Be well and get through it honey

@bobwjr Thanks...my other son is coming over to visit at that time...we will go out and do something to take our minds off dwelling on it.

@Marionville great

@Marionville do much the same thing myself

Tell me about it! Unlike the linked article, I have found the effect somewhat cumulative, at least for close family members. I long since remarried after my wife died, and I don't actively grieve, but I feel diminished by the loss just the same. Not just her death, but the lengthy process thereof, and the connected suffering (hers and mine). Add to that my son's death a little over 3 years ago, on top of my brother and mother (those are just the ones who died through accident or illness and not the ones who died at more or less the expected time) and it feels ... for lack of a better term ... like I have been changed so much that I don't really recognize me anymore.

And of course that's just bereavement, and doesn't address betrayal and garden-variety disappointments and all the other crap that happens in life; nor does it set me up well for the accelerating rate of natural losses that come with age. My two surviving older brothers will likely precede me in death, for example, one of them possibly quite soon. And I sometimes joke that just like they had this booklet about "your developing body" when I was an adolescent, they should have one for this phase of life titled, "your disintegrating body"!

I am not clinically depressed, or even reactively depressed, but I do feel that such things diminish us just the same. To be involuntarily and permanently altered by a negative experience, is to be diminished -- even if you find ways to transcend it. I feel less, trust less, expect less, hope less. It's one of the reasons I think biological immortality, if we ever achieve it, will not work for us psychologically.

@mordant Yes. It does feel like a piece of us is gone. And it doesn't grow back.

I think I’m lucky to have them, lost my first friend at 16 and thought the world was ending. No scars would mean I never remembered him.
I don’t see it as losing me, but me carrying them along, so them becoming part of me via memories.
I guess it’s just a matter of perspective. I know I managed to make some lives better during the end and that’s a privilege.

Is that related to the original post about dealing with grief and loss in a non religious manner?

Yes, in the sense that it takes a look at the theistic fallacy. You know,"...nothing happens in God's world by mistake." In loss the element of personalization, self blame, can be serious barrier to a healthy recovery from loss. Personally, I have discovered that having insight into common responses to loss is hugely helpful for a healthy acceptance of loss. Also, author has several talks on YouTube. Erhman does not do feel good books but is a respected and prolific author. Give it a look. He is a noted agnostic sometimes owning being an atheist.

I suppose we all deal with things differently, I’m sorry that your experiences aren’t improving with age.

I think the 'testament' used in that was NOT in the same sense as the Faithfools use the word.

Testament: "something that serves as a sign or evidence of a specified fact, event, or quality"