Physical

My body feels different.  The body without touch hurts.  It is deprived.  I don't experience the same comfort I once did, knowing that Shawn could physically calm me.  My body tenses and the tension seems permanent.  There are no more days of his magical touch, which carried a solution to make my worries disappear.

Emily Post´s 1922 Book of Etiquette´s chapter on funerals states, "it is also well to prepare a little hot tea or broth" for the family after the funeral and hand it to them without asking if they would like it.  "Those who are in great distress want no food, but if it is handed to them, they will mechanically take it, and something warm to start digestion and stimulate impaired circulation is what they most need."

Impaired circulation.  Most definitely impaired.

My body feels guarded, strong, focused, tired, fragile, neglected.  It is easy to describe yet complicated to perceive.  A study in 1984 by the National Academy of Sciences´ Institute of Medicine finds that survivors respond to death with numbness, shock and disbelief.  They may appear to be holding up well but this is only because the reality of death has not yet penetrated awareness.

Other studies show that those grieving loss stop eating, forget to breathe, faint, lose concentration, forget, feel sick and in some regard enter a state of dying.

I read about all these fascinating research projects and theories and think, "wow, they did a study on me."