It was during those first few years after his death, that I learned that writing was my best outlet. It kept me sane, and lead me to choose journalism as my first profession.

That was also when I developed Rheumatoid Arthritis and Fibromyalgia. I truly believe that I may have been predisposed to them anyway, but the stress of losing Matt is what launched it. I got ill and was diagnosed within just a few weeks of his death. Since then, as I’ve healed emotionally, my symptoms have also improved.

During the first six to seven years after his death, my healing was pretty limited. I reached the point where I didn’t cry every day, and I resigned myself to a new life of guilt and pain, because that’s how I thought it was supposed to be. I became somewhat obsessive in developing, in my mind, a plan for what I would do and say if I had the chance to do it all over again. Matt was frequently prominent in dreams I had in which I attempted to apologize for not doing enough…but I never got the chance. I became jealous of the other friends who said he had come to say goodbye to them in their dreams in the first few days after his death. On the first anniversary of his death, I had a necklace made that bore his name and dates, and I wore it every single day for six years. Every day. I became obsessed with finding out whether or not he felt any regret between the time he jumped and the time he hit the water. I wrote to the bridge authority to calculate the distance between the bridge and the water, so I would know how long it took.

Every milestone I hit became a source of sadness. Graduating college made me think about how Matt would never do that. Falling in and out of love made me think about how Matt was missing out on that. I even got depressed when I made my first-ever car payment and thought about the fact that he never would.

I knew that not seeing him, or at least a casket, coupled with the fact that I was away from home, was partially responsible for my inability to accept that he was really gone. In my mind, there was just no proof. I wasn’t even able to see his urn. There was always a part of me that believed it wasn’t actually real, and that I would have a chance for a do-over.

There were many many times when I had to remind myself that Matt was more than someone who died. He had once been a great friend and a wonderful source of joy, but I forgot all about that. Friends have said that I was more dedicated to mourning Matt than the most devout of people are dedicated to practicing their religion.

I finally made the decision to become a funeral director. There were many reasons why I followed that path, but the hope of helping to make someone else’s journey through grief easier than mine was at least part of my motivation. While going through my funeral schooling, I concurrently studied to become a grief counselor.

That was when my life changed. Learning about grief, and the ins and outs of various types of grief was a major turning point for me. It was only then that I actually learned about the grief process, and that what I was experiencing was known clinically as <a href=”http://www.health.harvard.edu/fhg/updates/update1203b.shtml”> complicated grief</a>, and was not normal. Once I was able to finally understand what was going on, I was able to resolve the unresolved feelings, and come to terms with Matt’s life, his death, and where it left me.

Of course, it took me 6 years and 20 college credits to reach that point.