What you’re talking about here is loss. Catastrophic, gnawing absence. Your wife has died, and what does this really mean? I think human beings, all human beings, are – by nature – selfish. And so when we mourn we are actually mourning part of ourselves that has died. You have now lost the person that defined you. So, in a sense, you have lost your identity. And who are you now – without her? And you are uncomfortable inside your own skin.
You have become a stranger, even to yourself.
***
Seyton: The Queen, my lord, is dead.
Macbeth: She should have died hereafter;
There would have been a time for such a word.
Tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow
Creeps in this petty pace from day to day
To the last syllable of recorded time;
And all our yesterdays have lighted fools
The way to dusty death. Out, out, brief candle!
Life’s but a walking shadow, a poor player
That struts and frets his hour upon the stage
And then is heard no more. It is a tale
Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,
Signifying nothing.
Slings and Arrows, Season 1, Ep. 3. (re: Macbeth, Act V, Scene v, lines 17-28)