I lost my home, my income and my dad in one year and I thought I would not survive. Then having to start all over again from scratch with absolutely nothing was another blow. I was battling really hard to make sense of it and had to dig deep to find answers. Through the pain and the anger I learnt some very valuable lessons that helped to move forward, not in giant leaps but in tiny baby steps.
Losing everything taught me to truly be grateful for every little blessing of every day. I’ve learned to appreciate things that I took for granted before and never even paid attention to. Things like the laughter of my children. There was a time when all of us were so unhappy that the laughter in our home stopped completely.
Sleeping on a bed was something else I felt extremely grateful for. We left all our furniture back home when we returned here. We had no money to buy furniture and the four of us slept on a mattress that a friend gave us. The first night we slept on a bed in our home again I felt like a queen in a palace.
The death of my dad completely shattered me. It happened so unexpectedly. The one moment everything was fine and my husband and I were planning our trip to Cape Town. And the next moment none of those plans mattered. The death of my dad taught me that all we have is this moment and nothing else.
Before receiving the news that my dad passed away we had so many plans. His death changed everything. It made me realise that we don’t have control over life. We don’t get to decide who lives and who dies. We don’t have control over tomorrow, or even the next minute. God is in control of everything. We can control our emotions, our attitudes and our thoughts. But life in general is very fragile. You can never know for sure how when the day begins how it’s going to end. Life can change in an instant and there’s nothing you can do to prevent things from happening.
I felt completely alone and isolated and locked away in my pain, forgetting that I have a wonderful supportive husband who wanted to help me. Instead I pushed him away, became irritated and impatient with our children and just turned into a mean bitter person. I convinced myself that he didn’t understand how I was feeling because he didn’t lose a father. I refused to cry. Instead I bottled up all the pain inside and stop talking to my husband. It took his love, patience and honesty to remind that I’m not alone, that I’m not the only one who’s suffering and that we still have each other. He sat me down and told me how much I’m hurting him and our children. That was my wakeup call. That brought me back from the brink of despair.
Remember you are never alone. Someone cares about you. Never convince yourself that you have to have to carry your pain alone. Don’t suffer in silence. And don’t embrace bitterness. It’s okay to be vulnerable and it’s okay to cry your heart out. And it’s okay to be comforted. Just know that you are not alone.
No matter how much your heart is breaking, no matter how much your life has been shattered, no matter how devastating your loss is, no matter how your much your soul has been ripped out, life still goes on. The sun still rises and sets every day. Seasons still change. People still laugh, go to work, have parties, make plans. Life doesn’t stop because your heart is breaking.
You might feel like dying or giving up, but life doesn’t stop. Life goes on and so will you. It doesn’t mean that you will forget, you’ll just learn to live with the pain and the loss. And then one day unexpectedly you’ll find yourself smiling. You’ll start remembering without the sadness or the anger, and you’ll start smiling again. You’d have changed in countless small ways and life will never be the same again. And slowly you’ll again become part of life and even more slowly you’ll begin to be okay. You won’t the same, but you will be okay.
This was written by Olivia Sambo, Entrepeneur and Financial Blogger at oliviasambo.site123.me. You can also get in touch at olivia.sambo@gmail.com.