The simple answer to how this happened

I woke up today with the daily disbelief that this was my life, wondering how I got here. Somehow the message came to me: my husband got sick and died.

It was a long, slow, invisible illness. The result was the same as terminal cancer. Why do we punish ourselves over-thinking this? So much about mental health is so poorly understood. Just because death is self-inflicted does not mean that it wasn't terminal. I'll never know if there was something out there that could have saved him, just as the cancer patient who could be cured with a drug that's yet to be discovered in some distant future doesn't know if they hang on longer if their life will be spared.

Today this gives me peace. Tomorrow I may return to questioning what happened. But I'm hoping in time I can believe this as truth more often than not and find long-lasting peace. I wish you all the same, however you arrive there.