My wife lost her mother eight months ago. I have never lost a parent. I don't have a reference point for this depth of pain and I am very aware, every day, that I am getting things wrong.
I try to ask what she needs. Sometimes she knows. Often she doesn't. I try to give her space. But sometimes space feels like abandonment. I try to hold her. But sometimes she wants to be left alone with it.
The hardest part is watching someone you love in pain and not being able to take it from them. I would carry all of it if I could. Instead I am standing at the edge of something I cannot enter.
I am also grieving — for my mother-in-law who I loved, and for my wife as she was before this, and for the ease we had before the ground shifted.
For those who have supported a grieving partner — how did you learn to get it right, or at least more right? How do you stay present without projecting what you think they need? And how do you take care of yourself while being someone else's anchor?