Let’s talk grief for a moment. During the George W. Bush administration, I had the opportunity to be welcomed into the homes of many Gold Star widows. I’ve watched from the sidelines as they’ve raised their families from toddlerhood to adulthood. The youngest I met was 18, the oldest 53. Some lost their husbands in Iraq. Others in Afghanistan. Some to suicide bombers, some to IEDs, some to accidents.

I’d written a book about what happened to our family after Daddy died in Vietnam and while HarperCollins did everything in their power to promote it, the book was not monetarily successful. A story I intended for the general public was panned and primarily read by those within military communities. Other Gold Star families and veterans.

But the gift of that work was those encounters and friendships I developed within that community. And it’s those widows I’m thinking about this morning in light of yesterday’s election results. Each could recall the moment she learned of her husband’s death. There was a commonality to their reactions – numbness, shock, disbelief. I remember one widow in Texas telling me that when she saw the uniformed officers approach her front door she hid in her bedroom, thinking that as long as she didn’t open the door her husband would still be alive. Widows all knew that if their husbands were just wounded, they’d get a phone call, not a door knock.

You may be having some of those same reactions – numbness, disbelief, an urge to hide away. I know I am. Others of you maybe wrestling with anger. This, too, is normal. One widow told me about how she began to slap at the officer who gave her the news of her husband’s death. I remember how my own 12-year-old brother punched the walls of our tiny trailer as he processed the news of our father’s death.

Grief can make a person rage uncontrollably. Give yourself permission to be angry with the circumstances in which we find ourselves now. Do not censor your emotions. Accept them as a normal part of grieving. I’m not suggesting you punch the first person you encounter or even the second one, but realize that the anger you feel is a reaction to the injustice that’s been thrust upon you. A situation you are in because people in a higher position of authority have forced it upon you and your children or grandchildren.

Vietnam widows had six weeks to move off base once their spouses died. Today’s military widow gets a year. We fought Congress to get them that year. Every therapist knows that you should not make any rash decisions when faced with such trauma. Take time to make a plan that will work for you and your family. Seek counseling if necessary. Turn to others for help in processing your plan. Don’t do anything with a knee-jerk reaction. Wait until the numbness and initial trauma subsides before making a life-altering move.

Lastly, you may find yourself sleeping too much or too little. You may find yourself overeating or not eating enough. You may be tempted to dull your emotional reactions with drugs or drink. Try and avoid that. You are in trauma. Follow doctors orders for any and all medical interventions and ask yourself: “Will this contribute to my health and overall wellbeing?” One young widow I met, who was pregnant with her only child when she got word of her husband’s death, hired a personal trainer once she delivered her son. She then trained to run a Marine marathon. Remember there is no wrong way to grieve, only healthy and unhealthy ways. Take care of yourselves.

This election was unlike any in our lifetimes. We have arisen to a deep-seated trauma. The realization that we live in a nation where millions accept that a convicted felon can rape a woman, or rape a country, call for the execution of a woman before the entire world and still be elected to one of the world’s highest offices. As long as he’s rich and white.

It isn’t just the election of this vile and vulgar and dangerous man that we are confronting. It’s the trauma of betrayal by loved ones, family and friends. It’s knowing that people we respected and regarded as good-hearted and kind are in reality racists and misogynists, eager to lock migrants into internment camps, willing to let pregnant girls suffer and die for some perceived sense of self-righteousness; people who will stand on their feet and cheer a man as he mimics sex acts on stage all in the name of a Christ they claim with their mouths but defy with their lives.

Somehow we have to accept what the widows called “our new normal.” The America we grew up loving and serving has died. We have a new normal now, a country we don’t recognize. We now live among a people that seeks to flaunt their cultish worship of a con man, no matter who is harmed in the process. Our new normal requires that we find a way to live among a people we cannot trust. People who regard us as “other” and “lesser than.” People who in the name of Jesus laud the most aberrant and abhorrent behaviors from their leader and from each other in order to deny women and Blacks a voice in democracy.

One of the dearest young widows I encountered learned after her husband’s death that he had been having numerous affairs while deployed. Grief is hard enough for any young woman, but she had the extra burden of discovering her husband wasn’t the man she thought him to be. He had a secret life, a life that betrayed all that she had entrusted to him. His death made it impossible to reconcile that betrayal.

That’s where we find ourselves as Americans right now. In a place where we will never be able to reconcile ourselves to those who’ve betrayed us. Take care. You matter to me.

Karen Spears Zacharias is author After the Flag has been Folded (William Morrow/Harper Collins).