Some moments are really horrible. They feel like a huge animal is chewing on me. Today the animal is especially active.
Some Moments
Opinions, art, debate
Opinions, art, debate
Some moments are really horrible. They feel like a huge animal is chewing on me. Today the animal is especially active.
Clarissa's Blog 
I am so sorry. You have experienced such loss and it’s inevitable that you are going to feel pain. But the animal will retreat eventually…… Do you think it would help you to join a support group so that you can speak to people who have experienced a similar loss?
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Yes, there is a support group that meets at the hospital, and I definitely want to join them. I met the woman who created the group and she was very helpful. I now feel very drawn to that hospital.
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Does it help if people emote around you, in sympathy, or would you rather they be self-contained? I think I spent a whole day intermittently crying for you and feeling melancholy — which is very unlike me.
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Yes, it helps, but only if they feel like doing it. I don’t want anybody to put themselves through what feels unnatural on my behalf.
I really appreciate your compassion. I have spent all day weeping intermittently, too. Today was not a very good day.
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I’m am very sorry to hear of your loss. I know every person is different and every grief is different, but maybe you will find these thoughts useful.
I thought, when my husband died, that “recovery” would be a straight line, every day I would feel a little better. What I found instead is that it came in waves. For a couple of years I would do well for a few days, and then feel terrible for a few days. Over time, the feeling good days would last longer.
You never really stop grieving, but the rawness goes away. Now, I am sad once in a while, and I miss him, but life is good, I’m happy, I laugh. You never go back to the way you were before, and you probably don’t want to.
I have little rituals. I bake a cake on his birthday. I donate to a charity on the date of his death. Just something low key, but an acknowledgement that he was loved, he mattered.
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Yes, exactly, it comes and goes in waves. The key is to wait each bad wave out, remembering that it will subside eventually.
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I am so so sorry to hear of your loss. Grief is both painful and exhausting. Another commenter mentioned possibly looking for support from someone who has been through the same experience. It may be too soon now, but if at any point you feel it would help to read something by someone who has been through a similar experience, I want to recommend Elizabeth McCracken’s “An Exact Replica of a Figment of My Imagination.”
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Thank you, I will definitely check it out. It does help to hear and read these stories.
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Clarissa, my 27-year-old son was conceived shortly after my then-wife had a miscarriage on Christmas Eve. It was an awful experience followed by a wonderful one. I am sending you my best happy vibes. – Bob
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Thank you so much, Bob.
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Warmest thoughts of you. Honor the darkness. Take what people can give you.
My daughter got breast cancer at age 25 and I thought we would never make it through. She survived. But I shudder in fear whenever I think of that time. And when I heard about your sorrow I shuddered again.
My mother lost a full term baby boy when I was about 3, and she was very sick and almost died. That was so sad.
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