Bereavement And Identity

I have had a lot of experience with bereavement, through ministry. When I lost my wife therefore, there were some challenges that I would have anticipated -- but there were others I could never have guessed. Possibly my biggest challenge in the long term was one of identity. While people have described me as individualistic, idiosyncratic, original, I discovered that I had not really viewed myself as an individual. I had been two, and anything that now turned the attention on me, alone, was very difficult for me. I froze. I had always been we before, as if everyone was looking past me to the we. A year into marriage with E., I found that I was we again. I could rest again. OBSERVATION: This made me think a lot about identity. We are not individuals, although we might think we are.