you may find writing helps -sometimes its a way to express what your voice wont let you because of the choking up and it helps you to clarify things in your head as well in making sentances you have to make sense sometimes the fog we find ourselves in prevents that.Time does make a difference as you will know from last time but grief takes different routes and the time it takes to heal is different too so it wont be the same.
I found living life for Keith helped as i couldnt see a reason to live it for myself.
I did that in different ways in part by creating a legacy even though your grandchildren are not close by i think it is important that they know someone even when they are not here, they might ask you when they are older so even something like putting together a memory box would be an idea - maybe not now but when you feel up too it - it is a way of telling the world about her and how wonderful she was and taking that into the future so she is more than just a name.
In my case the older ones remember him but they were still very young, the younger ones were not born but they feel as though they do because their older siblings have told them and so have i. The eldest is 15 now and wants to be a mechanic like his grandad and once qualified go abroad and teach mechanics in deprived areas - which Keith also did - obviousely its a choice for himself as well but Keith remains his inspiration from the moment he stood on a box and the two of them looked under a car bonnet together.
I also went back to some of our favourite haunts and planted native daffodils,i dont have a headstone and we need somewhere to grieve and for me that works better than a cemetary because i love to be in the natural world as did he.
I did some of the things went to places we said we would like too but didnt get chance, and some of the things he would have liked to do and i would have sat out on which stretched my nerves a lot -zip wiring over gotges was never my idea of fun but it did it and so i was doing new things and he was behind me doing them, and in doing all that i had to plan and even the planning gave me some kind of purpose a way to move forward.
I thought i would not be able to do those things on my own and it certainly wasnt easy but it was worth it because it meant i did have a point in my life after-all and i was taking him forward with me not leaving him behind. There is a place in Wales we went at every opportunity to watch the dolphins, we were going to retire there it took over a year to go back and the first time was exceptionally difficult - i wont be able to retire there now, but i do go back every year and after that first time i feel closer too him than anywhere.
I cant forget those last weeks though, how he struggled after the first stroke -how he sent me out to see if the daffodils were out yet because he couldnt see for himself any more -how they didnt come out until his funeral -how he struggled and tried to do things he couldnt, just every day things, hated the medication hated the hospital and all the apointments - hated being dependant, but grinned with triumph when he managed to get to the kitchen and steal half a shepherds pie when i was out - even then there was that humour and mischief that was always part of him - and the last days back in the hospital were horrendous some things i just dont understand about the way he was treated there, but those are not the things i dwell on now, because there were so many more happier things that made up our lives together when the awful memories come up on the card i am holding in my memory, i have learned to drop it and pick up a better one.