You don't have to answer me here, but I have to ask: Are you seeing a professional? I can think of far, far worse uses of the money he left you than spending some of it on counseling to get you through the gaping hole left by his absence.
Oh, Roger, please don't beat on yourself for being emotional. It happens. It NEEDS to happen. It's cathartic, it's closure, it's reality setting in. It will happen again and again. A song comes up on the radio. A forgotten photo, even a certain smell can trigger these bouts of crying. Let them happen. And don't worry about what others think. If they know your situation, they will understand, and even can be a shoulder to lean on or a sounding board. Dropping those letters in the box was one of those moments where the shit got real, so to speak. Time will soften this. My best friend lost his father, then soon after, his mother. I never saw him be emotional about it. He even tells me he isn't the emotional type, and the decades I knew him, I could vouch for that statement. One day last year he was over helping me with a project. He began talking about his parents after I mentioned my mom, and I noticed he kept on going. This was the first time I remember going on at length about his parents and losing them. He kept remembering the
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The things that trigger the grief are certainly not stupid! They are quotidian and ubiquitous-mailing letters, hearing any of numerous otherwise unremarkable sounds, seeing a particular display of produce from a particular angle at the grocery store.
It will never be okeh that he's gone; don't expect or worry about that. It will slowly-slowly-become more normal, and the pain will slowly-slowly-become less acute and unpredictably episodic as the wound scars over. There is no way over, under, or around it; the only way from here to there is through. It sucks and it's awful and messy and jagged and it seems to take forever (and it kinda does) but it's the only way. Give yourself (and demand others afford you) the time and room you need, then give yourself more time and room than that.
And the guy who inappropriately confronted you at the bear run needed a hard kick in the nuts.
Grief is awful. Grief is normal. Grief isn't particularly logical. It's going to pop up in weird places, and there's no reason to feel stupid for it.
As Miss Manners would point out, it's kind of a shame that we've given up the notion of being officially in mourning as a culture, because then you could wear black for a year or two and if you burst into tears for no apparent reason, people would know what was going on.
Also, the fact that you're in a tough situation with nothing to fall back on isn't your failure, it's our society's failure. Modern America kinda sucks when it comes to safety nets, and that's something we need to get better about. Don't be down on yourself about it.
And even if you get all this stuff intellectually, it's also totally reasonable to still feel frustrated by it. It sucks.
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It will never be okeh that he's gone; don't expect or worry about that. It will slowly-slowly-become more normal, and the pain will slowly-slowly-become less acute and unpredictably episodic as the wound scars over. There is no way over, under, or around it; the only way from here to there is through. It sucks and it's awful and messy and jagged and it seems to take forever (and it kinda does) but it's the only way. Give yourself (and demand others afford you) the time and room you need, then give yourself more time and room than that.
And the guy who inappropriately confronted you at the bear run needed a hard kick in the nuts.
Reply
Reply
Grief is awful. Grief is normal. Grief isn't particularly logical. It's going to pop up in weird places, and there's no reason to feel stupid for it.
As Miss Manners would point out, it's kind of a shame that we've given up the notion of being officially in mourning as a culture, because then you could wear black for a year or two and if you burst into tears for no apparent reason, people would know what was going on.
Also, the fact that you're in a tough situation with nothing to fall back on isn't your failure, it's our society's failure. Modern America kinda sucks when it comes to safety nets, and that's something we need to get better about. Don't be down on yourself about it.
And even if you get all this stuff intellectually, it's also totally reasonable to still feel frustrated by it. It sucks.
Big hugs. Things will get better.
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