You have a sad feeling for a moment, then it passes

> My own death, of course, which I learnt will come when I least expect it, when everything is going right for once - that when no threats are apparent and I feel I can relax a little, it will be then that I choke over a tin of spinach, or mistake a blue e for a blue o, or a pink h for a pink h.

Just recently my wife developed a sudden and very aggressive infection. She's healthy and it totally came out of left field. Then it spread to me. It was definitely humbling. I don't believe in living in fear, but it's funny how everything can change in an instant.

I have to commend the title though:

> You have a sad feeling for a moment, then it passes

Coming to understand the ephemeral nature of emotions is what finally allowed me deal with them. They're still real, but they always pass, no matter how strong they seem in the moment.

What infection?

I don't want to say but she was in the hospital a few times.

I personally am still waiting on the "it passes" part.

Death usually is not that sudden. Only 20%-25% of deaths are surprising and occur 24 hours or less according the Nuland's "How We Die" and other studies. The other 75% are slower processes giving us plenty of time to contemplate death, make peace or anger.

Sorry for your loss.

I weep with you, friend. Keep your eyes up, know that we feel for you.

Grief is an enormously complicated emotional state that cannot be pithily summed up like that sentence. It's just a quote from a game.

In my experience, it doesn't pass, as in disappear. Instead, the fact of the loss slowly becomes a new fact of your reality. The newness of it will pass. The rawness of the pain will fade - most of the time. There will always be things that bring the person right back sitting next to you. But you begin to re-make your life.

If you continue to struggle and haven't already done so, I can recommend talking with a counselor (I hate the word therapist). Sometimes we just need to unload, but don't want to unload on/burden the other people in our life. Grief can be isolating in this way.

I feel the same way - at least once a week I think to myself, I should tell my mom about something her grandchildren did, and then I remember she's not here any more.