6 Months of Grief Project: Day 177

Empty Heart, Empty Soul

This is Day 177 of my #6MonthsOfGrief Project. To learn more about this practice, feel free to visit Day One, where I explain this project in more detail.

In one week, this project will be over. When I started this project, a big part of me thought I would not finish it. "There's no way I can do this for 184 days." But, barring something really major, I'm going to finish this project. Then what?

The grief from the one-year anniversary of his death is already hitting me like a freight train. I can't sleep. I can't eat. I am so exhausted. I cry all the time. Knowing that he has been gone for an entire year feels unfathomable, and yet the proof is right here in this project. This project began as a way to process my grief and bring what felt dark and untouchable, into the light. It has definitely done that, and it is also a marker of time. Every time I add one more day and watch that number increase, I can't help but think about how he is one more day further away from me.

I cradle his image in my heart. I imagine his kisses on my eyelids. I hug the pillow and pretend it is him. The ache of my loneliness feels like a hollowing out of my body. My heart is empty. My soul is empty. I watch other people living their lives and I wonder how they do it. How am I doing it? I feel like a little marionette, awkwardly walking around, going through the motions, pretending to be a real, human woman. But I'm just an empty shell.

_________________________

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:

• Filmmaker Gemma Green Hope made a short animation in memory of her grandmother 
• Photographer Sarah Treanor Takes Moving Self-Portraits to Cope with Her Fiance's Death
• 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:

• Open to Hope: Finding Hope After Loss
• Widowed Village
• Camp Widow

• Soaring Spirits International

Living with Grief Resources:

• Death and Broken Cups by Ivan Cenzi
• What Joe Biden Has Said About Dealing With Personal Tragedy And Grief
• Death, Grief & Shattered Assumptions
• Stifled Grief: How the West Has It Wrong
• How Grief Can Make You Sick
• What's Your Grief?
• The Grief Geek
• Modern Loss's excellent resource list
• The writings of Tim Lawrence
• 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 Losses, 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.