Posted by rybon on May 30, 2001 at 01:37:51:
In Reply to: Loss of wife and child is tearing me apart posted by Bryan Cady on May 27, 2001 at 20:31:44:
Bryan
Like anyone else who has read your note, I can empathise, sympathise and
know the total devastation, confusion and despair that you must feel right now.
I lost my husband 6 years ago - and it took me 4 years before I felt as though I
could turn to life again. My family are in a different country and we had been trying
for a baby for only a couple of months before he died. I was totally alone. I had a relationship with someone who was totally wrong for
me, I overindulged in alcohol, I lost hours and days lying face down on the carpet crying,and
well, the list goes on. It turned me into a completely different person for a while there. Everyone's grief is different, yet it is the same. Our world as we knew it
has gone and the world that has replaced it is a lonely, frightening, overwhelming one to face.
You won't die of a broken heart even though I know (oh boy, do I know) it feels like it all the time. Severe grief affects your mental and physical well-being (mine brought on high blood-pressure and
and auto-immune thyroid problem)and you have to attend to these things. Grief is stress in its most chronic form. Talk to a doctor, a grief counsellor - or best of all
someone else who has actually been through a similar situation. Even the most well meaning and trusted friends don't understand
unless they have been through it. It sounds like a very small thing, but doing one nice thing for yourself each day does give you a lift, even if its
just going out for a nice meal, buying a book, even just going for a walk in pleasant surroundings. If you can afford it, go for a weekend away to a new
place. Time is the only thing that really helps and you find that you are so much stronger than you would have believed possible - and ultimately only you can work out a way to get through it all. I did
it simply by surviving until one day I realised that I still had a life to live. A couple of my favourite sayings that helped me are "You can't prevent the birds of sorrow from flying overhead, but you can
prevent them from making a nest in your hair" and also "Its not what life does to you that matters, its what you do with what life does to you that matters". They probably don't mean much
to you at the minute, but they will. Right now, just keep on keeping on and the day will come when you will find you HAVE coped and you CAN have happiness again. My love and best wishes to you. If I can do
it - anyone can.