I get an email every day from the grief group that I went to over the winter. This one came yesterday and was very appropriate for my day.

A part of who you are is gone. Your identity is shaken to the very core. You wonder if you will ever feel normal again or if you will ever enjoy life again.

"When you lose a mate, you lose part of yourself," says Dr. Jim Conway. "It's as if you've had an amputation of an arm or a leg. I think that you don't really recover; you adjust, and the process of adjusting varies with every individual. There's no formula."

The pain that comes from the loss of a spouse is much deeper than most people realize because in a marital relationship two people become one flesh.

When part of your flesh is abruptly taken away, there is a ripping and a tearing that leaves a huge, open wound.