In their shoes

It is painful to walk in their shoes, it is the agony of walking through memories of dark times lived before. It is identifying with with their broken hearts, remembering the feeling of the nails in the chest, the feeling of utter despair that threatens never to end.

How can he, she, just be gone, never to speak again, never to be held again. How can the sun shine so bright, how can the world just go on. Yesterday they were there, reliable, funny, loving and close.

How will the young ones cope, come to terms with such a deep loss, how will the older, yet still dependent kids fathom what just happened in their reliable world to change it forever. Mostly though, how will the partners deal with life with the new label of widow and widower. No longer wife, husband, a new title that has arrived unbidden. From one moment to another life has changed forever and he, she will never be the same.

The longing to hear the voice but unimaginable pain of listening to answer machine recordings. The familiar items on his, her side of the bed. The smell on the pillow and the clothes, can it be held and keep the closer for just one more moment.

At first it is moment by moment, hour by hour, day by day, the holey road of grief; a path littered with holes to fall in only to be crawling out of until the next one. Life as it has been known until now has just unravelled like a piece of knitting.

It is too much yet somehow we get through the journey of the firsts and then we come to terms with the new unwanted reality and find our feet again.

It is a long and painful journey  and ever so often someone close to us has to go through it as well and it triggers the memories of a path already trodden. It is then we walk in their shoes for a while.