The reality is you will grieve forever. You will not “get over” the loss of a loved one; you will learn to live with it. You will heal, and you will rebuild yourself around the loss you have suffered. You will be whole again, but you will never the same. Nor should you be same, nor would you want to.
~ Elisabeth Kubler-Ross & David Kessler
(On Grief and Grieving: Finding the Meaning of Grief Through the Five Stages of Loss)
I have found these words to be true. It’s thirty-four years now since my mother died and I have healed and have learned how to live with that never-ending feeling of painful loss. After my father died twelve years ago, grief was much more familiar to me and I more quickly got used to feeling like an orphan. But now, to be a widow.
I miss my husband so much. How is this much pain even possible? The loss feels like it’s cutting even deeper than the loss of my parents because I intimately shared my life with this man for more than fifty years. My days are full of memory flashes, as if my brain wants to watch the video of our whole life together in bits and pieces. (I think in pictures.) So I pause whatever I am doing, recall the scene, cry a little, talk to him a little, and then try to remember what I was doing and carry on.
Sunday evening I took another very long two-hour walk with my friends. It was cold and the atmosphere felt like it was going to snow. It was magical. (It did snow the next day in some places nearby, but not at my place.) Very healing and I am so grateful for their love and support. We were still out there when the sun set. A good memory.
What I have found most helpful is to actively invite in the emotion and breathe is in as deeply as possible – doing the opposite of reacting if it is possible
Thank you, Leelah, I also find deep breathing very beneficial, and crying very healing, too. When we welcome and allow our feelings we do so much better than when trying to control them.
💖 🙏🏼 🪔
Thank you, Eliza. 🙏🏼
Long walks in the woods with friends sounds like the best thing to do. I’m glad you have that support. I hope your holidays are filled with friends and family.
Thank you, Anna. Friends and family will definitely be here – I doubt I could make it through without them. And without Tim on my walks any more it’s so good to have my friends with me now.
Barbara, I’m sure you’ve learned that grieving doesn’t have a timetable. Nor an instruction manual. It’s a part of life that, if given the choice, none of us would choose; however, it’s something all of us eventually must go through.
When I lost my dad 17 years ago, I think I was in a fog trying to carry on while my poor, heartbroken mom basically shut down. For a solid year. Then, nearly two years ago, I lost Mom, and that hit really hard because I was her caregiver. And we’d endured the frustrations of COVID together (thankfully, neither of us caught it).
I imagine losing a spouse must be awful. So much of your life is wrapped around another person in marriage that, when it’s over, it really must leave a gaping wound in your heart. I can’t speak to this because I haven’t lived it; however, I can offer my support, encouragement, and friendship from a distance. Getting out in nature, engaging with friends, keeping busy — yes, those sound like ideal ways to help you heal.
Thank you, Debbie, for sharing your experience and for all your kind and comforting words. I had to smile when you mentioned that grieving doesn’t have a timetable. When my cousin’s mother died thirteen years ago that was one of the things I strongly stressed to him, to not let anyone tell him how to grieve or to tell him how long it should or would take. It was an important lesson I passed on to him, learned well from grieving for my own mother.
You were a wonderful daughter, carrying on while in your own fog when your mother succumbed to her grief. I see my daughter doing the same for me now, even though she has suffered the loss of her dearly loved father. What a blessing she is, and I know your mother must have felt the same way about you.
Your support, encouragement, and friendship from afar means as much to me as the support I’m getting in person from local friends. Thank you so much for your compassion and depth of understanding. 💙
You are so blessed to have a daughter to help you through this, Barbara. Mom told me often how much I helped her (she and Daddy had been married more than 50 years); part of me scoffed at how little I felt I was doing, but she saw it otherwise, as I’m sure you do. I’ll keep y’all in my prayers!
Thank you, Debbie! You were an angel to help your mom through her grief, and then you looked after her so well in her declining years. I remember your posts from that time. Love is never easy but you muddled through and your mother was blessed to have you, as I am blessed to have my daughter.
We never forget those we loved. We miss them every day. And that’s because we loved them so much.
It’s so true, dearest Rosie, and I know you speak from experiencing one of the most unbearable of losses. Grief is the echo of love.
Barbara – it is good to have remembrances and unfortunately you are going to feel the loss of Tim even more since it is the holiday season as people bustle around with their holiday plans, full of good cheer, (momentarily anyway), but here you are, feeling your large loss even more profoundly. I am glad you have family and friends nearby – that is a godsend. It is those nature walks or birdwatching with friends that will help you get through these days. Thank goodness the weather is conducive for walks and get-togethers and you are not stuck inside the house, with a lot of time on your hands to just think. You are lucky you have hobbies too, which will help you in this new normal.
P.S. – We are often on the same wavelength in our posts and today is no different. I will have a Christmas post on the 21st that leads with a featured image of a movie reel and asking “what if you were able to watch a movie of each Christmas Day in your past?” I guess we are always replaying those special times in our respective minds and I was thinking of them when I created that post a few days ago, a post that was bubbling around in my brain for months. There were not-so-great Christmas Days too and try as I may, I will never wipe Christmas Day 1983 from my memory as to my father on that day.
Please continue to focus on all those good memories Barbara, until you have a smile on your face again.
Thank you so much, Linda. When I was a little girl, whenever one of my pets died and we would bury them in the woods, my father would comfort us by advising us to remember the good times. All through my life this has been what I do when faced with loss, even though sometimes remembering a good time brings out a fresh batch of tears. But crying feels good somehow. And these constant memory flashes keep reminding me of just how much I loved that man!
These words got me thinking, “You will be whole again, but you will never the same.” Things will never be the same but I have faith things will find a way of being whole. Kind of like that saying that when one door closes another opens. It will be interesting to see how what’s left of my life turns out. So many changes already and it’s been less than two months.
It would be so interesting to watch a movie of each Christmas Day in our pasts. My memories aren’t as well defined as yours and I think a lot of years are jumbled and blurred in my mind. But I’ll never forget Christmas 1968, when I was 11 years old. Lots of extended family was squished into my aunt’s mobile home in Florida and we all caught the Hong Kong flu. I remember feeling terribly ill on an air mattress on the floor in the middle of the tiny living room, and listening to all my relatives moaning and groaning from various rooms, in mutual misery. It was a nightmare!
Thankfully most Christmases were much better than that!
Your father was a very wise man Barbara and you were close to him, so no wonder your world was rocked with his passing and then of course, your mother’s passing later on. I guess our childhood pets would be the first time many of us experience a death.
I believe you will indeed recover from this loss and be whole again as you have faith and family, the two most-important factors in going forward. You are still young and, as I mentioned before, having hobbies helps too – you have your indoor hobbies like blogging and genealogy and outdoor hobbies like walking and photography to occupy your mind and your time, so that is good.
That sounds like a terrible Christmas and I remember going to the local health department with my parents to get that flu shot. It was an old building, waiting in a long line that snaked down a hall to get that shot. No masks to keep the germs at bay then and in close quarters – your poor family.
Yes, there are always going to be a few lousy Christmases in the bunch. I got my tonsils out for the second time in 1987. One tonsil grew back from the original procedure in June 1972. But there were complications from this outpatient surgery, so I couldn’t eat anything for many days. Mom made green and red Jell-o for us for Christmas dinner but she had a bowl of Chunky Soup. That wasn’t very memorable, but not as bad as your ordeal!
That’s how life is, isn’t it? A lot of unpleasantness mixed in with the good times. The more we learn to roll with the punches the less time we will spend despairing of it, I suppose. We never know what will be around the next corner. It is what it is and fighting against it is as useless as arguing with the weather and mother nature herself!
Very well said Barbara. Resigning ourselves to a “that’s life” credo helps us to roll with the punches. We start out each day with a blank canvas and hope for the best … that is all we can do. Soon it will be a new year hopefully devoid of challenges, from mother nature or otherwise!
I don’t know what to say but {{hugs}}. I’m glad you have to support of close friends.
Hugs are wonderful and much appreciated, Karma! Support from blogging friends means so much to me. ♡
Last night, I was standing to watch the sunset out my back glass door and it reminded me of your photograph here because it was similar peeking colors through the bare trees. I paused to think of you, Barbara. I read your post earlier in the week.
Hmmm, was it last night or the night before? I cannot truly remember. This week I have been in a blur of depression along side a batch of anxiety disorder. I feel better today.
I relate to this part of the quote. “You will not “get over” the loss of a loved one; you will learn to live with it.” It takes time and a lot is self compassion.
I love your photograph of the pine cones. I used to have a few that I would place underneath my Christmas tree or along my mantle above the fireplace. Your pine cones give me a smile.
You are fortunate to have found friends to take walks. Yorkie just woke up from her afternoon nap and is reminding me that it is time for our neighborhood walk down our street before the sun sets! 😊💙
It’s nice to know pretty sunsets can be experienced everywhere on this planet and help us all feel connected. I’m glad you’re feeling better from your depression and anxiety, it seems like the weather to me, it comes and goes, and we can’t do much about it except accept it as part of the ebb and flo of life, especially for us older folks.
Interesting you mentioned self-compassion – my therapist reminds me frequently to practice it as I navigate this new chapter in my life. And yesterday when I told my daughter that it was so exhausting trying to act like a normal person, she reminded me that I was grieving and not supposed to be ‘acting normal.’
I have a roughly carved rustic wooden bowl that I keep pine cones in. It’s interesting the different sizes and shapes of pine cones, from the different kinds of pines. Some of them came from Connecticut, but I’ve also collected quite a few down here. I love that you decorate with them ,too.
You and Yorkie are lucky to have each other for walks, too!
Yorkie, at 96 years old, wishes I could keep up with her on our walks. She always wants to go longer than I can do. She is a three year old in a candy store!