Grief: The Great Learning, Day 383

Waiting For Something to Happen Grief: The Great Learning, Day 386

Grief: The Great Learning, Day 383

I��ve saved the letters I wrote to my life mate/soul mate after he died, thinking that one day I would write a sequel to Grief: The Great Yearning, the story of my first year of grief. I��d planned to call the sequel Grief: The Great Learning, and detail the lessons gleaned from the second and third years of my grief. Because I no longer want to keep revisiting such angst, there will be no sequel, so I��m publishing the letters here on this blog as a way of safeguarding (and sharing) them.

Please note that this particular letter reflected what I was feeling three and a half years ago. I am not feeling sorry for myself now — at least, not much. I��ve found a new love (dancing). And although I will always miss him, always feel a void in my soul where he once was, I have largely moved beyond my grief. At the moment, the future doesn��t seem bleak the way it did on the 383rd day after his death, though I still don��t know what to build my life on,��and I��m still waiting for something to happen.

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Day 383, Dear Jeff,

I��m having a hard time coping, but maybe it isn��t necessary to be stoic in order to cope. Maybe tears and tantrums are my way of coping for now. If nothing else, those tears and tantrums help get rid of the terrible stress of grief.

I feel as if I��ve been abandoned by you. You were the only one who ever truly cared for me, and I don��t know how to be alone. I don��t mean physically alone — that I can do. I mean that mental, spiritual, emotional aloneness when there is no one in the world who cares on a daily basis. I know there are some people who care sporadically when they get a few minutes, but it sure isn��t something for me to build a life on.

I��m feeling sorry for myself. I keep hoping something good will happen. I need something to offset this pervasive sadness. The years stretch bleakly before me. It��s just too sad.

Adios, compadre. I love you.

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Pat Bertram is the author of the suspense novels Light Bringer, More Deaths Than One, A Spark of Heavenly Fire, and Daughter Am I. Bertram is also the author of Grief: The Great Yearning, ��an exquisite book, wrenching to read, and at the same time full of profound truths.�� Connect with Pat on Google+. Like Pat on Facebook.