@FreeDuck,
I was really gripped by your post. I feel like although I know little about you, you connected to such a place that it transcends gender, national, cultural boundaries. It is universally human. Having someone you love leave is not possible to describe unless you experience it- but you've captured a small shred of the broken glass.
I hope wherever you are Joe that you are able to eventually see the rainbows that are made from broken glass. That each hurt becomes a prism of light reminding you that out of the broken, there is a chance for new beauty to be discovered. Maybe grief is like a rainstorm that patters on and on. But, when it ends, the sun breaks through and there is a rainbow- as if to remind the world that all is not in darkness.
Maybe it is only through the experience of tears that we fully appreciate the rainbows of life to come.
Keeping you in prayer,
CB