More difficult to move on than I imagined

I am sorry for your loss and you find yourself on this path. It is 23 weeks for me tonight, and to be honest, I am losted. The stuff you used to enjoy you don't.  You have to try and find a new you. Which is hard, the main thing is to look after yourself if you can, eat,drink and sleep. Take care

Yes we are all trying to find the new you/me. I am still doing it after being on my own for two years now. Luckily I am quite happy in my own company and for the first time I am now looking at how I can come and go as I please and do or don't do what I want when I want. Some days though you just think to yourself `is this it is this my life from now on`? My husband too wanted to pass at home Blackhawk, but in the end it just wasn't possible. He made a very swift decline within the two weeks before he passed. He became bedbound in the end and went from sitting up scrolling through his mobile phone to getting his 4th bout of sepsis which along with his terminal cancer just finished him in the end. When the sepsis took hold for the 4th time he had to be stretchered out of this house because his blood and oxygen levels were virtually nothing so there was no chance in sitting him in a chair. They needed another ambulance crew to come out and lift him as it was two lady paramedics who attended first off and they had to send out two strapping blokes to lift him Jay was a big bear of a man but there was hardly anything of him at the end but he was just like a rag doll and too floppy for the two ladies to lift. So that is how I remember him leaving this house for the last time on a stretcher and he passed away in hospital the week after. I'm not looking for `companionship` I'm in my 60's now so think after 40 odd years married I'm over all that nonsense now but stranger things can happen and if it does, it does I'm not particularly looking for it. I have family close by and concentrate on them now. My son and daughter in law live not far from me with my little granddaughter who look after on occasions and I am to be a grandmother for the 2nd time this November so something to look forward to. Just do what you feel is best for you. I'm sure you will find the best route to take eventually. Good luck moving forwards. 

Vicky. 

I had a long chat with one of th3 other volunteers at work today whose husband passed away nearly 4 years ago.

She said for her, and I know we are all different, the first year went relatively quickly as she was in a permanent daze state. Always confused. All the sadmin to do. Having to learn new skills. Work out finances and the home. All the “firsts” went by in a haze. 
The second year is when it really hit her that he wasn’t coming home. So she relived all those firsts again, afresh, but harder.  
She found the second year harder. All her friends had moved on. Her family had changed with births and marriages and relocations. People expected her to be “better”. She more alone than ever before. 
The third year is when she said she started to think about her life, what she wanted to do. Where she wanted to be. When she started to live again. And not feel guilty about doing so.
This fourth year she said she has finally accepted that he has truely gone and with that she is beginning to enjoy the new life she has carved out for herself. Her new roles. Her new place.

Yes she still cries at the injustice of it all. At the loneliness. 
She still sometimes finds it hard getting home to the silence. 
Cries at the meals for 1. Odd moments. 
But she feels she has at last started to live again. 

I can see this pathway ahead of me. 
And knowing that the 2nd year for many people I have spoken to is harder than the first, in a different way, kinda makes it less pressure to hurry up and get “better, back to normal”.

Hi 

I am coming up to the end of my second year and what you have just said is very reassuring. I have also found this 2nd year very difficult. 
The first year seems to be all about just getting through the day , well that was my experience anyway. The second year is realising they aren’t coming back and thinking well what do I do now. I am in my early sixties and was married for 41 years and knowing that all our retirement plans have all gone and we are not going to grow old together is what has really hit me. I feel lost.

Roll on year 4 x

Completely agree with what you have said there Vicky.

I am similar age and was married same length of time as you and am nearing the end of my second year. 
I’ve not been on this site for a while, just occasionally browse it but can remember when we were both on the Carers forum and talking to you on here in the first few months after I lost my husband . Nice to see you are still on here supporting people x

Hi there, I have just started my second year, and it  seems to have got more difficult. I can’t be bothered to socialise, I think I have shut down. I am doing the basics, looking after the family, paying the bills, apart from that, I don’t really care. Kate. Xxx

Hi

I actually thought that once I had got through the first of everything’s that I would find the second year so much easier and like you I did shut down for a while. I just and still do some days go through the motions of living. My family have all got families of their own so for the first time in my life I am actually living on my own which took some getting used to. 
I have made a huge effort this year to socialise but most times I really don’t want to go anywhere but always feel better when I have .

Do you still have children at home ? 
xx

Yes, aged 28 and 32. Luckily, we have enough room. I have fought so hard to get this far. I just feel heartbroken, and I don’t seem to able to get a grip on the grief. Kate. Xxx

Grown up children then, wasn’t sure if they were young ones.

Just keep fighting sweetheart and the next time someone asks you to do something socially please accept. It really does help me. It’s usually only a lunch date or a coffee shop date with old friends but it forces you to get changed , do your hair and make up and get out the house. I usually feel so much better for it.

The only positive thing that I can say has happened through the last year is that I now remember and think of my husband as he was before his diagnosis. The first year every time I thought of him I couldn’t get past seeing him in his last few days.

Xx

I should be out tonight, but I have chosen to stay at home. Part of it, is that I don’t want to talk about my husband all of the time. Everyone, naturally asks “How are you doing ?”. I can’t be bothered to pretend. Or the sympathy looks. Perhaps, I have grown two heads and don’t know.  It is just easier to be on my own for now. It feels 24/7 at the moment. Kate.xxx