Good Mourning Newsletter

When It Feels Like You’ve Got Nothing Left

Have you ever felt like that? If you have, you have lots of company.

When someone who meant the world to you dies, it can feel like all the good in your world has died, too. It can feel like everything precious has been taken away, leaving you with empty arms and grasping hands. You can feel like there is nothing left.

Well-meaning friends and family try to remind you otherwise: You still have people who love you. Maybe you still have your spouse or partner. You have your memories. Perhaps you have other kids. You can try again. You will love again. You will feel alive again. Count your blessings, name them one by one...

Maybe they're right, at least about some of it. But it doesn't feel right or true, and even if they're right, it's not enough. What you feel is a hole that seems to have no borders and no bottom. What you feel is that you've got nothing left.

It feels heavy and dark and lonely. Maybe you used to think that a "broken heart" was just a poetic phrase, but it doesn't feel poetic now. It feels literal, real, and true.

So, you sit with it. Sit in it. Feeling it. Soaking it in as if you had another choice. Part of you pushes back-it can't be true! Yet another part of you knows that it is true and that it does no good to pretend otherwise. This "it can't be true but it is" dance is part of the deal, part getting used to it. Getting used to something that feels offensive to imagine and impossible to fathom. But there it is, so you sit with and in it some more.

How is this even possible? Not that the thing happened, although "how is this even possible" fits for that, too. No, this "how is this even possible" is about you. How is it that you experienced this nightmare of losing and yet you're still alive?

Somehow, although it boggles the mind to ponder, you have found a way to think these thoughts, feel this pain, and sit in the muck of it without falling into a million little pieces and blowing away.

Although eating no longer appeals, you put things in your mouth, chew, and swallow. While sleep is often elusive, you get enough of it to get to your feet in the morning to do the things that you do. These things which you used to do without much noticing now feel like climbing a mountain bare-footed, yet somehow you do them.

As the days, weeks, and months go by, you're still here. How can that be? You thought that without your person, life could not continue. The sun would stop in the sky, the seasons would pause, and traffic would freeze-frame. The universe would call a timeout to correct its error or at least provide a long moment of silence (nip it, birds).

But the sun didn't stop, the seasons continued, the birds kept singing, and traffic crawled or raced on. Meanwhile, you, despite all your internal predictions, unexpectedly and thankfully continue to live.

Living is haunted now. You thought your person was totally gone, but they won't and don't go away. The memories sneak through your cracks or sometimes slap you in the face. They show up in dreams, in birds in the backyard, and in TV commercials. Often the presence of their absence feels like a weight sitting on your chest. But you notice that other times their presence is a balm, a warm blanket, or a needed inspiration or kick in the pants.

Questions follow you and pester for a response: What did they mean to you when they were alive? How did they make your life better? Did they also sometimes make your life harder? What do you want and need them to mean to you now? What did you mean to them and how did you make their life better? How do you want them to accompany you in your days going forward?

How in the world can you wrestle with these questions when it feels like you have nothing left? Yet, that is exactly what you do.

Life, and death, can be full of mystery, as is the reality that you continue to find ways to continue life and living. And that is a grateful something when it feels like you have nothing left.

 

Greg Adams, LCSW, ACSW, FT
Program Coordinator
Center for Good Mourning
goodmourning@archildrens.org