Being smothered by friends - sounds ungrateful but being suffocated.

That's tough.  Personally I would let the phone go to answer machine, you could have a message to say that you need some time out. Then you can get back if and when it suits you.

Good morning Nellie I'm so sorry for your loss its such a short space of time and you must be hurting so much I guess people are just concerned for you at this terrible time and care for you . I'm opposite don't hear from anybody really I hate how you been . Keep calm nelliej huge cuddle for you god I miss a cuddle .

Firstly I'm not going to ask how you are or offer form of sympathy!

I'm about three weeks into my grief and probably get the opposite of your situation (apart from my mum "Mum don't keep ******* ringing, I am ok if I'm not I'll ring you ok, yes I know your worried etc but sod off for a bit yeah?"

If I was in your situation I would probably have handled things far worse than it seems you have done.

But if it was me, I would select the worst offenders, prepare some notes, gird my loins and ring them. I would:

• Explain the constant a "you oks" do not help
• Tell them I have everything in order and even if I don't it's my f**k up to make
• Tell them I need space from the reminders etc and how about a distraction afternoon where you go out and 'it' is not mentioned

Then I would put the phone down and 6 months later wonder why no one had called me ever again!

Wishing you well and happier days..

Oh btw: when I got my partner's Carla's ashes, it was like scene out of a spy film. I had to meet the funeral guy at the local cemetery. ( I wasn't allowed at the cremation and here in Italy you can't keep the ashes at home) There had to be another guy there who was the cemetery guy, I was handed the urn, we had a difficult muttered conversation and then Carla was placed in the small chapel to await the time when her family can come over to say goodbye. Maybe a bit more dramatic than Deliveroo!

I guess in some ways it is nice they care but I also understand that you want to be normal sometimes and talk about something else!!!

Soon enough we are normally forgotten and nobody else remembers! Not sure what is worse! 

Not answering the phone sometimes might be good.

Take care and rant away!

Love and hugs Alison xxx

Thank you for these replies, I have got my perspective back in focus. Mccmcc, your handover of the ashes does sound like something from a Grahame Greene spy novel. 

It reminds me how friends can never get it right. At the point of terminal diagnosis, they got is wrong in many ways especially around asking impossible questions. Then they got it wrong if they gave us space.....Then they willl always get something wrong around timing as they are not living the cancer and dying at the same pace as you. Facial expressions....sad face, cancer face...normal face wrong. 

So just after the funeral no one mentioned him for weeks, that was wrong. And they didn't know what to say to me, so no one said anything. Wrong. When they asked me how I was that was wrong as I wanted to talk about my partner.  Then when they ring up to ask and talk about him and I want to talk about cookery programmes, that is wrong. 

I am bored with only being able to have conversations due to living alone and being isolated due to Covid.  I cant just sit next to someone. I have not touched another human since the funeral on Fri 13th March - weird, I may well be very inappropriate when we can touch people again.  

So I feel a bit sorry for my friends, and the best thing I can do is get in first and state what I need and want and what is and is not helpful. 

These replies have been useful to remind me that its the cancer and sadness that is the issue, not the kindness of others. 

I think we are all on the same road, just different stretches of that road, some of us travel quickly along straights, others slowly with twists and turns, none of us started at the same point on that road and for most of us each day brings a different topography and type of road. Yet I think we all have in mind a destination that is very similar and hopefully one day we will get there.

This morning for me it was twists and turns and rolling back down the steep parts, after 10:00 I found a better stretch and gained the ground I'd lost.

Nellie, I think your perspective and ability to look at this objectively will help you enormously but obviously we all are still subjective about our experiences, I think I understand about the living alone thing as I do myself and the last human contact I had was the day Carla died, (obviously cuddling her as she died and then rather against the rules some of the nurses gave me a hug as I wept bitter angry tears) so this lack of touch is an issue, but it's similar for many people as well these dark days.

And I'm giving myself a pat on the back for not inquiring to the nature of your 'inappropriate touching' (Oh crap I just mentioned it didn't I?) Apologies but it made me laugh out loud!!

I was doing OK now the damn Radio is playing "Wish you were here" by Pink Floyd...

Tear time again!

Buggering Pink  Floyd, unfair. I see you lost Carla 5 May, so recent, so sad. 

I like the idea of the topography and types of road.  The ups and downs are all part of it.  Yes the road may have pot holes but, for me it will go ahead and forward.  Must not take the bends too fast though. 

 I have a 300cc Vespa Scooter and the best thing for me is getting out on the open road and feeling free.   I am trying to be sensible with the urge to buy a 500 cc motorbike. - The Honda Rebel is calling but it is 25 years since I had a proper bike. Still life in the old dog yet and friends are already anticipating a new mid life crisis, would be a shame to disappoint them. 

Will have to wait and see about the inappropriate touching and contact with friends. There has been  something about the physicality of the last two years that was so intense. Nothing like a terminal diagnosis to focus the mind and body into packing 30 years of everything physical into a short time. All credit to the Oncology team whose aim was maintaining physical quality of life and timing bursts of steroids for maximum ooomph. 

And after a the physical disability started to kick in there was physical decline. He got thin - a 20 stone big  tall bruiser to a bony  10/11 stone and needed new clothes. That was weird seeing and feeling the changes. Then graduated from  new natty Superdry pants in to incontinent pants ( "my new superdry"). In the last 6 weeks when he lost his mobility it became intense in a different way. I  miss the physical nature of caring and helping my partner wash, bath, dress and stand and massage his legs and head.  And the last few weeks of holding hands or holding each other intensely because we knew it was nearly the end. 

I have photos and can see him, but it is the hearing, touching, smelling tasting and feeling that I miss.  Expect there is a song for that too. 

Yes that touch and you are left with the memory of what they had become not what they were, but I'm keeping the woman, who when swimming in the clear sea in southern Italy for a spring, summer and autumn in 2017 would go "Oh fucking nora" when dipping her boobs in the cool early morning sea water, that's my girl! 

Carla asked me what I would do if she died some time ago and my reply was "God knows, get a Moto Guzzi 850?" She never wanted me to get a bike..

Rough fingertips from too much gardening, there's host of things I keep and I can't let them go.

Had an evening out with an English speaking group who meet here every two weeks, nice people. Just wish it could have been two of us who went!

For me there is something about being the one person left holding the knowledge of the relationship and the intimacy and the tiny little things. Like the rough skin mccmCc.  The things that don't mean anything to others, the little phrases ....these are the private bits that are hard to share with friends. 

Wildcat, just wanted to acknowledge you are in this group now. Recognise your name from previous group and sad for you that things have led you here. 

Good to see and remember  them as they were  before getting ill and physically changed. My partner was quite curious about his appearance and I am going through the computer and his phone to a range of selfies that chart the changes right up to two days before he died. Weird. He even asked the nurse for a copy of the photo they took of his pressure sores on his bum. I might file those way for now on a USB stick. I'll look at the one of him when we got married. He looked a bit of a big fat sod with a huge grin.