For more about me, see my introduction here: From a Fellow Sojourner.
Lately I've been going through a real sense of mourning, like the loss of a dearly loved one. However, no one has died. I'm 65 years old and in relatively good health. I imagine I may live another 10 to 20+ years. I have no sense of dying soon. My wife, whom I love dearly, is 50.We've been married since 1989. Part of my grief is in grieving for her, having to live 10 to 30+ years without me when I do die. And then she will never see me again. I don' t dare let her see me crying because then she'd want to know why. Since she still sees herself as a Christian, with the accompanying belief in heaven and hell, what would I tell her? Anything that I would say to her would only grieve her.
Another large part of my grief is the loss of my sense of an after life. The thought that when I die, then I'm gone, that is all there is. Forever gone. That is a hard and bitter pill to swallow. In some ways, much better to have a delusion that after I die I go to heaven and am reunited with all of my loved ones. But, now that my eyes have been opened, I can't go back to that delusion. That's a painful transition, to have traveled beyond that veil.
Another thing equaly painful is that I have no one here to talk to about how I'm feeling. If I were to say any of this to my wife, she'd be distressed about me. If I were to talk to any of my "christian" friends about this, they'd try to "correct" my thinking, of quote Bible verses at me to "bring me back" into the fold. I don't need to be fixed. I just need a place to let down, to cry, to be real without someone trying to fix me.