I have lost the one I love, the one I cherish: my lover, my best friend, my whole life. All day, people ask “How are you?” and for weeks I have said “Fine.” Well, maybe- if fine means that I get up and brush my teeth and don’t become hysterical while talking to co-workers, but life is not that simple. How I am Feeling • I am numb. I am in shock. I am emotionally exhausted. • I am in pain. A horrible, gut-wrenching, intense, unimaginable, and indescribable pain. • My mind is totally occupied with processing my loss. I am trying to understand what has happened. I am attempting to make sense of it all. I am trying to comprehend the incomprehensible. • I want to sleep all day. I am physically exhausted. • I cannot stop eating. • Everything is overwhelming. Small tasks are overwhelming. Small details are overwhelming. I just don't want to know about it right now. • I am going through tidal waves of emotion. One minute I might be laughing, the next I may be in tears. • Sometimes I want to talk. Sometimes I need to be alone. Sometimes I need silent company. Sometimes I need all of these things in the space of 5 minutes. • Some days I just want to curl up in bed and do nothing. Some days I will keep myself totally occupied in an attempt to escape. • Sometimes I will be intense. Sometimes I will be irrational. Sometimes I will be snappy, and often I will be totally lost in myself. • Often I may not have a clue as to what I want, but it only takes a moment for me to realize what I don't want. • I am hypersensitive and will often be offended by things you say to try and make me feel better. • I want to wail. I want to scream. I want to cry. I want to just sit. • Sometimes it is to hard for me to respond to phone calls or letters or emails, but I truly appreciate that you are doing it, so please don't stop just because I don't respond. • I will not be fully-functional at work for a long time. In fact, I may never work with the same intensity again as my perspectives of what is important and what isn't has been changed permanently. • I still want to laugh. I need to laugh. I may suddenly go quiet mid-laugh, when hit by a sudden reminder, but I desperately need to continue to laugh. Emotional Things You Can Do • Let me talk about Kate. I want to talk about our love. I want to tell you how we met, our last days, and everything in between. I want to show you her picture and tell you how wonderful she was. • Let me cry. Your acceptance that I need to cry and your permission to allow me to is one of the best gifts you can give me. Hand me a tissue, and do your best to sit quietly and let me cry. • Once you have allowed me to open up or cry, please don't change the subject or try to stop me. I know you feel uncomfortable that I am in pain. Changing the subject, trying to stop me from crying just makes me hold everything inside, and eats away at me. • Tell me all your stories of when Kate was sweet, courageous, rotten or funny. I need to hear everything about her. • Let me try to tell you what is going on inside me. I won't succeed, but I just might try. You don't have to do anything. Just allowing me to do it, and allowing me to feel what I need to feel means so much. What Not To Do • Don't tell me you understand how I feel, or that you can imagine the pain I am going through, unless you have lost the love of your life. Trust me, you can't. If I can't, and I am going through it, you can't – your mind will just not let you voluntarily imagine this much pain. • Don't try to compare my loss to the loss of a a friend, or an acquaintance or pet, it's not the same. I understand that all of these things are painful, but it is not the same. • Don't ask how I'm doing unless you really want to know, and don’t be surprised if I don’t tell you. Talking takes great strength and I don’t have a lot of that right now. • Don't try to save me from my feelings or make me feel better. I know you can't bear to see me in so much pain, but I need to go through all of these feelings whether I want to or not. • Don't tell me everything will be okay. • Don't tell me "she's always with you". • Don't tell me "she's looking down on you from heaven". • Don't tell me "you're lucky that you had such love, some people don't". • Don't tell me "she's in a better place". • Don't be surprised however if I say these things… • Don't ever tell me "you must be strong". If ever there's a time I should be permitted to be weak, this is it. What's more, if I only "need to talk" to you once every few weeks, chances are I have been strong and right now I really need you to understand that I am exhausted and need help. • Whatever you do don't tell me "If I were you I'd…." I’m not going to listen because I don’t believe you understand what my life is really like. • Never try telling me "life goes on", or "she wouldn't want you to cry", or any other meaningless platitudes. •Don’t tell me "God will never give you more than you can handle" – what kind of sick God would push me to the brink just to see how much I can take? • Don't try to solve my "problem". Unless you can bring her back, it can't be "solved". • Don't feel the need to fill in silences. I know the silences are hard for you, but if you can accept them, you are helping me immensely. • Please don't try and help me find "closure", or tell me I need to find "closure". Closure is an obscene word for me right now, as is "moving on"/"move on". Practical Things I Need to Do • I need to be with my kids. • I need to surround myself with beauty. • Sit in the sun and just soak it up. • Enjoy nature. Look at the majesty of mountains, and enjoy the miracle of a blade of grass. • Have a massage. • Write in a journal. • Cry. Tears are a release. • Not make any big decisions for a while. I will not recover. This is not a cold or the flu. I'm not sick. I'm grieving and that's different. I’m only beginning to think about grieving. Don't think that I will be over it in a year. I am not only grieving Kate’s death, but also the person I was when I was with her, the life that we shared, the plans we had for watching our children and grandchildren grow, the places we will never get to go together, and the hopes and dreams that will never come true. My whole world has crumbled and I will never be the same. I grieve as well for my beautiful children who will graduate, get married, start families and accomplish great things- all without ever knowing how proud their mother is over every aspect of their lives from this day forward. I cry because they are too good to have to feel this pain. And I cry because I can't help them. *I don’t know where this came from, but with some insertions and deletions, it speaks to my world now. Thanks to the original author.