What kept my hands on the wheel in those cannot-care-about-myself moments was knowing I did not want to create another me.

Let’s be honest here, sometimes you do not care one bit about your own “safety.” I know. If you are about to get in the car, help yourself calm down before you start. If you are driving while crying too hard to see straight, pull over. I’ve written those rules out for you here, in hopes you might find something to hold on to.ġ. They hung on the wall next to a chair in my kitchen, where I spent hours and hours just trying to breathe. In the first few months of my own grief, I had a list of survival rules. It’s not an ordinary time, and ordinary rules do not apply. The truth is, survival in early grief has a very small circumference. Things that brought comfort in the past become flimsy under the weight of this kind of grief. At that initial time of impact, few things bring comfort.

The first weeks and months after an out-of-order death are a world unto themselves. Grief erupts into your life, rearranging everything. Even when you see death coming, the impact can still come as a surprise. Accidents, catastrophes, sudden illnesses or medical events - statistically unlikely things happen all the time.

What happened to rules of survival