Wow, Have Hope. That is some Class-A, heavy duty pain. Very heavy. No wonder you are grieving and having it come at you in waves. Especially after what you've recently been through.

I don't think Moody was saying our grief doesn't matter--I think he acknowledged that it does. Perhaps he meant it in a bigger, cosmic sense. I do think he was trying to help, not hurt.

When I lost my mother to cancer, I was only 24. It was a bigger and more sweeping, devastating loss than I knew at the time. It has taken me years to get over it and I'm still not done processing it all (and I am a mature 60+). She was so different to me, but I realized rather late that she was my rock and my safe place and everything that mattered to me. All I dreamt of my whole life was being free of my wacky, dysfunctional family---but after losing her, nothing felt more important than getting back and supporting what was left of us. I still miss her so much that words will suddenly fail me, and I can fall to weeping with very little provocation.

I could tell you stories about some of the insensitive and ignorant things people have said to me over the years. But I fear they would only deepen your pain. No one who is mourning a loved one needs to hear unhelpful nonsense like that. And I do mean, people have been very uncivil and deliberately cruel about it.

I think that the pain of losing someone to suicide is perhaps the worst kind of pain of all. I have seen big, strong, stoic grown men fall to pieces just realizing that loss. Something like that is bound to have continuing repercussions for a long time. How can it not? We are not made of stone.

You take your time and get through it the best you can.

Sending love and sympathy, and wishes for peace your way.