Cancer Widow/Widower Club

Hi Joe,  Its going to be tough for you in the next 6 weeks to navigate your way through these anniveraries.  I sincerely hope that the route(s) you choose to take turn(s) out to be of the one(s) of least resistance .... ie.  cause you the minimum of grief.   All the best mate .... stay strong .... Trev

Dear All,

It may be of interest to some of you that the Bereaved Partners Support Group will be holding its next session on Monday 18th July. The Bereaved Partners Support Group (BPSG) is a new support group for people who have lost their partners to cancer. The aim of the group is to create a regular space for people to share stories and experiences with others who have experienced a similar kind of loss. It will be held at the Vale Community Centre in northwest London from 6:30pm – 8:30pm.

We aim to show people they are not alone in their grief and to support them through their loss. The group is defined by its users and we want to make sure we continuously provide reliable and beneficial support, therefore, the group will evolve according to members’ needs. We will have the chance to share experiences over refreshments, and we will occasionally have speakers, which will be announced on our website. However, a constant element of the group is space – the space is there for you to talk, listen, or simply to be. If you are bereaved please do feel free to come along. We are here to support you. And please do spread the word to anybody you think may benefit from the group. 

Please see our website for details:

www.bereavedpartnerssupportgroup.com

Warm wishes,

Erin Thompson

erin.thompson@bereavedpartnerssupportgroup.com

ashbonce i only found and signed into this site today and the first posting i read was yours. I couldnt believe it when i read your posting it was just as though i had wrote it myself you described exactly how i was feeling as you say when you know it is going to happen it is as though your greiving starts then.The hardest part i have found as you say is trying to be strong for your daughter which in my case is a 13 year old son.Its true what they say until you go through it no one can truly understand the feelings that you have every day.no matter how hard family and friends try.Its 6 months now since i lost my wonderful wonderful husband and i wont tell you it gets easier because it doesnt but i have found having my son to be strong for has given me more understanding of what i need to do with my life. Im sending you lots of love and be strong   Diane.

Hi all. Trev, thanks for the kind words and advice. Exactly as you say I will try to do things which will cause me the least amount of emotional effort but then maybe easier said than done. My coping mechanism is that I tell myself, when the bad memories come, that it is simply wrong and unjust to be remembering my wife as a ill and dying person as that was (thankfully) only a  tiny part of her existence- she lived so much more of a good and happy life. Unfortunately as we all know we can't always control  our grief sometimes it controls us and that is when it gets difficult.

Ash, sounds like you are approching Monday totally in the correct way i.e.  doing the things you want to do and what you feel is right to do. I wish you much peace for that difficult day and hope you get through it ok.

Regards

Joe

ello Everyone,

I know "they" say you should join new groups and meet new friends when you lose your "significant other" but dont know if this is what "they" meant.

Sorry for my introduction, but well I have still got my "sense of tumour" quoting my recently departed husband who died after being diagnosed with a brain tumour 8 months earlier on 13/6/11.                         We had been together for 31 years, married for 22, with 2 daughters ages 20 and 19. Stewart was 53 when he died and I am 48.

I have been reading all your posts and really cannot add anything more to what you all are and have experienced. I just dont know if I will be able to fully accept that he has gone because he worked weekends and shifts you see and it doesnt feel unusual to be doing things on my own and at no time in the day will i feel that he should be here. I have been asked on holiday with friends, but have a fear of going as I realise that this could be an occasion where I know he would have been there and we were there together the past 2 years. Should I go? I only feel half a person now, we were Hazel and Stewart or Stewart and Hazel. Hate hearing about my friends lives now, so jealous of them still having each other. Friends have been good to me too, thats why i feel so bad, they'll do anything for me and want to include me in plans, but it only reinforces my solitude in my mind. Not fair on friends is it , damned if they care and damned if they dont! 

Anyway just going out for a walk with my wee Rosie, a Border Terrier, who I can honestly say has been my real comfort, have probably transferred all my attention on her lately, how sad am I?

Love to you all Hazel xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Hi Hazel .... So sorry to discover you've had to join this sorry 'club'.  It's devastating isn't it!  I can fully understand what you mean about the time you would have ordinarily been alone because of Stewart's work pattern and how that time now is little different than before.  There are some periods like that for me but not to any where near the extent they are for you though!   Will it hinder your progress in fully accepting that he's gone?  ....  I don't think anyone will be able to give you an accurate answer to that,  there are clearly common themes in the ways each of us find to cope and navigate our way through, but  when it comes down to it we're all individuals and we just all have to find our own way. 

To go (on the holiday), or not to go ..... that is the question!  My personal feeling is that I would not go .... that's definitely right for me .... I'm 100% certain of that ..... it may not be right for you though, only you can make that call.  I was at the monthly drop in meeting for widows/widowers at the hospice last Monday and one of the widowers was telling us that he'd actually been away to a place he and his wife loved to go to and had been many times over the years.  They had many friends there and knew the place really well.  Very soon after his arrival he discovered that he'd made a big mistake.   He realised that being there with those many friends and recalling the many clear and happy memories of his times there with his wife intensified his grief ( he only lost his wife 3 months ago).  He felt so alone even when with his friends and then completely lost when returning alone to his single room.  He won't be doing that again any time soon ...... That's pretty much how I feel.  I can't (yet ... maybe sometime in the future though) go to places we went together or enjoy the pastimes we enjoyed together .... so I've taken up a few other 'new' activities' that we never shared.  These  find much easier to do and it doesn't fuel the intensity of my grief.

One day at a time!  .... take care  Trev

hi there, yes am thinking that I should go somewhere totally different where no memories can be jolted. Maybe thats being a coward I dont know, but do feel that the holiday with friends will be too painful emotionally. There will be no escape from every part of it and yes I'm afraid to be totally immersed in all our memories without him.                                                                                                                                            Feeling very sorry for myself today, thinking why have I been left  alone again, first when I was 7 and my mother died  with coincidently ovarian cancer, she was only 37 and I was left with a workaholic, binge drinking, gambling ex chief police inspector father (he died of lung cancer in 2000) and 2 older brothers who have been such a wonderful support to me and my family......NOT. But thankfully we have the best friends anyone could wish for, but like I say, unintentionally they reinforce my emptiness and solitude. Think I am going to see about a counsellor, think I may have lots of emotional issues going on. Funny I always thought I was quite a well balanced, rational sort of person, all my friends say I always seem to have the answers for them, well what am I going to do with my life now???

Anyway maybe this is normal for this moment in time, time will tell eh! Really miss the closeness too of just our cuddles and laughs together, cant ever see being in that place with anyone else ever again. 

So night all and hope that life has got something nice for us round the corner

Love Hazel xxxxxxxxxxxx

i know what your saying friends mean well but dont understand .my husband died in may at first everyone was checking up on me ,now people seem to think im over it now  this morning i did nothing but cry  ,as to going back to work i told people not to be over nice to me because i would have not have been able to stop crying ,please keep in touch and  i know people like us know what feelings we are experising x

I know exactly what you mean about the loss of closeness Hazel.  The absolute longing for that loving touch ... it's excruciating, and hugs and pats on the back or whatever from absolutely anyone else are just no substitute.  It just has to be the one person who it can no longer be .. no one else will do!  Also as you say ... friends, true friends are fantastic but the downside is I completely agree that they can without realising it intensify your sense of loss.  It's very difficult now for me to be with 'couples' that we used to socialise with.

When life throws these curved balls at us, and it seems you've had a few since the age of 7, I think that's when we learn a lot about people.  I certainly have, and I must say that much of it is positive but also a lot is negative.  I've experience poor reactions from those I thought would be supportive and conversely those I expected to 'wobble' a bit have turned out to be fantastic.

Thinking about counseling? .... why not give it a go. It may help, it may not, but you've got nothing to lose and possibly something to gain.  I'm trying several things in the hope that one or two of them will be of help.  Of course in a few years time when I look back and ask myself what helped and what didn't it won't be an easy question to answer .... in reality it'll be just what I 'think' helped me.  the only way to properly answer would be to split myself into two and then one half of me not do the 'things' and the other half doing them ...... that way I could compare both routes. Of course the reality is that I'll only ever know the route I actually take so any conclusion I make will be just be based on whether I 'think' it helped.

Take care ... Trev