This is the phase where you learn to be okay with the loss of everything you have mourned. You become okay with the fact that you will never call, consult, speak, be angry with, take a walk, hold hands, hug, cry with, listen to, or just hang out with those gone. You start making new realities with the absence of the person gone. It is not okay, but it is something you can deal with. It does not mean that you will never have another trigger and cry your eyes out, it means the ball hits your pain button less. The box remains. The pain button remains. The ball shrinks and hits the pain button less and less. You learn to live with the new reality. The reality of their absence.

This is the phase I have been for the last one year. Letting go. Accepting the reality of the absence. It has been like learning to walk all over again. You stand and fall. Then you stand, take one step and fall. then two steps, then 5. Then the slow walk becomes a jog, someday it shall be a sprint. My great lesson from the journey is, letting go and acceptance is a bit by bit process. You cannot remove those we once loved from our lives like a cloak. One day they are on and another they are off. It is a journey. I give myself time. I am learning to be patient. To be patient with myself. To be honest with my emotions and feelings. To seek help when I can, and most importantly to trust God. His Grace has been sufficient.