Cairo when i moved i hung his dressing gown on the bedroom door and put his slippers by the bed,because even though i watched him die i was waiting for him to come back, i even spun myself a ridiculous little story as i did it that he was working away doing something very important for an indefinate period.Maybe because we so want to get rid of the pain and to be able to function and want it not to have happened it's our brains way of protecting ourselves.
I also found it difficult to answer people honestly, to this day i still automatically answer ok even when i,m not,perhaps thats a form of denial too, a hope that if we say it often enough we will believe it ourselves.
Your trip sounds very adventurous, i also decided to live my life for both of us.and i try hard to fulfill that. for me, because i am not good at socialising,I feel as though i need legitimacy to be somewhere carrying a camera has become my prop for that and works for me because i like travel and nature. I remember a discussion here about eating out alone,I could not walk into a restaurant and eat alone but then i realised it doesnt matter because i,m happier to grab a sandwhich and eat on the go.My attempts to join things locally failed, because i didnt "fit in" i used to think there was something wrong with me, but in reality that didnt matter either, because i really didnt want to do that activity, it was just things others think you "ought to do" so my advice would be chose the things that matter to you and avoid distress over things that are not important to you.
I dont think anything has plugged that gaping hole or ever will. but if you think of it like a crator, it remains through all time, but crators form part of the structure of our world New life forms around their edges,, they green over and become less stark, it doesnt happen overnight, nature decides what will grow there and how long it will take,we are conditioned to have goals and timescales in our society the "fifve year plan" and it is difficult to let go of that, but nature doesnt conform to those human goals it goes its own way.
