Hello I'm new here help me!!!

So sorry for your loss. Must be really hard having to arrange over the phone,

 I'm sure you will find the group helpful. I don't post a lot but reading how others feel helps me.

Take care

Hi numbnik So sorry for the loss of your wife its just the most awful of times my heart goes out to you tonight and sending you a man hug now . Keep on posting lots of people on here somehow help at times and it's always good to talk to others . God bless and my condolences again .

So sorry for your loss Numbnik and glad you are here to get some support. I lost my husband on the 21 March and am just coming to terms with it. I get help coming here and sharing with others and walking with my dog. Take care Numbnik x

I can't offer any advice to be honest s I think we all grieve in different ways but I can just let you know my partner Carla's cremation was done without anyone there (I live in Italy and things a 'different' here) but I did think she would have seen the funny side of how it all worked out, we will have a family service here when we can and she will be placed in her families tomb with her Mum, Gran and favourite uncle.

I would say in your three weeks find things to do, moping is easy, doing stuff isn't. Although moping still takes up too much of my time, as does being angry, being distraught etc..

Solitude is not something we can avoid these days and that for me is the hardest part, my Italian friends and neighbours have been great but again in the context of lock down.

I will say the people here in this group are fantastic and they are the ones who 'do' know how you feel. It's very tough and some days seem like it will never end but even I am beginning to see a tiny pinprick of light at the end of the tunnel, so hang on in there and see progress measured in tiny steps, I would suggest a diary as I do rating days and I have seen the bad days reducing but the process is not linear and I have lost periods of three days or so where thing s just go to shit!

Thanks for your reply so far walking my dog is just the best thing in the world. Without her I don't think I could get up some mornings. 

What I would do for a dog now! We always had dogs in the UK but not here as we were travelling around looking for the place to settle, Carla was big on mastiff rescue and at one time we had a Neapolitan mastiff (65Kg) a Cane corso great dane cross (75kg) and a smaller Cane corso cross a mere (45kg) walking them was interesting if they saw a cat!

Hi Nik,

I am so sorry to hear of your loss.

I think we all grieve differently. I have had to be a busy busy person. That is starting to get harder now as things have slowed at work and most of my jobs at home have been completed! It has never been so clean! Lol. And it was never dirty anyway! 

I have found times when it has been hard, my husband died suddenly at Christmas and although thankfully we had the funeral in January before all this covoid lark, I had just found the courage to collect his ashes, decided what to do with them (as it was all quicker than anticipated) and we hot locked down do I am in limbo with the ashes and not scattered as planned on the right date! We have also had to have an inquest as a sudden death band that seems to be never ending!!! I don't feel I can move any further forward to both the later are done! 

I am hoping to scatter him on June 23th now if lockdown and work allows! 

Just do what you feel right when you want to do. 

Love and hugs Alison xxx

Hi. I’m new here too. Husband died on 10 April. Like you the first 2 weeks were taken up with busy stuff. I applied for probate and did all sorts of admin and appeared “fine”. But all this was a safe zone for me...a bit like my work. Once I got as far as I could with the paperwork, and had to stop,  then whoosh, all the grief came back in , a real tidal wave. I had four weeks off work, and that has not been enough for me, as the funeral was at the end of those four weeks, and I was still sorting a woodland burial in my first week back at work, Week two of trying to work , I am exhausted  drained, and cannot concentrate. Working on screens at home isn’t likely to be great for anyone in this situation, is it ! 
All I can say is...don’t be ashamed of your grief. It’s how it is. I’ve been astounded at what a powerful and strong emotion it is.  I find that when it bubbles up it is unstoppable.  My adult boys are less affected.  They love their dad,  but their lives are not , fundamentally, so deeply changed as mine is.  They are looking after me. I reckon grief is the flip side of love.  Another surprise...all those songs about heartache ...I used to think that was just flowery language.  But today, my heart really did ache with the intensity of my despair and disappointment.   It is so very hard to accept that our loved ones are gone. 

One friend today said that in her experience getting through the first year is the hardest.  All those first anniversaries and birthdays without your  loved one, all those moments when you think “ this time last year we were doing....”, all those times when you first have to do a thing by yourself.....all that cr##. Sounds believable. And then the anniversary of loss. Oh dear. Another dear friend, much older than you and I , told me that after 18 months she felt she was managing to get her life back to a new normal. 

So we need to be kind to ourselves and to each other, and accept that this is not going to blow through quickly ? best wishes.  

That’s ALOT of dawg.