4 months
There’s no good reason Matthew had to die. I know God knows all, but I can’t think of Matthew’s death as God taking him from me because it was “his time.” Instead, I have to just realize awful things happen on Earth, and God will help me through them.
I have always worked hard to be healthy mentally and physically. With grief, I just really don’t have as much control over my emotions as I’d like to think. I focus on completing my survival checklist of eating enough, staying hydrated, doing my job, and sleeping enough. I try to get together with friends. I try to let people in. All of these things help me stay out of the hole, but sometimes I feel awful and sometimes I feel ok, unrelated to this checklist of things. My brain sometimes pretends Matthew is alive just so I can stop feeling pain, but I also can’t make myself think or feel this way; it just happens some days and not others.
I am thankful, though, that spring weather has helped my body feel better. Matthew’s death would be terrible no matter when it occurred, but it was particularly difficult to have to endure the holiday season and a really awful winter these past few months. I’m hoping spring continues to help.
It really is true that when you’re in the dark grief, you can’t remember what it feels like to have any hope or positive emotions at all. When you’re in the ok days, you can’t remember how bad it was. I try not to worry about the lows that might come. I just have to keep going. Thank you, Betty, for recently just simply telling me on the phone “all you can do is keep going”. I know Matthew would be cheering me on, and it helps me to think about that.
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