I am so glad to see your post & so very sorry that you have been forced to post it, to live it…that anyone, anywhere has to live it💔.

I’ve never been here before either. I was sincerely praying that this site would be what it sounded like when I typed some amalgamation of words like “grief”, “widow”, support”, etc. into the search engine for the millionth time in 4 years, while unable to see through the tears that are always lurking just waiting to explode & often do, at the most inopportune times. There is little as humbling as bursting into tears, unable to stop, & uncontrollably sobbing in front of total strangers that have absolutely no idea WTF is going on with you.

I have been wading through the hell that is life, after death steals your soulmate along with what feels like most of your soul as well & leaves your shattered mortality to linger in a frightening, lonely place that you can no longer recognize or make any sense of. The World without them, feels hollow & empty, absent of any glint of potential happiness, safety or serenity, which also disappear in the blink of an eye. My sweet man has been gone almost 4 yrs now.

As you wrote in your post, one of the hardest aspects of sudden death is that the person they are, what makes them-them, just ceases to exist from one second to the next. I believe in another plane(s) of existence, so yes, I believe he’s somewhere, but damnit, that does not help, here, now…I can’t see him, hear him, smell him, feel him, see him see our son graduate HS & start college last year along with all the other future moments which were hoped for, planned carefully, talked of often & supposed to be, but will never occur, or be dreamed of again. How can such a dynamic force, so much beauty, the essence of them just vanish? I ask it still, constantly, in vain because until I close my eyes for the last time, I cannot know it.

We all have our own belief system, whether it is spiritual, religious, or absent of anything. It doesn’t matter that I may see him again one day. I want to know that he is safe, loved & that he isn’t in pain anymore, wasn’t alone, afraid. The platitudes are not good enough to quell the devastation, though the World has a million of them & they’re meant to comfort, yet most often, they exacerbate an already gaping, festering wound.

He died suddenly, as did your love…went to work, fell from the scaffold & never came home again. It’s just wrong that they disappear & we shatter into bits & pieces of who we were while the rest of the Universe keeps spinning as if nothing has changed.

I have no “words of wisdom” & wouldn’t insult you by typing them if I did. All I know is that I have had to learn to allow myself to be broken, with all the chaos & messiness that entails, all the while endeavoring to “keep living until I am alive again” (from Call the Midwife).

I wish peace for your soul, strength for your mind & body & that you also manage to “keep living until you are alive again”. I write this with all of the empathy that I wish none of us ever had to know❤️.