It's This Time of Year I Miss Him So Much.

Hi Vicky, its autumn for me too.

It used to be my fav season, but all the bad news came in September every year since 2022 and this week marks that first anniversary without him. Now I dread the feelings and memories. This time last year I was watching him die. I am exgausted, not sleeping and feeling miserable most of the time. Someone asked me a couplf of days ago to think of hsppy memories from the autumn and I honestly cant think of any. My head is just full of sad things. I wonder if it will ever change

Your neighbours moving is just another sign of life going on isnt it, a life we find maybe alien. 

I wont ever move unless its a care home, we made this our forever home and lived here longer than anywhere else. I cant imagine ever wanting to uproute myself and people Ive got to know. Wait and see what neighbours you get, they might be lovely. Ive had the neighbours from hell so I know how lucky I am. 

Hugs to you xx

Thanks Malengwa x

Not just me then. I've lived here for 30+ years so I've seen lots of comings and goings but Jay was here to see them with me. My direct neighbours below me are ok I didn't get on with them when they moved here but we all sort of bonded during covid. Their daughter (who they adopted) has just gone into student accomodation  so that's another change so used to hearing her running about and having teenage tantrums etc and its so quiet now. Not that I am complaining the peace and quiet is lovely but sometimes the silence can be deafening. Yes sometimes this life we are living now can be very alien and sometimes you just don't know where you fit in. Oh dear you will feel this more than I do then as this was the time you lost Tony is it? I more or less sailed through my first year without Jay I think it was just coming to terms with him not being here and still expecting him to re appear at some point but knew it wasn't going to happen. The 2nd year hit me worse I think because then I think it was the realisation that he wasn't coming back after all the dust and hoo-ha had settled from year 1 and this was it I was definitely on my own.  So on we plod one foot in front of the other a day at a time best we can. My sleep patterns can still be a bit off on certain nights and I find myself having to get up if I can't sleep then sleeping longer in the day must try to stop that. Take Care and hugs to you too. 

Vicky xx

I'm finding the change of seasons hard too. Today marks one year since David went into the hospice. We were told it would be for a few days, to stabilise his pain relief; in effect he was there for just under six weeks, until he died. I keep replaying it all in my mind,.wondering if I was naive, should I have asked more questions, been more forceful? So I've lived alone here for a year. My next door neighbour died last August and his house has been empty, but it is now being emptied so will doubtless be on the market soon. I'm worried there will be a lot of noise and disruption as it needs a lot of modernising, and worried who will live there afterwards. Like you, I would have felt better about it all if David was here. 

I really wish someone in my 'real life' understood how hard this is. People seem to believe I'm 'getting over it', I think I'm unhappier than ever. Thankyou for letting me have a moan here xx

Spirit, its why we come here. We may be very diffetent people, from different places and with different ways of life etc. But we share a common bond. The bond connects us because we understand, we get it. I find myself nodding when I read other posts, and thinking, yes thats how I feel too. 

Being a year on my own feels so strange, its gone in a flash yet I also feel in just as much turmoil as I did then. 

We just continue to put one foot in front of the other. X

You moan all you like Spirit.  This is the one place we can all come to when we feel at our lowest because everyone is going through the same thing. I'm glad its not just me who thinks as I do and that there are others here who think the same. Yes its the uncertainty of getting new neighbours in and who you're going to end up with and its just more magnified when you're on your own. I live in a 4-in-a-block property 4 flats in the one building. The house through the wall from me is empty too and has been for almost 10 months they have been in and done all that up too. It was a private let and there was a man living there himself but think the landlord sold it on so he had to leave. You hardly ever knew he was there I called him the `ghost tennant` because I never ever saw him go in or out and didn't have a clue what he looked like he was here a while though and Jay was still here while he was and think he said he saw him a couple of times. It's ones like that you don't mind people that keep themselves to themselves. The things we have to try to navigate on our own.

xx

We moved here ten years ago, it was two guys next door at first, then one died. The remaining one was pleasant, and very quiet. They're family sized houses so I'm worried eventually it will be a family with kids thus lots of noise. I know David would have worried about that too, but I also know there's nothing I can do about it, so it's stupid to stress.

Some days everything just gets too much I think. Yesterday I was ok, today I'm awful. Just got to hope for a better day tomorrow. Thankyou for being there. I wish my real life friends and family were all as supportive

Ah you're welcome Spirit. Yes these things as I said seem so paramount when its just you but before they were maybe just something you could shrug off when your other half was with you as the saying goes `you can buy your house, but can't buy your neighbours`. Maybe we're just stressing over nothing hopefully and things like new neighbours will hopefully work out. I get that too with how you think everything gets too much some days I'm like that too I just get overwhelmed over the stupidest of things. Yes tomorrow is another day so just need to see what it brings and the days after that. Take Care.

xx

I am feeling a little low this week too, it’s my first autumn without Grant as he passed in January, by the time we had his funeral and I had sorted out the main sadmin and was starting to come out of that first few weeks fog it was spring and the whether down here in the south has been amazing since April which made things seem easier somehow, the dark nights and cooler whether seem to make things feel a little harder.  I’ve also lived in my house for many years it’s big tho but I still have my 3 young adult kids living here so it suits but I’m not sure I will want to rattle around in it by myself although I’m not sure I will be able to leave as it really is a big part of my memories. My neighbours one side are lovely they had my kids shouting and screaming in the garden for many years when theirs were older and now they keep apologising for their two grandchildren they look after making noise I tell them that after what they had to listen too it’s no problem - the other side are weird always have been always will be!

Oh my! neighbours must be the same the world over. There are neighbours in my street who have formed wee `cliques` and all know each other but those tend to be the ones that have been here since the year dot long before we were here but they're ok otherwise. When William (my son) was young I had a neighbour below me who moved in she ended up having 4 of her own (two boys and two girls) and her oldest son and William were the best of friends because when she moved here I had just had William and her oldest was only 6 months old. So they all played together. The one through from her who is still there I can only describe as as `tyrant` think Captain Von Trapp from the Sound of Music. He had 4 as well (3 boys and a girl) but I kid you not he used to line these kids up when they were going out in their car and they all had allocated seats and whoa betide! if one sat in the wrong seat they were all told to get back out and go in in the right order. Me and my downstairs neighbour used to laugh our heads off at it. He really was a `little Hilter` always thinking he was superior and used to try to talk down to you other than to you but he's nothing. An incident happened with William one time in which one of his kids blamed William for when he wasn't even there and after that William was excluded from going into his garden to play with the other kids and he used to let other kids in from the street bar William. Jay had a few run ins with him in the past and he never even acknowledged Jays passing with me. We have never spoken in over 20 years. His kids like William have all grown up and moved away now though and he like me has grandkids now (poor kids) but I just don't bother now if there ever comes a day when he will actually acknowledge me with a `hello` or whatever I'll answer him back his wife and sons/daughter always say hello to me if they see me in the street.  My lovely downstairs neighbour moved or emigrated I should say to New Zealand just over 20 years ago and as I said the neighbours I have in now are ok but that special bond is just not there I had with my previous neighbour. My neighbour on the other side of me is also good too she and her husband have been here for quite a few years too but he suffers from ill health now he was diagnosed with cancer as well but its being treated. Her two daughters have grown up too and moved away they were part of the `wee gang` that were here many years ago too. One is in Australia now and has two kids as well and the other has just moved in with her fiance in a house just outside Glasgow so its just those two now. Hard to imagine them all grown up with their own wee ones now you just remember them all as babies. Nice memories to have though of days gone by.

xx

Hi Spirit in the Sky

One year is a very short time. You can’t possibly be getting over losing your husband in that time - or actually ever. Only people who have been through the same thing understand. Others don’t, they find it awkward, lose interest or just think time has healed. 

I hate to say you will be grieving for a lot longer but it’s normal. I am coming up to two years and I don’t feel one bit better but why should I if I loved them that much. 

Be you and be kind to yourself. No pressure. 

Take care x