Five Things I've learned about grief since my son was diagnosed with Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy, a progressive and life limiting muscle wasting disease by Lizzie Deeble.

By Lizzie Deeble
whose son Sebastian lives with Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy, a progressive and life-limiting muscle wasting disease

1. Grief doesn't just happen when someone dies. It's so much more complicated than that.
   

2. Grief in real life isn't like it is on TV - it isn't gracefully weeping in a corner. It's ugly, blotchy, badly timed, noisy and sometimes frighteningly dark. 
   

3. You can feel an acute sense of loss for a life you didn't even know you'd planned.
   

4. There are things that change you at your very core, change the way you make sense of the world and mean that you have to re-learn how to live in it. 
   

5. Life carries on when your heart shatters. And even though it will always be broken, joy, laughter and lots of love can exist at the same time. They have to. 

Lizzie Deeble and her family

About Lizzie Deeble
Lizzie is mummy to Sebastian (five) and Toby (two and a half). Sebastian lives with Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy, a progressive and life-limiting muscle wasting disease as well as Autism and associated delays. 

She blogs about her experiences. You can follow Lizzie on Facebook and Instagram.

Five Things is a collection of the five things our collaborators want you to know about life, death and everything in between. Over the next few months, we’ll be covering illness, dying, death, funerals, grief, heartache, adversity and many other topics.