From
an article yesterday’s NY Times by Joan Didion.
“Grief turns out to be a place none of us know until we reach it. We
anticipate (we know) that someone close to us could die, but we do not
look beyond the few days or weeks that immediately follow such an
imagined death. We misconstrue the nature of even those few days or
weeks. We might expect if the death is sudden to feel shock. We do not
expect this shock to be obliterative, dislocating to both body and mind.
We might expect that we will be prostrate, inconsolable, crazy with
loss. We do not expect to be literally crazy, cool customers who believe
that their husband is about to return. In the version of grief we
imagine, the model will be “healing.” A certain forward movement will
prevail. The worst days will be the earliest days. We imagine that the
moment to most severely test us will be the funeral, after which this
hypothetical healing will take place.”
There are many images and experiences in her article that perfectly
describe the experience and feelings that one goes through after the
loss of a spouse. I wish I could write so I could describe these feelings.
I have linked to the article but I’m sure that it will go behind the
PayWall soon and become inaccessible and lost to those who might gain
some comfort and insight from reading it. I will never understand the
desire by those who publish to prevent people from
reading/listening/seeing those things.