I'm Sorry

I owe everyone who has lost a loved one an apology.

I never realized just how exhausting and painful griefwalking is.  I bought into the cultural norms that say that a month after a death should be plenty to move on with life.

It isn't. 

It's just the beginning.

Oh sure, the acute stage is over and I can go a day without crying (usually), but the sense of loneliness, of abandonment, the weight in the pit of the stomach, the fear that wells up in the middle of the night...these things are still very much present. 

I didn't know.  And because I didn't know, I wasn't as fully present, as sympathetic, as empathetic to those who were grieving as I could have been.

I'm sorry.  Please forgive me.  I now know better.