Janine--

I can certainly relate to how you feel. I can't think of anything very eloquent on my own to add. It's just so hard to get used to the idea of a meaningful person in your life being gone forever, that you can't even say one more thing to them regardless of how important it might be, that you can't just see them one more time.

I still wake up every once in a while thinking that I'm going to call my father right away because I haven't talked to him in a while and it's easiest for him to talk in the morning. And each time I feel like I'm realizing all over again that he's gone forever.

I keep crying at odd moments too. It's hard for a lot of other people to understand - they give you a week or so and then figure that ought to be it. After that it's kind of old news to them. John M was really kind and supportive for about that long and then he kind of couldn't understand why I continued to dwell on something I couldn't do anything about.

Even at first, I remember trying to talk with John's sister about it. I was trying to explain what felt so awful about that feeling of finality. She said, "But I thought you knew he was going to die." Kind of like, if you know someone's going to die soon then it hasn't come as a surprise, so why would you feel bad about it when it actually happens. I don't think she meant it to sound as cold as it did, she just hasn't ever experienced the death of anyone close to her and doesn't understand. But I felt like telling her I know that everyone's going to die - I just don't know exactly when.

The only person who's really comforting to me is my stepmother, Virginia, and she keeps threatening to kill herself. I guess I haven't given a lot of thought to how bad I feel because what she's going through seems so much worse and I'm really worried about her.

There's no way that anyone can avoid grief when they lose someone important in their lives. It's worse if you try to avoid it because then it comes back to haunt you in other more horrible ways. That's the way I tried to handle it when my mother died a long time ago. This time, I guess I feel lonely more than anything else, like I'm in this place all by myself.