Nurse mel

I am almost 3 months out from losing the love of my life and still are devastated beyond words that are all hidden by a smile. We were almost 13 years together and almost 10 years of marriage. Through those years, my husband would often say to me that wherever we where together, he was home because i was there. He was my best friend, my husband, my protector and my home. I am beyond devastated and had to have learned to be an adult all at the same time. We had one bank account, thankfully. My husband took care of all of the bills, the shopping, the mail, the cooking, most of the cleaning and laundry. My journey has been far from easy since within 24 hours of burying my husband, I had my father's wife make a truly inappropriate and selfish comment at the celebration of life the same day of the funeral (which to be honest, I did not handle with style or grace. There was yelling and some swearing on my part because I had enough). I had my only sister boss me around, talk down to me and judgment me. To top it all off, I had my only brother come into my bedroom at 530 in the morning, where my husband died after having a seizure with me performing cpr with no success less than a week prior. This man yelled at me so loud that it put me into a PTSD moment where i couldn't move and proceeded to judge me because all I could say while staring at my husband's body was "I loved him for thirteen year." He continued to yell at me for being financially irresponsible (he brought up some personal things and not in the best of language) even though that my husband took care of the bills and yelled at me for "being a bad mother and poor role model" because I asked my 22 year old son who was financially struggling to move back in. All of this yelling was done in front of my son who just buried the only father that he has ever known all in my home that I own. Now for what I have learned. The things that I have learned in my journey from my husband's death and the pain that my family has caused is to "breathe, breathe, just breathe", not to expect anything from anyone because you will probably be let down and you will be happy for the people that are truly there to help pick up the pieces, my emotions and feelings are valid, being assertive in life is a good thing, and everyone is morning a memory of my husband and what could have been. This last one took me a while because I was so angry with other people's grief especially if they weren't around. But, even I am mourning a memory of my husband whether it was the moment that I saw the light go out of his eyes or the memory of the first smile that lit up a room. We are all mourning a memory and it's okay to grieve. I hope that my story of my journey has helped with letting people know that with true love and support, we can all get through this because this is far from easy. Good luck and lots of love through your journey.