasn’t real! I have 2 brothers and 1 sister. My family mean the world to me, even through the fights etc we always pull together! Family is everything.

Let’s go back a few years, my late eldest brother taught me to swim, read me stories when I was young, took us to the most amazing places, loved unconditionally and most of all, he was always excited for what we were going through. He always stuck up for me and was always on my side! We had such a tight bond!

Back to that day, the reality was indeed that my brother had not only passed away but he had committed suicide. A 4 hour drive out to his farm, rain coming down, phone calls back and forth, my mom just not being able to fathom this! (That’s not my story to tell) the next few weeks are an absolute blur. The more I questioned, the less answers I got. The more angry I got, the more others suffered, the less sleep I got, the less I ate and the worse it got. In February 2020, my mom made the call to get me help, which in that moment felt like it was a waste of time but in the end it was the best thing for me. I was told another week later and I would have landed up in hospital! Once I went onto medication (which if you know me, I hate medicine, I hate having to rely on something to do something for me) and went to my sessions a couple of times a week, everything started to make sense. I started to actually understand Traumatic Grief and how to deal with it. I focused all my energy on something that has so much meaning to my situation, which is the moon!

Within 2 months I had completely taken myself off the meds and started the journey of feeling all the raw emotions. I learnt that I had to feel every single emotion going through at each and every point of this journey. Trust me its hard, even today, a year and a half later, I still feel angry sometimes, I still feel sad sometimes, I still feel guilty at times, I still feel hurt sometimes, but that is normal. This type of grief takes a very long time to heal and I am ready and focused for it!

The moon played a huge part in my healing as well as my hubby, my kids, my family and friends. Which I’m forever grateful and thankful for.

The moon… when I look at her I think of my brother, free, calm, at peace, happy, pain free and carefree. Thinking that calms me so much and brings so much peace inside me. She floats up there in the sky with absolutely no worry in the world, carefree and happy… that’s how I see my brother! He is now pain free, he has no more worries and he is happy!

Suicide isn’t only about depression… It goes far deeper than that! Always listen to others, don’t be nasty and negative to people who are voicing their concerns with you, don’t shunt someone out when they are trying to speak to you, help where you can, smile at someone, lend a helping hand, be a shoulder to cry on because you never know what the other person is going through. Your little bit could help someone in a way that we will never know!

This is my story and why I chose to take pictures of the moon. Why I am so passionate about seeing the positive instead of the negative. This is why I share a different and real story every day. And this is why I always say BE KIND cause you never know what a person is going through.

Stay safe everyone AND BE KIND.

Jennifer Friend

0716790978

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