Recovery

Apart from my personal experiences of being widowed, most of what I know about grieving in a general sense I have learnt from two sources: Kate Boydell's book, 'Death and How to Survive it', and her website, merrywidow; and Virginia Ironside's book, 'You'll Get Over It'. Virginia's book is an angry, honest confrontation with death in all its agony and strangeness. Kate's book is grounded in her philosophy that grief can be integrated into one's life, that it can be worked through, and that the bereaved person will, once again, be happy. I have taken her approach to be the right one to adhere to - personally, I cannot abide the thought that my girls and I will not lead full and rich lives. Of course, we shall not forget our dear man, but I do not accept that the memory of what we had can be used as a reason to hobble through life, crippled and aimless. I do not say that we have reached a point of reconciliation today, but that we will reach it at some moment in our futures. The physical agony of grieving is easing, and I am able to be more active in the public world. I am very lonely without my best friend and lover, and sometimes this loneliness is almost more than I can stand (at my low times, I feel this loneliness like a wild madness that surges through my body), but I am better today than I was sixteen months ago. And I believe, with Kate, that recovery is possible.