Writing

Losing someone you love is a heartbreaking and unavoidable part of life. But when the person you lose is your spouse, the companion of your life, the situation becomes completely different. The end of a happy marriage and the knowledge that the old days will never return is one of the greatest traumas a person can experience. When we lose the person we love, we mourn the emptiness that follows.

I have had the chance to observe many people who went through this, and now, like them, I am living through the same process. People say they can easily read the pain on my face, but the sorrow reflected outward is only as much as the suffering we can read on the faces of prisoners in a prison camp. Just as the underwater part of an iceberg is invisible, the suffering of those prisoners, and mine, remains unseen.

My friends try not to leave me alone and tell me not to stay home too much, saying that this house feels like a prison for me. They are right, because when I am alone, this home becomes a prison, and when I feel my wife’s spirit with me, it becomes a heaven within four walls. I know that in situations like this, people are supposed to go outside and interact with others. But my wife’s presence is enough for me, and I feel no need for anyone else. People who experience grief often go through different emotional stages.

In the first few days, people usually fall into shock and deny what has happened. The main reason is the fear of being alone, so they refuse to accept their spouse’s death and continue behaving as if nothing changed. Three days after losing her, while making my first meal, I remembered our very first date. Exactly thirty years ago, I invited her to one of my favorite restaurants. I wore the navy-blue jacket she loved seeing on me. I don’t know why, but I always felt that jacket brought me good luck. A while later, she told me it looked perfect on me.

When I saw her in the restaurant, I could not take my eyes off her. Even though I knew the mystical meaning and scientific effect of colors, I still could not look away. Her red dress, which enhanced her beauty, dazzled me. For a moment, I imagined I was a producer from the nineties sitting behind a commercial screen, but I wasn’t. Her delicate voice suddenly pulled me out of my thoughts. For an instant, I thought I must have looked foolish from the outside because of my frozen expression. I quickly stood up, greeted her, and pulled out her chair. I sat across from her and, as always, looked into her eyes. Later I understood that for people whose souls communicate, words do not matter much.

After a long moment of eye contact, a smile appeared on her face. I smiled back, and this simple act pulled me out of the dream I had fallen into. Just like on our first date, I had worn the same jacket, placed her favorite candlesticks on the table, and prepared a dinner for two. I was sitting at the table, staring into the emptiness in front of me with the candles nearly burned out.

After the shock fades, the realization that your spouse will never return brings feelings of hopelessness and helplessness. This is followed by exhaustion, fatigue, lack of motivation, tension, and sleep disturbances. During this stage, I forced myself to sleep, but I couldn’t sleep for more than an hour. And even in those short, broken sleeps, I would see her.

In my most recent dream, I was coming home from work. When I opened the door, I froze as soon as I saw her. She was there, as always, waiting for me by the door. “Hello, my dear husband. You look exhausted; I guess you had a long day,” she said as she hugged me. She put her hand on my forehead. “Oh my God, you have a fever. Take off your shoes, wash your hands, then come to the kitchen. I will give you some soup,” she said. I could not understand whether this was real or not, and I did not care. My longing for her was stronger than my logic, so I simply did what she told me.

I sat down at the kitchen table. She was heating soup for me on the stove, and without even turning around, she began talking as soon as she sensed me entering the kitchen. “You are not taking care of yourself. Without me, you live like a wreck. You must learn to live without me. I only left home for one week, and I can’t believe what I’m seeing. It’s like our home is a battlefield. Why haven’t you eaten anything for the last few days? Why did you sleep on the couch instead of our bed? Why aren’t you keeping the house clean? Why are all the curtains closed? How long do you plan to live like a bat? Why are you doing all this?”

She paused, swallowed, and continued: “I am truly sorry for saying this, but seeing you and our home like this makes me miss the younger version of you. Back then, you cared about your health and your environment. Now you’ve become completely lazy. If you continue this way, if you don’t take care of yourself, you will get weaker and sick.” She turned, walked toward me, and placed the bowl of soup in front of me. “You know I cannot live without you.” I was about to say “And what about me?” when I suddenly woke up.

After the shock and acceptance stages, many people tend to withdraw socially. They do not want to go to work, meet friends, or communicate. Because of this isolated life, they stop taking care of themselves. After my last dream, I began cleaning the house. While wiping the mirror, I drifted into another daydream. My wife approached my reflection from behind, rested her head on my right shoulder, and hugged me. Looking at me through the mirror, she said, “Why don’t you shave your beard and cut your hair? Why don’t you take a shower?” Then smiling, “I hope you realize that you smell and look like Robinson Crusoe.”

At that moment, my phone rang. “Why aren’t you answering your friends’ calls? Why aren’t you spending time with them? Do you want to lose them the way you lost your job?” She looked away from my eyes. “I’m sorry about your job. Don’t worry, I believe you will start your own business. Please pull yourself together.”

People who go through these stages in a healthy way and do not fall into depression are able to adapt back to life, return to their former roles, rebuild their social relationships, and continue their work or academic lives. Having experienced all of this as a psychologist, I can definitely say it is not an easy period. Throughout this process, my soulmate helped me heal. One of the most important things to remember during such difficult times is that the knowledge and lessons we treasure most are remembered through the roles of the people we love. They appear to us as individuals who carry our own wisdom, helping us rebuild ourselves.

This text was written on August 28, 2022, as an assignment for the English Academic Research and Writing course. The English version, as well as the Turkish translation, has been adapted from the original assignment to remove academic structure and to turn it into a story format.

Vusal Yusif, October 7, 2022

Published publicly on December 11, 2025