Today I'm a widow

I feel for you, it's the hardest thing losing our spouse .

I'm a cryer, it was over a year before I didn't cry every day. However our love isn't measured by the number of tears we shed., please be assured by that. I always get a headache from crying and feel afterwards so exhausted. 

Take care and I wish you peace

Clancy, I am so sorry to read your post, my condolences to you...

Like you my husband passed away  with somewhat unexpected timing, even though I knew he didn't have long left. I still feel angry that I wasn't with him... for me it was the unnecessary restrictions imposed by the pandemic that barred me from being with him, holding his hand and telling him how much I loved him. I still feel guilty for not being there. 

I also struggled to release the tears, I was always trying to be strong, facing up to the tasks in hand, not wanting to cry in front of others... Therefore, my release caught me unawares, I had returned home with the large tube of my husband's ashes, walked into the house, shut the door then whilst still holding them in my arms the floodgates opened and I sobbed. I don't think I have ever cried like that before or since, I didn't even know that I was capable of doing so.

But, grief isn't measured in tear drops...

Grief is something we on this site all sadly know first hand: The waking up each morning and realising you face another day without your loved one, laying the table for two, then the realisation that you eat alone, the empty hand when you know you have no one to walk beside you holding on to each other's fingers, the empty space in the dark of night, the silence, the loneliness, the memories... 

We have all learnt to take each day at a time, our heartache will never go but we become better at dealing with our loss.

Go at your own pace and deal with what needs to be done when you feel ready. 

Sending you hugs

Mym 

Thank you all for your replies and it's sad to know that there are so many of us going through this form of hell.

I have started to try and sort things out but as some have mentioned I will open a draw or move some books and then walk away again.  I got as far as putting some things in a couple of bin bags to go to our local recycling center today (Wednesday) only to find there are no recycling centers open in driving distance until Friday so now I have bin bags to cope with on top of everything else.  I suppose now is the time to laugh.  

It's now 7 months on and I am preparing to leave our home. It's been hard and I think it's going to get harder. Clearing out the house that was ours and moving into a flat that is mine was a really hard time. Sometime in the next few days it will be the last night I will spend here - it's already changed beyond recognition and strangely no longer feels like home and the new place doesn't yet feel like home so I'm stuck in the middle. I've kept some of his clothes and things but most have gone and now I am going. I'm dreading the auctioneer coming to take things away and I am also dreading walking round an empty house. I'm worried I will feel that I've let him down in some way by not staying but a 3 bed house with step stairs is no good for me alone. I hope he understands

Hi Clancy!

You do what you feel is right for you and I'm sure your dear hubby would understand and just want you to be happy in yourself. Well done for having the courage to actually move to somewhere new. I sometimes think of that often but that is as far as it gets. I live in a flat it is an upstairs flat with a main door a 4-in-a-block I have but I am mortgage free so I have weigh up what the costs would be to move if I have capital from the sale of this I would not get help with renting somewhere and  what I would make on this I would not have enough I think to buy somewhere outright again and I am into my 60's now so getting another mortgage would be difficult. So I just have to try to make do with what I have. 

I have just seen out the first year `milestone` of him being gone and it is only now that I it has hit me. It's hit me like a ton of bricks and the tears have been coming which somehow feel like a release because it's as though I have been waiting for it to happen. My sister also continues to recover from her cancer diagnosis she got her cancer diagnosis two months after my husband passed. They were able to cut hers out last October because her tumour was quite small and caught in its early stages but recently she has had to go for a bone and CT scan been told it's routine and hopefully that is all it is. 

My son's partner lost her mother at the end of April this year also. She also had cancer so it has sort of followed me around over the last year and now just wish it would `do one`. My best wishes to you moving forward and best of luck to you in your new home. 

Vicky xx

You haven't let him down at all. It's hard though I know. Guilt, anger, sadness and loss are what we are now dealing with. I am two years and two months down the line. Still clearing out things. It is exhausting physically and mentally.

We do know it here !

Take care