My Journey From Grief Into Post-Grief Grief
After unexpectedly losing the love of my life
I lost Benjamin 10 years and 2 months ago; we were together for 13 years. A high-risk surgery didn’t have the outcome we all wished for and he was gone. But he wasn’t dead — which made my grief terribly harder. When you grieve a dead person, you have a closure; a permanent end to your story. You think about your loved ones in the past tense.
But when your person is in a vegetative state, you’re grieving them at the same time you’re feeding hope — regardless of how unrealistic you know it is. You’re stuck in a story from the past, living a present of agony, and wishing for a brighter future.
For 5 years, I grieved an almost-death. It hurt as much as a real death, if not more. I had lost everything: my love, my relationship, my best friend and life as I knew it. My partner was alive but he wasn’t anywhere.
Because I couldn’t afford life financially on my own and depression took the best of me, I decided to leave. Not only our flat but to leave everything behind. I got a job in England and said goodbye to my Portugal. I was going to start a new life. This…
