Oh so relatable and oh so beautifully written 💔 😭 thank you for giving this experience a voice… grief can feel so isolating until somebody speaks these things out loud and we realise there are so many universal moments within it
Both so many universal moments, and so many unique, isolating factors at the same time.
Grief can be so sneaky.
I remember one of the first grief groups I attended. The facilitator asked an innocuous ice-breaking question of the participants: “What colour is your toothbrush?”
Innocuous, yes. Except it wasn’t. I had recently started using the electric toothbrush I had “inherited” from him. (It was one of those ones where you swap out the brush end). I mean. . . he didn’t need it anymore (And my stomach knots at that very thought right now, nearly two years later).
Thank you, beautiful Wild and Sacred, for stopping by to reflect with me on how grief can be both so isolating and uniting at once.
Your essay is remarkable in its direct honesty and its poignancy. You now know those who are your friends, those who stay around, and those who actually step in and help. You also know how to survive those first terrible days, weeks, and months. Your husband left you love, the children he fathered with you, and the legacy of his love of them and you. You already have done much; your daughters will rise up and bless you
for what you are doing, have done, and will do for them. God has a special place in His great Love-Heart for you. The book of James states that true godliness is to care for widows and orphans in their distress.
Your prose is clear and direct, yet it conveys the
subtle social nuances that make life more unpleasant than it already is for those newly widowed. Thanks for your good writing and your clarity in handling this subject. “And underneath are the everlasting arms.”
How wonderful an essay, I'm in that club that understands every word, my wishes are so similar to your wishes. My heart goes out to you. Thank you. Below is a poem I've not generally posted. I suspect you understand it. What made me laugh is that Ive progressed from just calling the samaritans I'm now to call the international samaritans!!! I think I can count this as progress. I use ai to check my punctuation and grammar! Normally it tells me to phone the samaritans
This will be the day I died
Earlier today I cried
My heart breaking - I cried
This will be the day I died
How I wish it was more than a lyric
I reached out - I could hear her sigh
I can't bear it
‘Bob I'm busy what do you want, - I'm so busy’
Is there no one else you can try? ..
Bye bye Mr American pie
This will be the day I die
A human life passing whilst tea going cold
‘I'm sorry, try me tomorrow, or try the Samaritans
I'm sorry this will be the day I die
I just wanted to say thank you and goodbye
I can't go on, my mental health is well and truly broken
Bye bye Mr American pie…. This will be the day I die.
Actually for all the faults I died at 6.38am a year ago
I've been on life support since
But now it's time to turn off the power.
Thank you everyone, I hope someone is there for you, and that you don't bore them
Bob no longer a druid - I'm no one
Please know I am supported by several therapists - one can't cope but what I want isn't a therapist I want a friend.
I’m saddened that it’s taken me so many days to get back to you. I have to “do my work” and lean into connections like this slowly because of how emotionally (and otherwise) taxing it can be.
We—in suffering—relate to each other very slowly, as though we were swimming through molasses to reach one another. Like a sloth crossing a highway (but much less cute). The whole world slows down and becomes a video shot in both slo-mo + time lapse somehow simultaneously.
————-
Thank you for your words. For taking the time to post your heart-wrenching poem. I’m so sorry for all you’ve gone through and all you continue to go through (if only all the suffering ended on “that day”). But it doesn’t. And I’m so glad ai cares enough to tell you to call the Samaritans.
I’m not as accessible as ai or the Samaritans, but I also care deeply.
It’s funny, when you’re swimming in molasses, what begins to count as progress.
My goal used to be “perfect parenting” (whatever that is, lol). Now I have to be satisfied with “good enough parenting”.
There’s a reverence I feel reading this…like I’m stepping into something that has been lived, not constructed. The way you name these “states of being” carries a kind of authority that only comes through loss. It’s honest in a way that doesn’t try to soften the edges, and that’s what makes it land so deeply.
“I would rather take up residence with my husband at the graveyard…”
That line stayed with me. Not as something to analyze, but something to sit with. Along with “my soul slowly leaking from my body”… and “a set of newly defined meanings to everything.” It feels like you’ve named what happens when the world doesn’t just change—but becomes something entirely different.
And “Sitting Together”…
the way you bring that into focus—something so ordinary, now carrying the full weight of what’s been lost—that shifted how I felt reading the piece.
I hesitate even writing this, because nothing about what you’ve shared invites easy movement forward…
but I’ve known something like this kind of loss in my own life. Not the same, but close enough to recognize the terrain. And what I’ve found—over time, not quickly, not cleanly—is that another kind of state did emerge.
Not one that replaced what was lost.
Not one that made it make sense.
Just…something different that somehow grew alongside it.
So as I read your piece, I found myself holding both what you’ve named so clearly…
and a quiet sense that even this—these states you’re in—may one day be held alongside something not yet visible.
Oh so relatable and oh so beautifully written 💔 😭 thank you for giving this experience a voice… grief can feel so isolating until somebody speaks these things out loud and we realise there are so many universal moments within it
Both so many universal moments, and so many unique, isolating factors at the same time.
Grief can be so sneaky.
I remember one of the first grief groups I attended. The facilitator asked an innocuous ice-breaking question of the participants: “What colour is your toothbrush?”
Innocuous, yes. Except it wasn’t. I had recently started using the electric toothbrush I had “inherited” from him. (It was one of those ones where you swap out the brush end). I mean. . . he didn’t need it anymore (And my stomach knots at that very thought right now, nearly two years later).
Thank you, beautiful Wild and Sacred, for stopping by to reflect with me on how grief can be both so isolating and uniting at once.
Your essay is remarkable in its direct honesty and its poignancy. You now know those who are your friends, those who stay around, and those who actually step in and help. You also know how to survive those first terrible days, weeks, and months. Your husband left you love, the children he fathered with you, and the legacy of his love of them and you. You already have done much; your daughters will rise up and bless you
for what you are doing, have done, and will do for them. God has a special place in His great Love-Heart for you. The book of James states that true godliness is to care for widows and orphans in their distress.
Your prose is clear and direct, yet it conveys the
subtle social nuances that make life more unpleasant than it already is for those newly widowed. Thanks for your good writing and your clarity in handling this subject. “And underneath are the everlasting arms.”
Thank you, Jim, for your true godliness.
How wonderful an essay, I'm in that club that understands every word, my wishes are so similar to your wishes. My heart goes out to you. Thank you. Below is a poem I've not generally posted. I suspect you understand it. What made me laugh is that Ive progressed from just calling the samaritans I'm now to call the international samaritans!!! I think I can count this as progress. I use ai to check my punctuation and grammar! Normally it tells me to phone the samaritans
This will be the day I died
Earlier today I cried
My heart breaking - I cried
This will be the day I died
How I wish it was more than a lyric
I reached out - I could hear her sigh
I can't bear it
‘Bob I'm busy what do you want, - I'm so busy’
Is there no one else you can try? ..
Bye bye Mr American pie
This will be the day I die
A human life passing whilst tea going cold
‘I'm sorry, try me tomorrow, or try the Samaritans
I'm sorry this will be the day I die
I just wanted to say thank you and goodbye
I can't go on, my mental health is well and truly broken
Bye bye Mr American pie…. This will be the day I die.
Actually for all the faults I died at 6.38am a year ago
I've been on life support since
But now it's time to turn off the power.
Thank you everyone, I hope someone is there for you, and that you don't bore them
Bob no longer a druid - I'm no one
Please know I am supported by several therapists - one can't cope but what I want isn't a therapist I want a friend.
Hi Bob, who’s green like me,
I’m saddened that it’s taken me so many days to get back to you. I have to “do my work” and lean into connections like this slowly because of how emotionally (and otherwise) taxing it can be.
We—in suffering—relate to each other very slowly, as though we were swimming through molasses to reach one another. Like a sloth crossing a highway (but much less cute). The whole world slows down and becomes a video shot in both slo-mo + time lapse somehow simultaneously.
————-
Thank you for your words. For taking the time to post your heart-wrenching poem. I’m so sorry for all you’ve gone through and all you continue to go through (if only all the suffering ended on “that day”). But it doesn’t. And I’m so glad ai cares enough to tell you to call the Samaritans.
I’m not as accessible as ai or the Samaritans, but I also care deeply.
It’s funny, when you’re swimming in molasses, what begins to count as progress.
My goal used to be “perfect parenting” (whatever that is, lol). Now I have to be satisfied with “good enough parenting”.
Thinking of you with love and prayers.
Thank you from the bottom of my heart, 🫂 if only you knew how much your words mean to me - with many tears I'm so grateful Bob
There’s a reverence I feel reading this…like I’m stepping into something that has been lived, not constructed. The way you name these “states of being” carries a kind of authority that only comes through loss. It’s honest in a way that doesn’t try to soften the edges, and that’s what makes it land so deeply.
“I would rather take up residence with my husband at the graveyard…”
That line stayed with me. Not as something to analyze, but something to sit with. Along with “my soul slowly leaking from my body”… and “a set of newly defined meanings to everything.” It feels like you’ve named what happens when the world doesn’t just change—but becomes something entirely different.
And “Sitting Together”…
the way you bring that into focus—something so ordinary, now carrying the full weight of what’s been lost—that shifted how I felt reading the piece.
I hesitate even writing this, because nothing about what you’ve shared invites easy movement forward…
but I’ve known something like this kind of loss in my own life. Not the same, but close enough to recognize the terrain. And what I’ve found—over time, not quickly, not cleanly—is that another kind of state did emerge.
Not one that replaced what was lost.
Not one that made it make sense.
Just…something different that somehow grew alongside it.
So as I read your piece, I found myself holding both what you’ve named so clearly…
and a quiet sense that even this—these states you’re in—may one day be held alongside something not yet visible.
Not instead of this.
But with it.
Thank you for sharing this the way you did.
not instead of this. But with it.
yes.
and thank you.
This is a brilliant piece, deeply moving and thought-provoking♥️
Thank you, Aaliya.
My heart reaches out to you. 🫂 Very powerful.
Andrea,
Thank you.🙏