6 Months of Grief Project: Day 78

Antlered through Grief

This is Day 78 of my #6MonthsOfGrief Project. To learn more about this practice, feel free to visit Day One, where I explain this project in more detail.

Today's photo is an old picture of my husband, playing around with the antlers he loved to collect, and a recent photo of me after his death, playing around with an antler that has lost its mate. I had the startling realization today that my husband does not know what I am like in deep grief. He has witnessed me lose people, but no one as close and important as him. He is not here to see me, and he was one of a handful of people in my life who could truly see me and witness me, without wanting to change me, or "make things better." He was so good at letting me feel my feelings and loving me no matter what and I miss him so much.

I'm so tired. I'm so sad. I just want my husband back. I don't want to keep living my strange, new life without him. I don't want to feel sorrow anymore. I don't want to lose anyone else. I'm so scared of the next time my heart breaks, because it feels as fragile as glass. Many say that the grief process makes you stronger. I do not feel strong. I feel the weakest I have ever felt. I feel frozen in an ice chamber of grief, with sharp needles stabbing the muscles of my heart. Every single day is a struggle to get up, to shower, to get dressed, to feed myself, to lift weights, to work, to clean the house. I don't know how I am doing it.

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I am very aware that this project can bring up a lot around yours or other's grief and loss, I will always follow every post with some online grief support resources that have helped me. Please feel free to let me know of online support that you have found healing in your grief, as well:

Art with Grief:

• Photographer [Sarah Treanor] Takes Moving Self-Portraits to Cope with Her Fiance's Death by Jillian Wong
• When the Fall Comes, a film about Grief by Adriana Marchione
• Self-Portraits: Expressing Emotion Through Art on What's Your Grief?
• The Hard Romance of Grief by Mark Liebenow
• The poetry of John O’Donohue

Resources for Widows:

• Widowed Village
• Camp Widow

• Soaring Spirits International

Living with Grief Resources:

• Modern Loss's excellent resource list
  
• The Rules of Grief are for Other People by Shawn Doyle on The Good Men Project
  
• Grief Bibliography on Grief Healing
  
• Teresa “TL” Bruce's What to Say When Someone Dies
  
• They Brought Cookies: For A New Widow, Empathy Eases Death's Pain by Ann Finkbeiner on NPR
  
• A Field Guide to Getting Lost by Rebecca Solnit
  
• Megan Devine’s Refuge in Grief
  
• The Geography of Sorrow: Francis Weller on Navigating Our Loses, interviewed by Tim McKee in Sun Magazine
  
• How to Be a Friend in Deed by Bruce Feiler in the New York Times
  
• 12 Things to Know About the First Year of Grieving Someone You Can’t Live Without by Laurie Costanza in Elephant Magazine

And remember, I am sharing this project on a variety of platforms, including my Instagram, Twitter, & Facebook feeds, as well as my Pinterest page on Grief. I use the hashtag #6MonthsOfGrief, so it can easily be found on any platform. Please share this project with anyone you think might need it.

Thank you, and see you tomorrow.