To everyone who suddenly lost their beloved,

I tell my best friend and my kids that my brain is hurting and I am worried about waking up one morning and finding out that I have gone crazy. It is now 5 months since I suddenly lost my husband who had a stroke while driving. I had spoken to him twice on the phone that day. I found him sounding strange in the first phone call. I have all kinds of guilt that I did not get him to follow up on some health issues which I thought were due to a poor diet: headaches and problems sleeping. We were married for almost 25 years, together for 26 years, 3 amazing miraculous kids who are the reason I breathe. I have read a lot of postings here, and I totally agree with the feelings. My worst times are every single morning when I have to wake up and feel that it is true. I had a horrible childhood and young adulthood, and my beloved gave me the best moments, and years of my life. I am only 52, and I feel cheated of a normal time to grow old together. My parents got that, and they seemed to hate each other. Anyway, I am writing this to make a statement on this site. We all feel deeply tragic, hurt beyond belief, lost, crushed, and I go around actually saying that my brain is broken..... AND YET I FEEL SOME KIND OF WEIRD HOPE FOR THE FUTURE. My best friend lost her mother and brother when she was young. She told me during that time, her father also lost his sister all within a few years. Her father remarried and divorced , and then found another woman to grow old with. Her father was her rock, her ability to get through her losses. I feel that I never knew what my purpose was in life, or what this life is even about. But I have to function for my kids. There is no choice. My beliefs have been torn to shreds because I always believed in G-d and I feel that he/she must hate me if this was what I got after all of my prayers for a good life. What rips me to shreds, is that the story of my life is putting all of my good stuff into the lives of my kids, yet their story is that this suddenly happened and they are crushed and hurt and will never be the same. Still, there has to be something else. I look at all of life differently now, but I have looked up a Jewish and a Buddhist belief that says the next life will be even better than this one. Maybe the big happiness is gone forever, but if there is one moment in a day, that I can look at my kids, or a flower, or a white cloud, or something, that moment of life in a day of grief, is some kind of hope or some kind of life that I now have. The rabbi told me when this happened not to ask why, but to know that every day we get is a gift.