No joy left

Hi TJ32

Welcome to the community.  I'm sorry to hear about the loss of your husband.

You are experiencing normal symptoms of grieving and this will take time to overcome.  We all grieve at our own speed and in our own way so there is no right or wrongs.  Sometimes we have to force ourselves to suffer more pain in order to ease pain.  Force yourself to watch a programme for 15 minutes and get very emotional.  This may help burst the dam and start easing the pressure you are feeling.

Talk to your husband whenever and where ever you want.  Ask him to guide and support you especially if doing something you used to do together.  he will always be there with you and will try to send a sign that he is close by.  You have to open yourself for any sign such as an unexpected white feather, radio / tv retuning or finding something you thought was lost years ago.  Ask him to send a sign to suggest what you should do - you may suddenly get a flyer advertising a day trip somewhere.  This will be his way of telling you to try it so that you can move on.  Would he want you to stay locked in the past or to move on - ask him what he wants you to do.  Do you have any relatives or very close friends who could help?  Tell them how you feel and ask them to be with you when you watch something or visit somewhere.  Those with true understanding will be there for you and will just give you a hug if needed and listen to anything you want to say.  The first step will always be the hardest.  I often think of it like the grand national - the first fence is huge but if you can jump that then the rest is easy.

If you need to talk to someone, please contact the support line free on 0808 808 0000 which is open daily 8 am – 8 pm daily for a free confidential chat.  You can use this link your area to find support near where you live.  This could be 1-2-1 or group and is also free and confidential. 

Also, post as much as you want whenever you want here and someone will always respond to you especially when you want to take that big step.

There is some useful information on coping with grief and information on the symptoms of grief.

This link allows you to download the Macmillan book Coping with Bereavement which is full of useful information and has support contact details at the back.  This booklet about bereavement is free and can be downloaded as PDF or as an ebook.

This link takes you to a leaflet called In Memory which is very useful.

Lastly, here are some words which I hope will bring you some comfort -

Death is nothing at all.

I have only slipped away into the next room.

I am I and you are you.

Whatever we were to each other, that we still are.

Call me by my old familiar name, speak to me in the easy way you always used.

Put no difference into your tone, wear no forced air of solemnity or sorrow.

Laugh as we always laughed at the little jokes we enjoyed together.

Play, smile, think of me, pray for me.

Let my name be ever the household word that it always was, let it be spoken without effect, without the shadow of a ghost in it.

Life means all that it ever meant. It is the same as it ever was; there is unbroken continuity.

Why should I be out of mind because I am out of sight?

I am waiting for you, for an interval, somewhere very near, just around

the corner .......

All is well.

Hope this helps and sending you a big hug.

Thank you 

Dear DaveyBo

I have just posted a new, desperate post. I think that your reply applies to me as well as  to TJ32.

I want to than you so very very much for your long letter. You are so good and helpful. What you write is beautiful.  And I have been in tears, reading your poem.Where does it come from? It is so special.

Thank you so very very  much. You really are a community Champion. Happy5

Hi Happy5

I'm sorry to hear that you lost your husband but glad the my answer helped.  My local team hold a bereavement service every year for those supported by the team.  I usually help at these and got the poem from the team.

As per my original answer, call the helpline or post here whenever you want.  Unfortunately there are no easy answers.  Over time your mind will help you develop coping strategies when any triggers occur.  The pain will always be there and any trigger could hit many years later out of the blue but the many daily triggers will become easier to deal with over time.  The length of time varies for each of us and also on how strong a bond you had.

Talk to your husband all the time and ask him to guide you, ask him to support you and make you feel as if he was giving you a hug.  You have to open yourself to accepting any signs he will send - you could be walking in the park and a bird will come very close and walk with you.  This will be his way of letting you know he is there watching over you.

This is a poem by Christina Rossetti who also wrote In the Bleak Midwinter - 

Remember me when I am gone away

Gone far away into the silent land

When you can no longer hold me by the hand

Nor I half turn to go yet turning stay

Remember me me when no more day by day

You tell me of our future that you plann'd:

Only remember me you understand

It will be late to counsel then or pray

Yet if you should forget me for a while

And afterwards remember do not grieve

For if the darkness and corruption leave

A vestige of the thoughts that once I had

Better by far you should forget and smile

Than that you should remember and be sad.

Hope this also helps and sending you a big hug.

Dear DaveyBo,

You have a natural born gift for getting to the heart and soul of grief support. MacMillan are very lucky to have you. A true Community Champion. Bless you.

Geoff. 

Dear DaveyBo,  Thank you so much. But I cannot accept the line    'better that you should forget and smile /Than that you should remember and be sad'. Better that I should remember and be sad, than that I should forget...and I can still smile, through my sadness. It is all so personal.    I walk down the road late at night in tears, and then I feel my beloved's arm around me, as he walks next to me, to hold and to comfort me.    We had 52 years of loving each other, at such a deep level. I know how very blessed I am, to have had this. But the loss is so great.   Than you for your kind words.  The poem which I read is by Alfred, Lord Tennyson. 'Break, Break, Break'...... Break, break, break,/ On thy cold gray stones, O Sea ! ' Do read the whole poem.....Happy5

There are some very sensible words and advice in David's letter.I hope they help TJ32 and Happy5.

I know this poem is famous, words printed in full or in part often found on Sympathy Cards.. and hopefully it brings comfort to many bereaved people...

But, am I the only person who really dislikes this poem?

*MY personal opinion and I accept not one shared by all

Even the opening line..."Death is nothing at all" !

Actually, death is a big deal for the person who has died and the loved ones left behind. And to follow that up with... "They are in the next room"..  NO! they're not and that's the crux of our grief

Yes, it may then follow on with some helpful platitudes but I'm sorry I for one may be in the minority when I say I have never liked this poem and I think even less of it no I have lost my beloved husband. 

Hi Pooka,

I read the line ' death is nothing at all.' as meaning the death of the body is nothing at all because the soul and the spirit of our loved ones live on in the other dimension as well as  in our hearts.  Speaking metaphoricaly.  They can only  die if we completely forget them.

And the line ' They are in the next room.' meaning they are soul and spirit in the next dimension which some might call ' heaven.' ( A rose is still a rose by any other name.)  And if one doesn't believe in an afterlife,   they live on anyway in our very being.

I lost my sweet wife Anne to pancreatic cancer 2yrs ago. Married 50yrs. Since then I've had numerous signs she's left me from random coins appearing in the house and following on white feathers appearing in the house and randomly noticed outside. It's only when I don't look for signs they appear. And this has happened to both our children as well who live in their own homes. My darling Anne never did die. She is in the next room waiting for me.

Geoff x. 

Hi Geoff,

I totally get where you come from and I too marvel at the little signs... especially this week when I have been so ill with covid and missing the comfort and care of my beloved.

Yet... I still struggle to say or hear the words that it is "nothing at all".

As I know you will fully appreciate, having lost your dearest partner, that small signs, no matter how poignant can never fill the giant gap left behind. So how it it ever be described as 'nothing' regardless of it referring to the body or the spirit. x

Hi again Pooka,

It's all about our interpretation of words and phrases I'm afraid. Being a spiritual person I'm lucky to ' feel' things from a different perspective. But  it doesn't make me special - just different.

I remember saying to a tutor of mine decades ago ' Words are a very blunt tool for describing our true feelings and emotions'  Being an academic he naturally disagreed? 

Take care. And get over your awful covid x