LETTER: Journey back to normality

Men of my generation were told to keep a '˜stiff upper lip' in the face of adversity.
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But in this letter, I am seeking to break that taboo - and confess my grief in public - not, I hasten to add, to elicit sympathy - but in the hope that it may help other readers of your newspaper who are mourning the loss of a loved one.

Recently, I lost my dear wife, after nearly 27 years of blissfully happy marriage - we were ‘joined at the hip’ and her death has hit me hard - I was in denial about her long-term illness.

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I wander from room to room of our flat - in a daze - forgetting what I’m looking for.

I find difficulty in eating and sleeping - fear and emptiness surround me.

And I have to confess that I howled like a wounded beast by the hospital bed where she died.

A classic case of self-pity? I do hope not. I am trying to sympathise with others in the same boat in the hope that they too may come to understand the agonising pains of bereavement.

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My late wife was Horsham born and bred - indeed she could trace her family roots back in the surrounding villages to the beginning of the 19th century - and beyond.

They were all country folk - game-keepers to the opulent families in the big houses which were so much part of the Sussex scene in those far off days.

Here is what the Christian apologist, C.S. Lewis wrote in his slim volume, A Grief Observed after his wife had died, ‘No one ever told me that grief felt like fear. I am not afraid, but the sensation is like that of being afraid. The same fluttering in the stomach, the same restlessness, the yawning. At other times, it feels like being mildly drunk, or concussed. There is a sort of invisible blanket between the world and me. I find it hard to take in what anyone says. Or perhaps , hard to want to take it in. Yet I want others about me. I dread the moments when my home is empty.’

I don’t wish to end on a morbid note - and I would like offer my heartfelt thanks to all my friends and acquaintances in Horsham for their Sympathy cards and letters of condolence.

They are indeed a great comfort.

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For others who may be grieving for loved ones, I can do no better than recommend The Grief Book - a paperback, by Debbie Moore and Carolynn Cowperthwaite - obtainable via Amazon.

It is helping me along my long journey back to some sort of normality.

And I hope that it will be of practical help to your readers too.

name and address supplied

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