Anniversaries of losing someone is strange.

Why is any day any more important than any other…when missing someone?
Time in some ways helps you cope with anniversaries but never takes away the pain.

I also find that the biggest benefit is that other people give you space, they understand that you may not be 100%, they accept more easily that you are grieving.
The rest of the time although you clearly will never get over the pain, people who don’t understand grief think that you should be progressing back to …what would you say ‘normality’? Mind you that then begs the question what …read more

The grief cycle is often talked about and I was talking to someone yesterday about the various stages of grief. During the conversation we started to think that there is also a different way of looking at the bereavement process – the grief position!

Stillness – you are so numb that you cannot move without really thinking about it.
Constant movement – this is when you have to plan the funeral and you are almost in a state of constant movement.
Laying down – when all the calls have stopped and you are on your own, you just lie there and cry.
Curled up …read more

The other day I blogged about my depression, I often write in a diary thoughts for the day and here is what I wrote before I went to sleep. I share this because we often forget that the natural course of life involves darkness and light…and that we need to remember in our grief that our bereavement follows a grief cycle. I hope that these words will help you as they helped me to remember that there is always hope….
When the darkness falls, remember the sun will rise in the morning
When the darkness falls, remember the sun is just resting
When …read more

Grief plays with our emotions. Cindy, one of our Widows Quest regular commenters, yesterday felt angry, felt depressed and I felt so sorry for her because I know that feeling. Anger rises when you feel out of control. I feel angry when I want to change what happened, when I think about what a great man he was and how death seems to take the good ones, when I don’t know how I will pay next months bills, when I want to feel happy and I just don’t…
So what do I do to cope with the anger

I allow myself to …read more

With yesterday being Good Friday, it made me thinkg about the ‘good’ ness you need in your life to ensure you come through the grief cycle. Here are 10 ‘Goodnesses’ for widows and widowers

Good friendship
Good health
Good nights sleep
Goodbye to yesterday, good day to tomorrow
Good hugs
Good healthy eating
Good news to inspire the new tomorrow
Good amount of courage
(A) Good time….(learning how to again!)
Good  luck

Sometimes I feel that I have developed a split personality since my bereavement. Why? Because one moment I feel so much love and such happiness that I have felt the most incredible love and then the next moment I am angry…angry to have lost that one special person in my life.
From love to anger and back again in 60 seconds.
In one sense I love it as after the death I thought I would never be able to feel again, that my whole emotional being had shut down so that I never had to hurt again….therefore the anger and the love, …read more

is something that will happen to all of us, death surrounds us every day either personally or in the news, death is as normal an event in our lives as birth when you think about it. Yet as a society we find it hard to speak about it, we feel uncomfortable, I know often I feel as though I will be portrayed as morbid blogging about it!
I often wonder why this natural part of the life cycle is so taboo?

Is it because we reject pain as human beings?
Is it because it feels unnatural as we believe somehow we should …read more

The more I listen to people, the more that times passes I wonder why we term the bereavement process – a grief cycle? Shouldn’t it be the grief rollercoaster?
There is no clear path to recovery, I jump all over the place…one day fine, the other depressed. I even feel sick at times just like a rollercoaster ride.
Maybe this is just me but from now on I think I will see my journey through grief as a rollercoaster….and remember a rollercoaster ride can be exhilarating and there are days when I am so proud of what I achieved that even that …read more

It struck me today how widows and widows are often searching for meaning to their new lives, how they suffer because of that search for real “meaning”…….and I suddenly realised the irony!
To be mean, is to be awful…..when we are searching for that meaning we can often be cruel to our own heart, mind and soul. We take them on a dark path, often depressive of nature in the hope that in the darkest moment we will find something bright…how ironic that the word mean has two such different definitions and yet so both true during the grief cycle.
Maybe we …read more

I am constantly surprised at how many paradoxes there are during the grief and bereavement cycle. Let me share some 

How death makes you value life
How you are tired during the day and can’t sleep at night
How you miss those irritating habits somehow the most
How loneliness happens most in crowds
How you are strong when people expect you to be weak, and how you are weak when people expect you to be strong
How you cry even with no tears

I am sure I have missed some out, as most days I think widows and widowers struggle with two conflicting thoughts, with emotional rollercoaster feelings and …read more