The 2nd year
So the famous first year is over, the year most people kind of expect to be difficult or at least different. You´ve gone through his first birthday without him, the first holiday, the first Father´s Day and the first Christmas. You´ve gone through all the seasons, shifting from winter to spring, not seeing him get out shoveling snow or plant something in the backyard. It´s shifted to summer without him BBQing and the first Christmas night came and went without him reading the Christmas gospel. The first year is expected to be hard - everywhere - in other cultures wives would dress in black or wear something black on their arm (sørgebånd) the entire year, but then what? What happens after that? Does it mean that things turn back to normal and stop hurting? Well, talking to my friend that lost his Mom 18 years ago this February, he says: "It never becomes easier! It just doesn´t!" That sounds horrible. Unbearable. If it will stay like this. Or maybe, as others have told m...