Dotti,

If your brother doesn't know that you feel like you're falling apart, maybe you could benefit by sharing with him what's going on inside you. Or maybe his perception of how well you are doing has some validity, too. Maybe "falling apart inside" while still doing what needs to be done outside is what "taking it well" looks like. I know it feels terrible now, and I wish I could tell you when it will stop hurting; but there's no off-the-rack answer for that. Your love for your husband is your own and not like anybody else's love. I can almost guarantee you, though, that your grief will feel different as time goes on. I, like many people, found that writing in a journal helped me notice how my feelings were changing from day to day and week to week. Knowing that they were changing made it easier to accept the way I felt each day.

We did have hospice care for Bonnie before she died, and the hospice organization had grief counselors available who were helpful to me and wonderfully beneficial to my daughter. For a while, the next year, I co-led a group of people who wanted to write about their grief.

Ultimately, what I wrote in my journal and said to people about my grief became a book, Loving Grief, which is available from most booksellers now. You might want to take a look at it and see if it is helpful for you.

In my many conversations with people who are grieving, I've noticed that grief is often mixed up with other emotions, especially fear. (Also sometimes regret, anger, loneliness and others.) It can be helpful to notice what those different emotions are. There are effective ways to deal with fear, for example, that are different from the ways you deal with anger or regret or loneliness. Do you think that writing down a list of the emotions you're feeling each morning or evening might help to make all this less confusing and overwhelming?

I would encourage you to start a new discussion on this website for this conversation so that others can participate in it. There's a whole lot of compassion out there, and sharing your experience can help others as well as yourself.

I believe that in time you will experience a tremendous gratitude for having had your husband in your life. You might try moving into that gratitude by writing down in a journal or another special place the things that you love and appreciate about him. There will probably be tears with this, but tears can be good things, now.

Wishing you all the best,

Paul Bennett
www.lovinggrief.com