An interesting story on MSN over the holiday. It mentions how some fans think that Johnny Cash died of a broken heart after losing his wife. One quote really caught me:
“When your spouse dies, you lose your present tense,” says Tom Golden
I can certainly attest to that, but the part that makes it even worse is that you also seem to lose the future as well. That only leaves you with the past. You can’t live in the past, it’s not here any more, and as hard as you try it’s not coming back. Plus when you are living in the past you don’t remember that tonight is your daughter’s Christmas Band performance at school and she needs black pants and shoes, and you now need to leave work early so you can run to the store on the way to the school for the concert.
“The best way for concerned people to comfort and care for a grieving spouse is to just be there for them, says Johnson. ‘You don’t have to say anything,’ she says, noting that asking things like ‘What can I do?’ only puts the burden on the griever to try and figure out something.”
I’ve run into this quite a bit. People so want to help us but I’m incapable of figuring out what it would be that they could do for us. How about running to the sstore with my daughter after school to pick up some black pants and shoes.