When I met my wife, my life to that point was one of despair and loneliness. She was a widow and still in grief. Together we lifted ourselves up. I miss my wife more then my posts imply. I weep and grieve just like everyone else. The loneliness is at times overwhelming.
I find strength and peace by trying to look to the years we were together and remember how we found happiness. That part of our life is what is important to me, not the last months and her death. Every time I start dwelling on those last months, I allow the emotion for a bit, then switch my mind back to the earlier times, or find those moments when she was ill when we laughed.
I want to move on from my grief, she wants me to move on. I know this because she said it often, and that if she were to die, she wanted me to be happy, and if that meant finding another person, then so be it. Knowing what she was going through when we met, gives me hope that I like she will once again find meaning in my life. Whether that means a new relationship or not, only time will tell.
What supports me through the rage, pain, dispare, and loneliness, is my wife always wanted me to be happy. She did things to make me happy. Most important is she showed my how to be happy. I found happiness in giving her happiness.
So the secret, if there is one, is just doing what I always did, and that is what she wanted. In seeking happiness, I am still making her happy, and this is what I find important now.
There is one other thing that I am dealing with, and that is guilt. Throughout this ordeal, there is the guilt of what was not said or done. There is also the guilt of moving on.
The former guilt is for me easier to deal with, and that is because there is nothing I can do to change what happened, or did not happen. For that matter, it is hard for me to remember if that guilt is preception, or just me looking for something that would have changed the outcome, an outcome neither she nor I had any control over.
Then there is the guilt of wanting to stop the grief, to move on. I feel guilty about wanting to be happy again. I have these feelings even knowing she wants me to be happy. If we were truely logical beings, this would not be a problem. The truth as I see it is our entire being is a collection of experiences. Some make us sad, some make us happy. For the 22 years of marriage and the 27 years we were together, my subconscous mind put together patterns of happiness that relied on her feedback to give me peace. That feedback is now only in my memory. No longer is she there to great me with a big smile when I come home. My conscious logical mind knows why, my subconscious pains at it's absence.
As it took years to build those patterns of love in my being, it will take some time for my brain to stop yearning for the physical due to the pain their absence causes. Eventually, my subconscious will reroute the happiness it found in her physical presence to the memory of them and in doing so, once again find happiness. It just takes time and a desire on ones part to be happy.
It is not easy, but for me this path offers a light at the end of the tunnel (or sunlight through the French doors as in my dream). At some point the part of me that wants to move on will reconcile with the part that says not yet.
All this said, I am having difficulty with her passing. Last night, on the fourth week since her death, I went to bed and cried until my eyes and face hurt. As sleep finally came, there were still tears. I awoke a couple of times and there were still tears rolling down my cheek. I did not fight it. I let that part of me that needs to express the pain have it's way. I know that eventually it will discover there is no solace in pain and subside.
I know grief is normal, I know if I work at being happy again, the grief will subside from raw emotion and despair to just sadness, and slowly it is.
This is how I am dealing with my loss, it seems to be working for me, and I hope it does.