After my wife died, I threw myself into a frenzy of activity.
Whenever I stopped, I’d be wracked with grief so bad I double over and hit the ground. So I did my best to stay busy from the moment I woke until I collapsed in bed from exhaustion at the end if the night.
It worked except for the times throughout the day when I paused for a moment and was hit by a wave of bad memories, sadness and pain. Those moments were killing me.
My friend Bruce, who’d lost his father a few months earlier said,
“Your job now is to sit in the silence and feel the sadness. You have to do it and you will have to do it alone.”
He was right.
I couldn’t work the sadness away. I couldn’t exercise it away. I couldn’t run away. I tried all of these and failed.
The sadness never left.
It’s been seven months since Ellen died. Most days, I still can’t believe she’s gone and that I am here without her.
But the grief doesn’t make me double over in pain anymore (much). There are even times when I don’t think of Ellen.
But most of the time, I do. I miss her more than anyone knows.
Even my closest loved ones don’t want to hear me talk about this anymore. I understand – she was the center of my life, not theirs.
It is my job sit in the silence.