I find as I approach 2 years into this grief, I again have this need to write. Seems to help me. I so remember when the house had cleared of all the uninvited people after her death, sitting here in my living room in silence. And this wave of emptiness beyond description hit me unlike anything I'd ever experienced before or after. She was gone. Her spirit was gone. And so began a road unlike any other in my life, and just like you, I found myself struggling to survive a pain unimaginable.

It took me a while to come to an understanding of what this emptiness was all about. It was separate and apart from my grief, and yet at the same time, the emptiness was intricately tied to my grief. For those of you familiar with the Bible, recall in Genesis where we are told that a man and a woman shall become one. Before my wife's death, I only considered that to mean "one" physically. But I came to understand that it is referring to a spiritual joining that occurs, spirit to spirit, a man and woman become one. And when my wife passed, her spirit left me and was no longer joined to mine. And that was and continues to be my emptiness. I believe this to be a universal truth. Makes no difference what anyone's beliefs may or may not be and certainly I'm not trying to persuade anyone to aything. This is simply a universal truth between man and woman that applies to the entire human race, independent from any belief or nonbelief system we may adhere to. You see, I believe we all have a spirit inside of us, it is our true self, our person of the heart. I can give you some examples. Gut feeling? That is our spirit trying to get our attention. Finishing your spouses sentences? Knowing what each other are thinking? That connection made just by eye contact across the room. I believe it is all because we were joined with them spirit to spirit.

I throw around the term "broken heart" loosely to describe our grief. But what I am referring to is our broken spirit. A spiritual amputation occurred when they had to leave this natural realm. And that is why this hurts so badly, and why it takes us so long to heal. That's how I've come to understand it. We have a spiritual wound. Deep. They were torn from us, and its not a clean wound by any stretch of the imagination. Like I say, I'm not trying to convince anyone here. Just sharing an understanding I came to that brought me some peace to explain the unexplainable as the waves of grief pounded away at me, minute by minute, hour by hour, day after day, month after month.

And these grief waves have tossed me about every which direction, pounding me like a hurricane pounds against the shore. Until I found this site, I thought I was going mad. But then I discovered that there was nothing unique going on in me. Everyone that came before me on this grief journey had similar experiences. So we all do the best that we can, reaching deep inside of us to help others simply because we know their pain all too well. Perhaps some of these words are a help to someone. I thank you for the opportunity to write them. ~~~ Scottie