Below is my journal entry from August 10, 2022, a little less than a month after my husband was killed:

This month has been the hardest of my life so far, and I hope to never repeat the events of this last week. But the truth is that I love so many mortals that in reality it may be only a shadow of the loss in this veil of tears. 

We have had one rule as a family as we have tried to make sense and accept the reality of the events of July 21, 2022. The rule has been to breathe and be honest. For those who have not experienced a significant tragic loss, these may seem intuitive. But, well… we found that we needed the rules formalized to keep us grounded.

Who knew that breathing could be so difficult we’d someday need a rule to remind us to do it? Who knew would also need a reminder to be honest — mostly with ourselves, but also with each other — about how we were actually feeling, what we are thinking, and what we were experiencing in this journey with suffering and grief.

Most of my life, breathing has been natural and automatic but when the feeling that I would wake up from this horrible nightmare was suddenly and inexorably taken from me upon seeing the dead and broken body of my sweetheart, breathing suddenly became a chore of such weight and heaviness that my son had to command me to do it.  

“Breathe Mom!!” 

His panicked but strong voice was the only thing that helped me to choose life at that moment. Choosing to breathe, and thereby choosing to live without my husband, became a constant battle. 

The sorrow and physical pain has been completely shocking at times. When I ignored its warnings, my body would demand its due for holding the unbearable weight of grief. Embarrassingly, it would often just quit, go on strike, and leave me behind, demanding more from it than was apparently possible. 

I have felt like a “doughnut” person with a big hole where my heart used to be. 

I am reminded of Mark 10:8, which says, “And they twain shall be one flesh: so then they are no more twain, but one flesh.”

Death seems at times to have ripped me apart so that many times I feel as though I am walking around as half a person. I feel I’ve been ripped down the middle, half in the grave and half walking around. Being the half left behind is excruciating. 

Despite the anguish I was experiencing that day, I did not stop breathing, and I have not stopped breathing since. I’m sharing this so that, if you are having a similar experience with the early stages of your own grieving journey, you might feel a little less alone as you experience the bodily reactions that come with loss.  

I want to end this post with a quote from Maya Angelou from her book, Letter to My Daughter: 

“I find it very difficult to let a friend or beloved go into that country of no return. I answer the heroic question, ‘Death, where is thy sting?’ with ‘It is here in my heart, and my mind, and my memories.’”