It's nice to see you again too. I'm so sorry about your sister. I lost my sister a few years ago, although due to her illness, we really lost her a long time before she actually died. I still find myself taken by surprise by the sense of loss from time to time, although I have now stopped being amazed that she is still dead. I don't know if that's clear - I'd never lost anyone to death before and was surprised by the permanence, which seems like an odd thing to be surprised by.
I hope you are able to find people to talk to about your loss. I bet there are onling groups out there somewhere. And thanks for mentioning the book - I'll check it out.
I guess that's where observation comes in - trying to make ourselves more 'disinterested observers' of our actions and our S's reactions - rather than reacting emotionally to what's going on. Or maybe learning to observe our emotional reactions from the same slight remove, since we probably can't stop having them. I remember reading a story a long time ago about a Buddhist master (is that what they're called) who had been sharing the Buddhist philosophy that everything is an illusion, or that nothing really matters or whatever the approach is to trying to achieve this place of serene observation. His son had died and he was mourning, very sad. One of students asked him why he was reacting this way to something that was only an illusion. He replied that it was a particularly painful illusion.
I'll try to drop in on your thread later to catch up.
