Campus parent Deb Fries writes a weekly blog called “Life Chats with Deb,” which is published every Thursday. Topics she writes on range from parenting struggles to advice for students who are repeating mistakes she herself has made. The blog is aimed towards high school students and their parents.

Fries has written over 10 posts throughout this school year. Her latest blog focuses on the grief of losing someone.

Grief isn’t fun!

It has been 2 years since I lost my mom. And while I do not wish her to be back on earth suffering and in pain, my heart still mourns for her. There are good days and ok days and then there are the days when the pain overtakes me and I crawl into bed and cry. It is usually the days when I need advice about being a mother. I keep thinking that it will lessen, the grief, and while it doesn?t come as often the pain still feels fresh.

The past few weeks I have had some very close friends lose someone significant in their lives. I have watched the level of despair wash over them and take away their voice, seen tears shed and heard apologies for not being able to stop them, felt inadequate in trying to comfort them, and I realized that grief is something that each one of us will go through and that it is a completely individualized event.

I had been told for years that my mom was on her death bed, and so I was certain that I would be calloused and jaded when it actually happened. I couldn?t have been more wrong nor more surprised how it affected me. I was and am still stunned and how much my life changed and how my thinking has changed. One thing that I know for sure is that I was not ever really prepared or taught about grief. I don?t know how to teach my kids that grief is coming, and that it will hit like a tsunami. As parents, how do we teach about loss, without teaching our kids to fear death or become jaded by it?

To all my friends that are in the beginning stages of their grief, my heart breaks for you, my prayers go up for you. Grief is not fun! It is not something that no one can prepare for, even though we all face it.

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