Grieving and the death of a Master

Here are a few thoughts on the matter of death and grieving and how someone copes with the death of a Master. I can only write this from my own perspective, but I would like to acknowledge that a Master will be affected by the death of his slave too, albeit in a somewhat different way.

I would assume that any responsible owner will have made provisions for the financial security of his slave, in that she will not have to worry about how she will keep a roof over her head, and so on, whilst grieving for him, so I am only going to talk about how she is likely to cope emotionally and psychologically with the death of her owner.

I don't know how many of you have ever had to deal with the death of a partner, in any context, and I would not go so far as to assume that all grieving processes are the same, but I have.
I lost my first husband when I was 22 years old. He died in a road traffic accident and left me with an 18 month old baby. I wasn't prepared for his death, I don't think anyone, even those who have expected losses, are ever really prepared for death when it happens. First there is nothing except for the shock and an overwhelming feeling of unreality. I think it took me about 6 weeks to actually realise he wasn't around anymore and the pain was immense. I found that once I started to cry I couldn't stop. I couldn't eat or sleep. I looked after my baby completely automatically. I didn't even remember many of the days that passed by. My family held me together for those first few weeks.

It took me about 11 months, after his death, to actually come to terms with the fact that he was never coming home, that he wasn't even out there somewhere. I can't express to you how helplessly sad that made me feel.

For a while I felt I wanted to die. I have no problem saying that, because I know it is the truth, whatsmore I was not afraid to die.
I wanted to die because, for a while, I had no future. Everything I had ever imagined of my future involved us, and now that was so changed I had no future. Somehow, when you loose your grip on some sense of a future, you don't feel alive anymore. I wasn't afraid of dying, what stopped me from dying was knowing that I would be inflicting the same amount of grief on all the people who were around me, loving me. My family, my friends but most of all my baby. I couldn't do it to them, and eventually I couldn't do it to me.

My loss was extremely painful, and one of the things that many people said to me was "at least you have his baby". I know their intentions were good, and so I forced myself to smile and say "yes, at least I have his baby". Its the one thing that I remember the most because its the one thing that hurt me the most. I already had our baby, our baby was a different person, a completely different entity. Somehow their implication that having our baby could fill some of the space my husband had occupied seemed abhorrent to me.

My husband and I weren't in a D/s relationship, we were completely vanilla, infact in many respects, I had the more "dominant" role, in that I was the one who always had to sort things out. I know how much my loss was then, god only knows how much it would grieve me to loose Tanos now. But there are somethings that I do know.

I would survive it. Infact I would probably survive it better than I did before. I know how to cope in the outside world, even though it is not my ideal environment, I can survive out there. Living with Tanos hasn't made me forget how to pay the bills, get the things I need to survive, I haven't forgotten how to put food in my belly. Nor have I forgotten how to talk to people, how to make friends. If anything he has taught me a great deal about myself. So much that I wouldn't be afraid to ask for help anymore, nor would I run from accepting it.

The best thing he will have left me [his legacy, if you will] is enough knowledge about him to know what he would have me do. That's how I will cope without him, because he will have given me his strength to cope without him. I will always be a submissive, but I will carry a little bit of "Master" inside my head, and that makes me stronger, not weaker. That will help me to cope, not make it so that I can no longer cope.

Tanos wouldn't leave me to someone else. How could someone else step into his shoes and enslave me? I know how grief affects me, I would deeply resent anyone coming along and trying to step into his shoes. I also know how much work is involved in enslaving someone, how could any dominant go about enslaving someone whose personality is so altered by grief?

That said I do think that having as much support and understanding as you can possibly get around you worthy beyond words. I have friends and family still, but it would be good to think that among some of those friends there would be those who understand, on a much deeper level, what his loss actually means to me. Someone I could rely on understanding without prejudice.

As to a slaves death being easier than life alone, Masterless, I cannot speak without bias. I believe that for some, and for sometime, that option may seem like the best answer. I have been there too. I also know that it is not the real answer, because there is always the other side to anyone's grief, no matter how hopelessly lost they feel.

I would think it far more worthy of a Master to prepare his slave for their separation through his death, by making her strong, by sharing himself with her, in such a way that she is able to draw on his strengths even when he is not there. I would think it part of his responsibility to take into account the grief he would inflict on all those people, friends and family who would grieve for her too, should she die.

I can empathise with the feelings that "life is not worth living without him" but I know that I would only be without him in a physical sense, he will always be with me internally. His last order is far more likely to be "live" than "die".

lili (March 2001)