To those who don’t know how it is to lose your partner, your significant other, your spouse. I didnt know, now I do. So let me try to tell you what I learned until now. This grief is not linear, or predictable, or subtle. Of this grief I can speak, and so I do. If you lose your significant other, your beloved partner, no matter for how many years you had together:

There is no getting over IT. Ever. It’s not a broken bone. It’s a broken life. A before and after.
It is not the same as a break-up.
It is not your ex – it’s still your partner.
The impact on your life is all encompassing. All. Encompassing.
Time doesn’t make it better, it just moves on and steals more and more pieces away. That’s not exactly a good thing either.

It is a wound you grow around, not a wound that ever heals. You grow around it and change shape, like a tree adapting to new conditions. 

A potential new partner in a potential future won’t fix THIS pain. Ever.
Please don’t EVER suggest to someone who lost their partner that they will be okay, because they’ll meet someone new eventually. It’s insensitive, dismissive, ignorant and hurtful. If they ever meet a new partner, it wont erase the love and wound of that significant other loss. Never. Just NO.

But if they do, they will love more fiercely and with more appreciation and care, because they know how precious every second, every word, every touch is. They will love better because they know what they risk, gain and maybe lose again.

Unless you are widowed partner yourself, do not assume you understand. It is not the same as if you lose a friend, parent or child, job or health. All grief is different. Let’s learn to be more sensitive about that.

Do not advise widowed partners on how you think they should deal, how to feel or when/how to get over it.

There is grief in many forms, and all grief impacts us. If we are wise, we let grief change us.

You lose the version of yourself that you where with this particular beloved partner.
You cannot grief the loss together, because what you grief IS the loss of the together and so much more. When you lose your significant other, you lose the shoulder to cry on, the arms to hold you, the shared burden, the hopeful moments, the little reprief, the dreams and any future together.

Do not ask how they died, ask how they lived, what they loved.

Say their name, talk about them, often, always and again.
A day, a year, a decade or 4 decades after their passing. It doesn’t hurt to hear them remembered, because that’s all a widowed partner can think about anyway. Don’t freeze out the one topic they will always care about.

Dont think we are okay because we function

…go to work or the movies. Life goes on, but it’s not as joyful or colorful. This grief will change us in the short and long term.

Grief brain, impatience, lack of attention or focus, loss of appetite, loss of color or joy, sleeplessness, disorientation, displacement, forgetfulness, and maybe at some point for some… a reorientation, new projects or endeavours often to honor and remember the partner that passed. Making a life somehow, until the day we meet again beyond the veil.

Losing fear of death, because we know they are there to greet us.