persistence of grief

It's been six years since Gloria's death. It was a beautiful Friday afternoon in April. She had been to the bank ATM, then driven straight to the grocery store around the corner. A group of youths waited until she came out of the store, then accosted her. She was shot in the chest and killed by a teenaged boy near the age of some of her grandchildren, which included one of my nephews.
Her husband still mourns her death. I know this because a memorial wreath stands sentinel in the grassy patch near that store. That wreath has followed in the tradition of those before it in that locale, bearing witness to the permanent repercussions of a moment of barbarism.
I have to wonder how much longer the wreaths will be placed there, how much longer her husband will express this open wound in his soul, how much longer until the hole in his heart has healed enough to allow a regular heartbeat.
I know it took a long time after my mother's death for my heart to beat as my own again. I was fortunate to have so many supporting me during my long struggle to accept her death. A year passed, and another, and yet another, and still I mourned. I had not realized until she was gone that she, not myself, was the center of my universe. She was my sounding board, my assurance that my actions and thoughts and feelings were real and valid and valued. I had a deep, dark hole of loss that threatened to devour me if I could not develop a sustainable patch.
In the fifth year of my grief, I received an unexpected kindness that allowed me to physically revisit a duty station and some old memories from my twenties and to create new ones in their stead. These would be new memories with ME at the core, new experiences for ME in an old haunt, with my actions void of thoughts of cataloguing to later share my experiences with Mama. I do believe that saved my sanity and possibly my life.
I am truly blessed to have known the people I have known, both now and in the past.