I read this excellent book called The Year of the Magical Thinking, written by Joan Didion. I just finished it and I loved it, even though it is dark and heavy. The writer explains how she coped with the sudden death of her husband and the hospitalization of her only child. She tells about the different phases she went through the following year and I she would not let her husband go....

Here is the beginning:
" Life changes fast.
Life changes in the instant.
You sit down to dinner and life as you it ends".

Here is the end:
" I know why we try to keep the dead alive; we try to keep them alive in order to keep them with us.
I also know that if we are to live ourselves there comes a point at which we must relinquish the dead, let them go, keep them dead.
Let them become the photograph on the table.
Let them become the name on the trust accounts.
Let go of them in the water".