Morning Glory, Oh, I hear you! Many of us here are still grieving heavy losses, and have been wondering the same thing. I don't think there's any way of ever going back to the way you were before. In another thread I talked about "normal", how (in my experience) there are two "normals"...pre-loss normal, and post-loss normal - and how once you've lost a significant loved one, you can never go back to the pre-loss normal again. Everything has changed.

That doesn't mean we don't find our way through to a new normal that we can live within, it just means that for a long time, there's an unbearable tension or conflict in us...we yearn for the way things used to be, but deep inside we know they're gone forever. Somehow (I'm still figuring it out for myself) we crawl through the grief to find a way to co-exist with the terrible hole(s) that are inside of us - those holes never go away. But they do get easier to live with.

How long has it been since your Dad died? Mine died in 1999 (and my Mom in 2001 and my brother in 2007) and there are days when the agony of absence is unbearable. But it's not only my loved ones I miss, it's everything: the way things used to be, the way our family used to be, the family gatherings, Christmas, so many future plans we had all made that included my brother - EVERYTHING has changed, without our consent, leaving us with a terrible emptiness we don't know how to fill. Yes, you have changed - forever. Right now it might feel joyless and empty, it did for me too, for far too long, and I'm still not all back yet (will I ever be?!! I don't know!) But I do know that we do have to keep moving, one foot ahead of the other, crawling through those harder days...eventually we do make it through to that "new normal" - I suppose in some ways it feels like "settling" for second-best, but what else can we do? At some point in the journey we have to accept that we have to accept this "second-best" reality and make new choices, new plans, new futures, new traditions - a new normal that brings as much joy as possible.

For me, I've had to really focus on positive thinking and gratitude, it's the only way I could keep myself from sinking too far down into the agony of absence.

Come here often and talk, there are many of us here who continue to grieve and search our way through.