2 years on...

Hi Sarah

I echo everything you have said.

My husband was 47 and passed away 2 years ago 31 March 2018.

Our children were 21, 18 and 12.

 It's so unfair how much of their life they have to live without him, his wisdom and encouragement.

I also am so afraid of being poorly or just how many years I still have to live without him.

I'm sure you know that anniversaries and special dates are especially difficult to get through but im sending you strength and caring thoughts for the coming days

Hi Sarah,

It is only 5 months for me but in some ways it feels longer and some ways shorter.

As you say so much has happened or not ( with covoid). He would have mssed his regimental reunion which was his goal, missed my daughter leaving school and not having her prom. Everything he was living for! I wonder what he would have done without these little goals. I am going to try and do some of the things on his bucket list.

He has missed my job role change, how well my son has done at work through these hard times and how hard he has worked. He would have been proud. I have not even been able to argue with him over the covoid crisis and its management. The changes in the garden etc. 

Only last evening, I thought about how we could have been disagreeing over Boris!! Lol.

I guess we will always miss them but as you say we manage all sorts of other things, my repair to the fence would not be good enough!!! Lol

Love and hugs Alison xxx

Dear Ruby Diamond & Alison

Thank you both for your kind replies.
Some days are better than others for us all I know but at the moment emotions are running high at home & I know it’s because we are all hurting. 
When my husband died my children were 11,16 & 18 so similar to yours Ruby Diamond. My husband was 50 years young.  For me the anniversary is a double whammy as he died on our wedding anniversary about 20 minutes before the time we got married. I will always be married for 26 years exactly but now widowed for 2. 
I don’t worry so much about my actual health bizarrely but just feel that I am unlikely to make old bones. Never even crossed my mind to think this way before but now just think he was so fit & this happened anyway, why should it be any different for me? Sorry if it sounds depressing, I’m just trying to be logical when it all seems so illogical to me. 

I think we are all doing well just to keep putting one foot in front of the other some days & our husbands would be proud of all we have achieved. Keeping going takes great courage, but all of us on here do it daily just the same. 

love to you all

Sarah xx

Can I suggest looking outside the box, things aren't always as they seem, referring to the current situation, that is.

Chin up keep smiling in the face of adversity..

Hello Sarah, what a lovely post . I lost my wonderful husband 6mths ago and I too feel no better . I love him so very much and can’t think of a life without him . I’m grateful of the lockdown as I don’t need to face the world without him. I feel so sad everyday. I no longer feel safe , he was my everything we met when I was 15yrs and he was 18 yrs in July it would have been our 54 th  wedding anniversary . Like you said how could something like this happen to such a fabulous strong loving man . He’s inside my head every waking minute   I miss him so so much and know I can never have him back

My Billy died of mesothelioma which is caused by being in contact with asbestos when he was a young man, life will never be the same. Thank you for listening.       Normski x

Dear Normski

I am so sorry to hear about the loss of your Billy, he sounds very special.
I think it’s because we loved our Partners so much that we now feel so vulnerable without them. We were always such a team. 

Wishing you strength & courage, & I hope you can feel some comfort in your happy memories of your lovely man. 

Sarah xx

Dear Sarah. I think you’re so right about loving them so much it’s the price we are paying now, but just so glad we had lovely husbands. I had to ring my Dr a couple of weeks after our loss as I was thinking I couldn’t go on without him, she put me on some anti depressants which I’m sure must help tho I still feel desperate.  Luckily our daughter son in law and twin girls came to live with us a few years ago which has turned out to be a god send , it’s a large house so we can still have our own space if necessary and we get on really well and they are also grieving a wonderful dad and grandad 
mill never ever enjoy life without him nothing seems to have any meaning now , just go through day to day.    
 Sorry to ramble but I feel you’ll understand x

Normski x

Hi Sarah and all,

I second everything you have said in your post, Sarah. (Well, except for the bit about the kids because Paul and I don't have kids.) 

It was two years for me on 15th May.

Like you, I feel that a lot has happened in two years but that time hasn't moved on much either.

There is so much Paul didn’t see and experience with me. Paul didn't see me making new friends and rekindling old friendships; he didn't see me change my practice name from Dublin Reiki to Healing Well; he didn't see me change our living-room furniture; he didn't experience Malaysia with me where I visited my brother in autumn of 2018, only a number of months after his death; he wasn't there for the visits from my mum, my dad, my brother and my friend Katharina; he wasn't there for the Easter holiday last year for which my brother, my parents and I came together at their place and which was really a wonderful time; and he wasn't there for two Christmas' and two new years' and the list could go on. He doesn't know how I have been navigating this grieving process. It is heart-breaking.

Like you, I accept that Paul is never coming back. Some days are harder than others; but when I say "hard" now I don't feel the crushing pain from before, it's more like an almost unbearable ache or longing in my heart, it's such melancholy, such nostalgia or something like that; it's hard to describe. I have days when memories visit me - and when I say "visit" it really feels like that - when I can visualise his family home, our first apartment, our second apartment, finally our beautiful house or when I see myself sitting beside his bed in the hospital during the final hours. I told one of my friends about this and she said that she thought it was because I was doing more processing now because of writing the book. But I don’t think so. I really and truly believe that our souls (spirit or whatever you want to call it) are still somehow together. I can't explain it in words, not even to myself, but it is as if we were meant to be together in this life, when we met it was like we had been waiting to come together our whole life and now it was finally time, and when he died he left the physical existence and so we are separate again, like before we met, but only in the physical sense. So when these memories come to me out of the blue I feel it is like we are reaching out to one another once more.

Like you, I feel the unfairness and the pain of the loss. We should have been able to be with our husbands for much, much longer. We were so good together. We were such a brilliant team. Of course we had our ups and downs and it would be wrong to say that it was always easy, but for the most part it was a wonderful and love-filled relationship. We did each other so good and that's why it is so painful that we only had so little time together.

I haven't cried much lately but, like you, Sarah, I have this sadness all the time. It is a feeling I have become so used to by now.

I don't eat much of the wrong stuff but I drink too much. I have been having a little glass of something every single evening for the past couple of months, sometimes more than necessary, occasionally even a whole bottle of wine in one evening. I have been more careful this week, though, as I really want to cut down on alcohol.

Like you, I will never really feel safe again. Life feels unsafe. I loved my man so much. And I still do. And life without him feels scary. I am so much more afraid than I used to be: of getting sick, of losing other people I love, of the future... I am dreading going back to Dublin (hopefully in July or August) because then I will be on my own again and, while coming here was certainly right for me in late March, it means that I won't have been on my own for a long time by the time I go back and I can only hope that I will be able to get used to it once more. But, when I look back now, I can see that, while I was coping with being on my own, I didn't like it, it was just something I had to do because Paul was no longer there and I will have to get used to it again.

I, too, come on here regularly and try to read all the posts. It was difficult while I was busy with the book but now I have more time again to read and respond to messages.

I would like to express my sympathy to those of you who have recently lost their partners and have joined us here. It is good that you are here because here you are with people who truly understand what you are going through because we are all going through, or have been going through, a similar situation.

Lots of love to everyone

Mel.

Dear Normski & Mel 

Normski, I can relate to what you are saying. Heart sore sums up how I feel, it’s like a physical ache but so deep inside no one can see it.
I hope in time you will have better days ahead. I think most of us fail to enjoy things as we did before & it was a long time before I looked forward to anything at all. 

Mel, it’s good to hear from you. I know there isn’t much time difference between our losses but although there are differences, our feelings and emotions are much the same. I’m glad you went to Germany when you did, going home will be hard but you did the right thing for you at the right time. 

Wishing you both a peaceful evening 
Sarah xx

Thank you Sarah for your words x Ive had a bad few days can’t envisaged a life without Billy , nothing seems to mean anything anymore, just go through the motions every day .

Billy was my world and we just loved each other so much after all these years , so much to live for , now it’s all ended .

Hoping you continue to be strong and have some happy moments x

  Normski xx