Boots on the beach
Grief

Grief Journal Entry: The End

I would like to start at the beginning of my journey of grief, but I am struggling to decide where is the beginning is?

Is the day he died the beginning or the end? Or is there a prelude that led up to everything that happened. You see in a way that is the pivot point, I was a married woman and then in 15 minutes I became a widow.

The change

An ordinary morning, a kiss and I love you. Then a few minutes later a strange noise and then my husband dead. 15 minutes from goodbye to chaos. It literally took 15 minutes for my whole life to change Four months later and I am still staring in a ghastly wonder at the debris of my whole life.

You see it was not only one loss. It was a snowball of losses. My husbands death was a traumatic experience, but that lead to the loss of my home, then the loss of my dogs and then the loss of most of my furniture.

The present

Today I am living in a flat on a relatives property. I am very grateful for all the support I have received, for having a safe place I can come to. Without sounding ungrateful I miss my house, my stuff and my dogs.

I used to hate a TV in the bedroom. Now I can’t fall asleep without some show or movie playing in the background. I was used to hearing another person breathing next to me, feeling the heat of another body. If I awoke in the middle of the night and stood up there was at least one dog that walked around with me. Now the quiet is deafening and unsettling and the nights are lonely,

My trauma

Nietzsche said, “… And if you gaze long into an abyss, the abyss also gazes into you.” Is it true for grief as well? If I stare too long at my grief and the destruction it is causing, will it stare back and devour me? And if grief stares back what will it see? I am not the person I once was, there is a clear break of the before and after me. It is two different people.

I found my husband dead on the garage floor with a gunshot wound in his lower left ribs on a lovely sunny Tuesday morning. This is one of my traumas, this is the beast I have been fighting.

Everything of that time is a blur, hind sight is definitely not 20/20 when experiencing a trauma. Looking back the 2 months after his death is fuzzy. Not a blur or random memories, there is nothing. There are large parts that I just don’t remember.

Surviving

My survival instinct is so strong that I keep on fighting even though there is very little left. Lying down and giving up is just not in my make-up, its not who I am. So all the judges out there. Yes I might not show the depth of my despair, but that doesn’t mean it’s not there. Yes I am smiling and not in constant tears, but that should give you an indication of my total destruction. Until you have experienced what I have don’t you dare judge me.

There was no peaceful expression on his face, but a kind of shocked wonderment. My love believed till the end that he is bullet proof in the metaphorical sense, how ironic that a bullet killed him.

Who’s gonna walk you
Through the dark side of the morning?
Who’s gonna rock you
When the sun won’t let you sleep?
” Lyrics fron Kygo & Selena’s song It ain’t me

There is now way to explain the isolation and desolation one feels when you lie awake for hours on end, while the rest of the world sleeps. In the earlier hours of the morning it’s just me, my grief and my nightmares. My person who held me and rocked me when the world got ugly is gone…..

My life is gone…..

To read about the circumstances of my husbands death read my previous post.

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