Stage 4: Reflection, Loneliness and Unexpected Visits.
So I was past half way. It had only taken me a year to get this far. The other Saturday I had the time of my life. I was so happy that day and even for days afterwards!
I had book marked a page on the internet about the seven stages and I was checking it every couple of days. I was moving quite quickly through the stages now. I had done the last one in month! This stage is apparently the one where everything starts to pick up again, where life starts to get better. On the website I had book marked it said…
Stage 4- Reflecting and Loneliness-
Just when your friends may think you should be getting on with your life, a long period of sad reflection will likely overtake you. This is a normal stage of grief, so do not be "talked out of it" by well-meaning outsiders. Encouragement from others is not helpful to you during this stage of grieving. During this time, you finally realize the true magnitude of your loss, and it depresses you. You may isolate yourself on purpose, reflect on things you did with your lost one, and focus on memories of the past. You may sense feelings of emptiness or despair.
So this meant that people around me should be thinking that I should be getting on with things and I should be depressed, I should be thinking about what had happened but not thinking it was my fault. I had stopped thinking it was my fault a while ago. I had realised that Tanya and Maggie were right. There was hundreds of thousands of mothers and fathers going through the same thing as me, some were not so lucky as to have such amazing friends that I did. Though it meant that I shouldn't really take advice from people around me. I should just get on with things. I should also realise the true magnitude of my loss, which I think I had a long time ago. In fact I think that I have done this whole stage in separate places. This one I think is just another time for me to think about Sophie and what has happened, and learn to accept it.
Carlise made an unexpected visit that afternoon, which in all helped a great deal. He sat and spoke to me about it all. I did say to him at one point that already this must be getting on his nerves and he said it wasn't he said that he was fascinated by it all. I said that if I seemed a bit down that it was normal. That I was fine but it was a part of grief that I should be feeling like this.
He left later that night which left me time to think some more; and I had decided that about three things I was absolutely sure. Carlise was the man of my dreams, but there was a part of me and I don't know how controlling that part of me was that was scared, that could make me run away from him, and third, I was unconditionally and irrevocably in love with him.
For the next few days I had isolated myself. I had just gone back to sitting around with the television on but not watching it. I was just sat in my pyjamas thinking about the 2 people that I had loved and lost and the 3rd that I loved, and I wasn't going to loose.
For the next week or so, Carlise made unexpected visits all the time, the were just completely spontaneous he would never call before hand he would just simply turn up, which I actually quite enjoyed, I cherished the feeling that came with the surprise. He knew I loved this and carried on doing it for weeks, in fact he still does it now, he catches me doing something and I have to stop and talk to him, I just can't resist, he is just one of those people that you can sit and talk to for hours and never get bored – not like you do with most people.
I loved him so much.