What no one, and nothing could prepare me for in experiencing death at a young age is varied. It’s not something that is really able to be worked out beforehand because our lives are all so unique. Although we all may complete the same tasks, or work together in the same spaces to complete tasks as a community, we are all processing our experiences according to who we are becoming.
One aspect of the trauma of death is that the deceased no longer has any opportunities to become anything more than what they were at the time of departure. For me, it has been my life’s joy to watch the people around me become more than they were last week.
The transition to an experience of life without my now-deceased bride has been emotionally numbing, which is another part of the trauma that for which no one can be prepared. The feelings of love, anger, joy, sadness are all emotions I felt at their strongest with her. There is a large portion of me that wants nothing more to do with experiencing those emotions to that degree ever again, because of the pain of life without her.
Yet, we have children that deserve all of those emotions, and more. They deserve access to opportunities that will encourage their open exploration of life as full as they can make it. In my grieving, I often feel as though I am hindering that development.
The pain of remembering that I will never see her again is enough to halt me every time I think about it. What once held sway upon my daily to-do lists came from a life that is distancing in the rearview mirror, getting further and further away.
Even the tomorrow I would like to have feels like a life dreamt up for someone a million miles from who I am at present. I feel like I am becoming the ghost of what will never come to be.
It’s a challenge to set goals and follow through until completion because of this ghostly feeling inside. The battle between hope and hopelessness is unbelievably overbearing in weight. Battling my fear of acknowledging my emotions as they are in the moments ahead has been a target I purposefully distract myself from.
And yet, I am not the only one to have experienced a death unprepared. Healing is available if I can trust the process being revealed before me. If I can patiently await the processing of her last wishes, there is hope for a healing tomorrow. Allowing the grief to move on and move out like the waves of the ocean. The place we had our deepest connections.
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