My mother died in October, a few weeks before her 80th birthday (my father died 4 years ago) and I have days of OK and days of really not OK at all. I have two sisters who are very helpful and are in this with me and we have each others' backs, but my spouse thinks grieving is morbid and someone I had considered my best friend of over 20 years simply wrote an email that said "I'm sorry". That's it. I got more compassion from neighbors and strangers than my friend so I feel like I'm mourning the loss of what I thought was a solid friendship, too.

My mother was wonderful. Her death was not unexpected, she had lived a long life, but my world is so different without her.

The "adult orphan" feeling is weird, too.

This first Christmas without her is going to be tough. Hell, every day at 6pm is tough, because that's when we always talked.