The world didn't end

One thing that I found most difficult to deal with in trying to get over the death of the person I loved most in the world was that the world didn't end. Now intellectually I knew that it wouldn't, but I wasn't emotionally prepared for it. The worst thing that could have happened in my life happened and the sun still came up, people still gossiped about American Idol, and the electric bill still came. Part of me wanted the world to end (I now understand why couples married a long time often don't survive each other for long). But it didn't. There was a huge hole in my life, but I still had a life. I had no idea what to do with that life or where I was supposed to go from here, but life did go on.

One of the biggest problems for me was that from the perspective of the people around me, life hadn't even come close to ending. There was a little hiccup; it was too bad for Judy, but "What's for dinner tonight?" People who have never been through the death of someone who is their whole world have no idea that it was an event that didn't end with the funeral. They thought it was strange that I was upset more than a year later and that casual references to some things could make me start crying. I could often see the annoyed, patronizing, or irritated expressions on their faces as they wordlessly let me know that they thought I should be over this by now. After all, Karl and I hadn't even been married, so what was the big deal?