The Widowed Room

The words "I DO"... the smallest sentence. The most powerful vow. The direction for the rest of your life. You are now two individual people that have become one. You have plans, dreams, and expectations for what you will share together. Then comes in "sickness and in health til death do us part." How devastating! You may have struggled with a long illness and watched as your love one slowly slipped away day by day and you are helpless to do anything. You may have received those awful words telling you that your spouse has suddenly been taken from you with no warning in an accident, suicide, murder, or unknown medical condition. Shock and numbness set in and are the bodies protectors.

We function day by day with the help of family to get thru the funeral. We have so many people trying to help, but we are in such a fog that we do not even remember those days. Then they all go home and back to their lives. What are we going to do now? Soon the phone calls stop and the people that we thought were friends are now very busy with their lives. We are lonely, overwhelmed, and angry. This is NORMAL. You have a very difficult time just getting up and out of bed in the morning and you say there is no reason now. There are so many things to take care of and you have no motivation. You are not crazy, lazy or stupid... you are grieving.

Then there are all the forms and paperwork you have to complete. The hardest for me was filling out applications for jobs. The designations were single, married, divorced.... after 35 yrs..... I was not married, not divorced, SINGLE..... I cried. The next application had widow on it..... WOW widow.... so all alone in the world. One half of you is gone. You feel the gut wrenching pain of loss. These things can be so overwhelming.

Grieving is the hardest work you will ever do, but you must in order to heal. HealingAfterLoss is here to help support you on your journey through grief. There are many kind, caring, compassionate people that will walk with you. They have all experienced a loss and understand. There is no time table for grieving. It is different for everyone and there is no right or wrong way to grieve. It is whatever works for you. Little by little, day by day, one small step at a time, we begin to rebuild our lives. Our lives will never be the same again. Our priorities are different, our needs are different, our plans are different. We will forever miss them.... and missing is the hardest part. We don't get over them ever, we learn to cope with our loss. We learn to smile again and even laugh again. Eventually, we learn that it is o.k. to be o.k. and not feel guilty. We will miss those years they would have had with their children and grandchildren and the retirement that you planned. We are grieving for the loss of our loved one and also for the loss of our life too.

There are many here who are on that journey, just at different places on the road. You can see by their experience, strength and hope that it is possible to heal. It does not happen quickly. You must be patient and gentle with yourself. You are grieving and we are here for you always.