I think my goal for my blog this year is to make a minimum of 12 posts. I'm already late to the game since it's now February. So Wally has been gone now for 5 months and one week.
In that time I have experienced basically every holiday, birthday and special occasion without him. I have spent those days with friends and family. September-my birthday, October-Wally's birthday, Thanksgiving, Christmas, New Year's, what would have been our 35th wedding anniversay in January and in a couple of weeks Valentine's Day. Phew!
How am I doing you ask? I am in a Facebook group for widow's and widowers, have attended a Zoom meeting to hear poetry that people have written about their grief, I'm loving Anderson Cooper's podcast as he prepares his Mother's apartments to be sold and he interviews other people who have had great loss in their lives.
I am currently reading the book, "It's Okay that You're Not Okay, Meeting Grief and Loss in a Culture That Doesn't Understand" by Megan Divine and have started counseling. I highly recommend this book even to those that have not suffered the death of a spouse. We don't talk about death and loss enough and we should.
Here are some things I have been learning about grief.
The stages of grief, the Kubler-Ross model, were actually based on people who were dying, not people who were grieving.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Five_stages_of_grief
Grief looks different for each individual. Do not compare one grief to another. Do not judge someone for how they grieve and how they do or do not move forward. You do not "get over" grief, you do not move on, you learn to move forward.
There is always the discussion of whether or not a quick sudden death is better or worse, than knowing someone is dying and watching them for maybe months or years. There is no answer to that question. I've had that conversation with people. Either way the words left unspoken are left hanging.
I have learned that life goes on with or without my participation. I have more good days now than bad. I will continue to talk out loud to Wally, and cry when I need to cry. Grief and death changes your relationships with other people in unexpected ways, some good, some not. After living with someone for nearly 35 years it takes time to navigate this new life without him.
I've been blessed with some rock solid people in my life for support. We do not know all the struggles people around us might be going through.
Remember "Be Kind; Everyone You Meet is Fighting a Hard Battle". Tell your people you love them, mend your broken relationships, live life.
