Grief is an immensely complex thing

and should be the subject of more research - although it would surely be one of the hardest things to research.
We were talking about it yesterday. The Senior Cat's first cousin-one-removed M... was here with his wife. They are the couple who lost their daughter-in-law so suddenly four months ago. 
M.... is now the head of this branch of the clan. He is the one who somehow ends up at the funerals. He went to another one last week - for the much too young wife of another first-cousin-once-removed. That cousin has early onset dementia and wasn't really aware of what was going on. His twin girls are trying to cope with the death of their mother and his extensive needs.
M...and his wife have been trying to help their son A... who hasn't been coping well.  His three daughters haven't been doing well either. 
We know it is grief and pain and we can feel for them but we can't feel what they are feeling. Pain and grief are so intensely personal things. All the sympathy and caring in the world really doesn't do it somehow. Perhaps that is one reason why we simply want people to "get over it" and get on with life.
Only you don't get over some things. You learn to live with them but that is not the same thing.
M....and J..., his wife, needed to talk yesterday. They have been through a double set of grief. There is grief for the loss of their son's wife and their is grief for A... himself and the three girls and what they are going through.
Getting to see us is an effort so we have been talking on the phone but it isn't the same as seeing them and giving them the quiet hugs they need now when those outside the family are "getting on with life".  All those first events without T... are still coming up - the first birthdays, an annual family event and (all too soon) Christmas and New Year.  They talked and talked.
There were some positive signs though. M... can still tease the Senior Cat about his failure to watch the football and "remind" him to watch the cricket. They can still talk about the progress of their various grandchildren - every one of them good people who are making a positive contribution.
And perhaps that is what matters in the end. We will go on experiencing grief. I dread the thought of losing the Senior Cat although I know that now it will happen sooner rather than later. Nothing can prepare me for that but I hope I can find something positive in it.