I refuse to let go of my grief

[Rigel4]

This subject has entered my conversations before.

After 43 years of marriage, my wife died.  It happened last November.  And it has never once, left my mind.

The memory has been as intrusive as a sudden sneeze, as stifling as a tangled blanket, as oppressive as summer heat, as penetrating as winter cold.  It is entirely at once both defining my every moment, and yet as comforting as one of her warm embraces.  Grief has become my new companion...

She is silent, but insistent...
"Never forget," she somehow wordlessly demands,
"But always remember the love first."

Yeah, recently I've been torturing myself with blessed memories.

While carousing among the offerings of what the algorithms 'decide' to show me on popular "short attention-span theater" I became frustrated about messages about grief and loss.  

I however, have come to appreciate its presence now... and no longer seek to 'snuff it out.' 
Or to 'move on' past this new thing that seems as much a part of me, as the very memory of her.

Yes, it hurts me... suddenly starved of her, and the light her very presence brought me.
It's a horrible thing... I find myself fantasizing about a different world where she is not gone.
It's getting tiresome to explain that I lost half of myself, I start to imagine that no one could ever truly care to empathize with such a thing.  And why should they? I'm not offended.

But I think with the first anniversary coming up... will I find a new depth of loss?  Will the time between the day before and the day after the anniversary bring any true change?  Still, it means something to some part of me... and I don't want to slip back into my memories.  Her absence is like a blinding light still... despite the time that has passed.  It hurts me that I appreciate her more, it seems, than when she was my one daily constant... that seems shameful to me; although I know when we look at the past we are often only speaking to ourselves; in our voice, with our own script.

I visited her every single day in the hospital for almost 6 months (she died there)... never missed one (wait - maybe one) ... It was weird to me that rather than feel any sense of relief ... I felt frustrated to not have that continue...

...


Forgive my rambling.  And forgive my self-indulgence please... when there are no real places to express myself, I come here... I seek neither pity nor condolences, I only intended to 'vent.'  I know that to some, actually discussing this is deplorable... I feel sorry for them.

I don't think I can talk about grief and also dispassionately exclude my own experience...  My grief is pervasive that way. 

And I don't feel like I actually want it to go away.

Shouldn't I want this to go away?

I am sorry for your loss sir. My wife died 7 years ago and it was a long a road to the end.

For me at least time has started to heal in a way , however every day i still think of her.

I expect everyone's path to be different, but at least, all we have in common in these circumstances is that things will never be the same again .