By Los Alamos Visiting Nurse Service
How do you start a new life after the loss of a significant person? Your life is changed forever. You have lost the experience of spending time with your loved one.
Your loved one’s presence in your life is now based on memories, photos, writings and shared experiences. Pictures, letters, cards, videos and dreams keep that person alive in a secondary fashion, but how do you fill the space that was occupied by that person in real time? Does this mean letting go of some of your activities that were shared exclusively with that person? Which of these activities provide comfort during your grief process?
Creating a new life requires making new choices, having new experiences, developing new friendships and relationships. Creating a new life does not mean negating the previous life; it means adding chapters to your story.
Initially, it is beneficial to cry, to share the pain of your loss and to reach out to others. Try to understand that your grief journey is unique to you. Remind yourself that this is a new experience for you and that there is no right or wrong way to grieve. Do the best you can with your thoughts, feelings, emotions, actions and reactions. You will navigate through each day processing your loss and perhaps helping others who are grieving once you gain insight into how to cope with your loss.
Acknowledging that your life will never be the same and letting go of the future that has been lost can be important steps toward a new reality.
Taking the initiative to create new experiences that will become memories is a good first step toward acknowledging that life does go on. But keep in mind that taking steps to create new memories may also trigger feelings of guilt. This is especially true when these new experiences result in laughter, joy, satisfaction.
At the same time, new experiences may also create a sense of newness, of being alive, of being set free from the daily task of mourning. Many times, people in the grieving process will find themselves so focused on new activities that they are surprised to realize at day’s end that grief, loneliness, pleasure, a sense of achievement, shared camaraderie and sadness can all take place in one day.
The realization that the ratio of these experiences and feelings will change from one day to the next can be surprising and will eventually become part of the new reality that is being created. Time alone does not erase the sense of loss, but the passage of time does gradually change the intensity and the amount of time that grieving occupies each day.
