Skin Hunger Can Be a By-Product of Widowhood. It's not often discussed, but it's true. One of the nicest benefits of an intimate relationship is the physical contact that comes with them. While that includes sexual contact, that's not what I'm talking about here. Maybe a topic for another day. No, what I mean is the ordinary touches and connections that are an integral part of close family and housemate relationships.
FROM THE GRIEVING HEART:
I feel frozen. Stuck. Paralyzed.
The world is moving, but I’m not. I’m going through the motions. I walk in a daze. I find myself staring at walls.
I can’t move. It’s like my heart has been anesthetized.
Excerpted from DEATH IS BUT A DREAM by Christopher Kerr, MD, PhD and Carine Mardorossian, PhD. Published on February 11, 2020 by Avery, and imprint of Penguin Publishing Group, a division of Penguin Random House, LLC.
My daughter’s final resting place was in a section of Union Cemetery in Columbus, Ohio they call Baby Land. I haven’t gone back to visit my daughter’s grave site very often. I believe that she isn’t really there. I don’t know, maybe I don’t fully understand the significance of cemeteries.
The few times I have visited Union Cemetery, I would watch my wife carefully wipe away any remnants Mother Nature may have left behind on Lindsay’s headstone. Then she carefully arranges some flowers using those same gentle hands that had held Lindsay so sweetly while she was alive.
Did you ever go for a walk with a destination in mind that you were determined to reach? You wanted to get there, you had to get there, but you were slowed down because of a pebble in your shoe? You didn't want to stop to remove the pebble because you were afraid it would slow you down too much to stop? And if you just grin and bear it, you'll get to your destination, right?
We can never be absolutely prepared for losses, even if common sense tells us that they are inevitable. And when this happens, the only thing we can do is accept our grief, recognize our feelings and acknowledge the fact that life goes on anyway. Life continues for you, including - and therefore, taking care of yourself is the best thing you can do for yourself, your family and your beloved people who are with you now. And not with you either. Let's try to get started.
