Since November 19, 2006, I’ve been dealing with the loss of my wife. As such, I’ve found myself seemingly instinctively doing things to preserve myself.
Set Goals
For the first twenty-four hours after losing my wife, I set myself an immediate goal of holding together until my mother arrived from England. Then it was until we got home, then it was to get through Thanksgiving ...
By doing this, we break life up into manageable chunks. It should be noted, however, that this isn’t denial. Don’t stop yourself from crying; just try to give yourself achievements that can help you get further than you thought, showing you how much strength you have.
Reach Out
There are tons of ways to reach out online to people. It’s surprisingly easy to bare your soul to someone with whom there are no repercussions; that’s just human nature.
Also, reach out to your friends and family. They may be grieving also, but it is only in your shared remembrance of the person you’ve lost that you can assure a true, good healing process.
Write
As part of the healing process, it is a cathartic and natural response to write. Write letters to your loved one expressing anger, pain, sadness, and frustrations. But also write letters of remembrance, of joy, happiness, love, and the small things that made you smile.
All of these are natural, healthy ways to grieve. Understand that, as part of the grieving process, you will experience emotions that don’t seem right, such as anger at the loved one for leaving you or guilt for having outlived them. These are healthy responses to losing someone—don’t worry, they will pass, but you have to let them take their own course.
Losing someone, especially a spouse, is never easy. The world is full of clichés and empty sentiments that at times will rub you the wrong way, but understand that most people around you just don’t know what to say, and, with these empty platitudes, they are really trying to say, “ I’m sorry I don’t understand.” Things like “take every day as it comes” seem so banal when all you’re trying to do is take every breath as it comes, and that in itself is a Sisyphean task.
Things do get easier, however; twelve years after losing my father, I can say that I will never “ get over it,” but you do come to terms with it, and that allows you to go on with your life in a way that actually has some semblance of meaning. Though you may feel it was your own life that ended, that isn’t the case—you just have to give yourself time to find that out.
