Loneliness is one of the unwanted companions that comes along with grief. It’s hollow, cold, dark and silent. It feels like a heavy blanket has been thrown over you that you can’t take off no matter how hard you try. There are days you wonder if you’ll ever be able to escape the iron grip it has on you.
The kind of loneliness you experience when your spouse dies is vastly different than when you’re divorced. In divorce, one or both of the partners choose to be alone and they go their separate ways. When your spouse dies, you don’t choose to be alone. It’s chosen for you because the Creator decided, for whatever reason, that it was time for your spouse to leave this earth.
This kind of loneliness is indescribable to anyone who’s never experienced it for themselves. The closest thing I can think of to try and make someone understand what it feels like is being in a forced solitary confinement. That kind of prison feels empty and desolate and it feels like you can’t ever escape it.
You have friends and family members to spend time with and talk to but they can’t fill that void that’s left behind after the death of your partner. That’s because there’s a metaphorical dance partners do with one another that can’t be replicated by any other types of relationships. It’s the yin and yang of being the other part of another person. When one partner dies the one left behind falls into an imbalance, much like when the person on the other side of a teeter totter abruptly gets off. The one that remains can’t balance it by themselves because they need their partner to help them do so.
Your partner also provides to you comfort in many different forms that those other relationships can’t give you. That comfort encompasses a large spectrum from emotional to physical and everything in between. There’s a feeling you get when you share energetic space with your partner that’s much different than when you share it with others. That feeling is comfortable and familiar, whole and complete, and no words need to be spoken between the two of you to understand it.
When your partner dies there are so many things you took for granted before that are now gone. There’s no one’s face to look at across the table in a restaurant. There’s no one to walk around with in a store. There’s no one to have a conversation with in the car. There’s no one to call in the middle of the day to tell them you love them and can’t wait to see them at home later. There’s no one to make plans with, both short and long term. There’s no one’s arm to lay your hand on top of when you’re sitting in bed reading. There’s no one to talk to when you wake up in the middle of the night and can’t go back to sleep. There’s no one to wake up next to each morning.
Now, things are vastly different. I sit by myself at a table in a restaurant, usually in a quiet corner. I’ve become that person my heart always bled for when I would see them sitting alone. I eat my bagel, drink my coffee, and read about things on my phone. There’s no one sitting across from me to talk to about anything. There’s no one to tell me how their day went . There’s no one to talk to about silly, insignificant things or matters of great importance. I stay at the table way longer than I would if my partner was still here because I don’t want to go home and be reminded that it’s just me now.
I’ve adjusted the way I buy things at the store that I need to accommodate just one person. I don’t need the large coffee creamer or the gallon of milk anymore. It would spoil before I could use it all. I don’t have to buy a large bag of rice anymore. I don’t buy tarter sauce, tomatoes or the soup with the little sirloin burgers in the can anymore because I wasn’t the one who liked those things. There’s no need to buy a large amount of anything anymore because it won’t get used like it did before.
At night I got to bed and close my eyes hoping that sleep comes swift and easy. It usually doesn’t. Sometimes sleep eludes me for hours because I lay there thinking about what I lost and can never have back again. I look at the empty bed beside me and it literally makes my heart hurt. After sleeping next to someone for 35 years you get used to hearing them breathe. The room is so quiet now with no one else in it. The silence is deafening and it sometimes feels as though I might lose my mind.
After your partner dies, there’s an emptiness to every aspect of your life. Their death overshadows literally everything and you can’t move it out from the front of your brain. It is always there like a giant plate of steel and you can only see around the edges of it. To try and cope you take things one day at a time. And when you can’t manage to do that you take it one minute at a time. Whether it’s one day or one minute, it’s at least something. As the quote from Lao Tzu goes, “The journey of a thousand miles begins with one step”.
Your words are so true! Thank you for posting this Lisa! Sending prayers to you that you will heal of the hurt and pain of losing your husband. No one can take away your memories , which is all that we have of our love ones that have left us. Lost my sister suddenly 4 years ago and every day I wake up , she wakes up with me. ! Never did I imagine that the little things that I took for granted, would come to mean so much to me since she has passed. ! It did teach me a lesson though to never take things for granted, and I think that there is a song that fits what i am trying to say. I’m going to love you like I am going to lose you by John Legend maybe.
Cathy, grief is hard, whether you’ve lost your spouse, parent, friend or pet. It’s all a process and I think a part of that grief will always remain with you. I’ve never heard that song before but the “love you like I’m going to lose you” is very relevant.