Guest Blog by Diane Ford

Managing My Way Through the Grief Process by Diane Ford

Diane Ford

I lost my daughter, Adrienne, in June 2023. She was fifty-seven, the oldest of three children, and my only daughter.

Adrienne was my guiding light, bold, bossy, and a no-nonsense person. She was also my ride-or-die and best friend. We looked forward to spending more time together, such as her upcoming birthday party, a cruise, and visits to other states in the U.S. When Adrienne passed away, I never imagined I’d be living my life on earth without her.

Adrienne Ford

In 2005, Adrienne was diagnosed with Multiple Sclerosis (MS), but if you had met her, you would never know she was living with this physical disease. The last four months before her death, she had been in and out of the hospital multiple times. Adrienne was losing weight and not eating. Because of her fear of MRI and colonoscopy, we decided not to schedule any more tests. To this day, her passing is unknown. The family decided not to do an autopsy because of everything she went through in the hospital. And now we regret that decision.

Adrienne’s death hit me hard! Grief is exhausting, relentless, and it never ends. Why? Because love never ends.

I’ve heard people describe grief as a “journey.” I prefer not to use the word “journey” because it is defined as an act of traveling from one place to another with a goal in

mind. Instead, I prefer the term “process” because it is a more accurate description. A process is a series of actions taken to achieve a specific result. The result is spiritual healing with no tangible endpoint.

After Adrienne passed away, I tackled the process of grief alone because I didn’t want to burden my husband and my two sons, and I wasn’t sure I’d know how to help them because men grieve differently.

Sadly, my husband and I never had time to grieve our daughter’s death together because he passed away six months after Adrienne died. Even in those six months prior to his death, he never spoke her name or shared his grief with me. Which left me feeling even more alone.

The biggest struggle in the grief process has been trying to understand “Why.” I prayed every day for God to heal and restore my daughter. I believed without a doubt that God would. But God didn’t.

I didn’t ask for the grief of losing my daughter. I couldn’t grasp that it was God’s will not to heal her, and I believe God would be so unloving as to take away my daughter. This led me to question my belief in God. That unbelief turned into anger.

Another part of the grief process that has been difficult is the events we looked forward to celebrating together, like her son’s wedding, becoming a grandmother, attending her favorite nephew’s graduation from pre-school to kindergarten, and other family events. All potential memories that disappeared the day Adrienne died.

Another challenge is dealing with the grief triggers that range from hearing her name, Adrienne’s birthday, holidays, locations, songs, her friends, or events. These triggers appear without notice and make it more difficult to squelch the anger, sadness, and anguish of losing Adrienne.

I was also in total denial of Adrienne’s death for a while. The reality is that we will all die someday. We just don’t know when our loved ones or we will. And when the latter happens, it sucks!

Grief is a confusing process. I’ve read that “The depth of grief often reflects the intensity of love.” And that “Grief is the price we pay for love.” It seems that grief and love go hand in hand.

What has helped me manage the process of grief is knowing that I will see Adrienne again someday, albeit in spirit form.

Despite the relentless exhaustion of grief, I feel confident that I will survive each day because of my faith in God.

In the meantime, each day offers another opportunity to heal through my faith in God. In so doing, I’ve learned how to slowly prune away the layers of grief. The anger. The pain. The heartache. The denial and the sadness. I don’t know how long it will take to remove these layers, but each day I ask God to help me peel them away until they become manageable.

Once I accepted the reality of her death, it restored my faith in God, which helped me replace my anger with the grace I needed to manage the process of grief in a healthier and more productive way.

Diane and Adrienne, Mother and Daughter

Finding the right people or group of people I could trust to help me heal wasn’t easy! I chose to start by joining Grief Share, a religious non-denominational grief recovery group for people who have lost a loved one. It is designed to help all people to rebuild their lives after loss through Christ-centered hope and biblical support. Local churches across the USA host the Grief Share program. While helpful, it addressed only the spiritual side of coping with grief.

I began seeking additional support and found the Trinity Family Counseling Center. “Walk With Me Grief Support Group” was impressive, and it helped me realize how different I was grieving for Adrienne and my husband’s death.

While both support groups were helpful, the “Walk With Me Grief Support Group connected me with a married couple and a woman who had both lost a child. They were both members of the Bereaved Parents of USA-Macomb County Chapter and invited me to a meeting. In March of 2024, I joined the Bereaved Parents-Macomb County Chapter in Michigan. It turned out to be a great decision. Bereaved Parents of USA is a support group that gave me just what I was searching for – loving support and comfort for the loss of a child.

My biggest successes in managing the grief process are embracing grief head-on. And realizing that it is impossible to measure how long it will take a person to heal and find peace. Hiding it under the rug only keeps you stuck in the pain and agony of grief. I don’t want to live my life that way.

The time it takes to manage grief varies for everyone because everyone’s grief is different.

My grief is my grief. It is different than my husband, children, and everyone else who is grieving the loss of a loved one. Therefore, it is my prerogative to decide how long it will take to heal and find peace. Hopefully, sooner than later.

The sooner I heal and find peace, the sooner I can move forward and live the rest of my life to the fullest, as God wants me to.

I know I will never get over losing Adrienne, but until I do, I pray and am hopeful I will one day live in peace with the sadness, heartache, and agony of grief.

As of the writing of this essay, it has been two years since Adrienne died. I feel fortunate to have made progress, thanks to the wonderful BP-USA parents I’ve met. Together we grieve in harmony as we support and comfort each other.

Although I lost the “light” of my life in Adrienne, I’m more hopeful that her light will fully shine again within me one day.