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CharKath

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    43
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Previous Fields

  • Your relationship to the individual who died
    wife
  • Date of Death
    July 20,2015
  • Name/Location of Hospice if they were involved:
    ParkviewNoble, Kendallville, Indiana

Profile Information

  • Your gender
    Female
  • Location (city, state)
    Kendallville, Indiana

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  1. Hi Cookie. I should of turned around. I didn't know we were in the same boat together. I've been sliding backwards for three weeks now. Last night I just couldn't keep the tears from coming. It went on for a solid hour and I only got three hours of sleep. I read here, but havent been able to write or join in. Just so unhappy. Existing isn't fun. There's no reason for keeping this up anymore. I have no close family and my friends do. I'm sure I wouldn't be missed. I do chores in the morning, work, chores at night and go to bed. Next day repeat. There's no point, definitely not getting better here. I just read in a book how I'll be a stronger and better person. Better? What was wrong with me before? Guess I must of been subparr with a husband. I'm just overwhelmed and tired of it. Sorry I can't give you any help, but your definitely not alone in this boat.
  2. I actually told my counsler what has been running through my head here lately and she wanted me to go see my doctor. But I'm not big on them (or dentists). I'm trying to stay on this side of the line. I must admit I am stareing straight down on it now. Everything is so overwhelming. This is my first major loss and it would be the most precious one in my life. Being empty and lonely and just existing isn't really living. And working my butt off so I can pay taxes isn't rewarding either. It just seems so pointless right now.
  3. Ive been wanting to unload things for awhile now, but i've just been to exhausted and down to do it. I'm in my third week of slideing downhill. Everything I do or accomplish has no satisfaction or happiness to it. Its just done and then what else can I do to stay busy? This ball of sadness and misery never goes away or gets any better. There's no point to all of this. And I don't want to keep feeling this way for another fifteen years or so till the end. I can't take that. I read somewhere how I'll be a stronger person after this. Why is finally accepting that my life is always going to suck till the end making me stronger? Someone who's happily married thought that up. I've been feeling like Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. When I can be with my friends its better, but by myself I just feel lousy and i want this ride to be over with. This black cloud won't stop following me and now they are calling for two days of rain. Being stuck in this house will be no good. I want to ask Charley so many things. I want to tell him so many things. He needed me and I needed him. I want a hug and a kiss and that pat on the back. It gave me courage and strength and more importantly, the will to live.
  4. Thanks guys. Steve, I love the picture of the Winnie pooh gang. Your right, I'm tired. Its always midnight when I get to bed. I dread coming home. At least i feel useful helping my friends and neighbor. The rental house I've been helping with is nearly done. They'll be cleaning carpets tomorrow. We have a five day window of sunny weather forecasted so I guess its time for the second cutting of hay. I know I need to keep busy or I'll come apart at the seams. I'm gonna imagine those cartoons hugging as I try to go to sleep. They made me smile when I saw them. Thanks.
  5. Here it is Thursday and I don't feel any better. Trying to "outwork" grief isn't working, but keeps me busy. I get up at 6, do my hour of chores and go to the neighbors to help with his rental house. Work till 7 or 8 and then come home to this lonely place and do my long chores of an hour and half. Tonight the tears started again as soon as I pulled in the drive and continued until I had finished chores. My neighbor goes home to his wife, my friend goes home to her husband and I no longer have anyone. Just wish I'd die so I could go find Charley. This is just a mood I suppose, work is just 6 1/2 hours away and I can do this all over again. Grief is exhausting.
  6. It must be a bad week for everbody. I've been staying busy and I try not to think about Charley, but tonight it caught up with me. My neighbor has me helping clean his rental house and we talk, I can laugh, but when the day is over, its still just me. I come home to a locked, empty house, there's no one here. No one to tell my day to, no hugs or kisses. (God its been a year since I've had a kiss.) Just keep busy, work, work, work. I can't wait for daylight so I can work. There's nothing else. I'd like to know what's the point?!!! Life definitely sucks.
  7. Hi Robin. For me its been a black swallowtail butterfly. There was one at the cemetery, at the lunch afterwards, planting corn this spring and baling hay in June. On charleys one year anniversary last week, I had planted a magnolia tree in his memory and there was one flying all around it. Two days later I had come back from town and was balancing my checkbook when I noticed movement out side the truck. Here was that black swallowtail flying back and forth outside the window. When I got out, it flew up and over the house and I thought there he goes. Then I thought, I wonder..... I walked out to the magnolia tree and over my shoulder he came. He flew around me and the tree awhile before landing in the grass next to me. There been a couple more visits since , but it makes me feel better and who knows what's on the other side. In the meantime I'm gonna enjoy my butterfly.
  8. Thanks everyone for your concerns and hugs. I'm so glad I was busy, i finished my wheat, however I was very much aware when 2:00 arrived. That's when he passed away. At noon the hospice nurse for Charley stopped in and while we're talking, I pointed out Charley's magnolia tree. And can you believe it, there fluttering around the tree was a black swallowtail butterfly. This one stuck around a long time, at least 20 minutes. Just flying within twelve feet or so of that tree. I have to admit they make me feel good. Because who knows.
  9. Today was a sober one. I'm glad I still have wheat to run or I'd probably fall apart. So many things running through my mind. At 10:30 this morning it really hurt because that's when I discovered he wasn't sleeping. When the hospice nurse was here there was all that paperwork and she had a laptop too. Once the hospital bed arrived we had to get him in it. She said she was gonna call the first responders to move him. I asked if they would just bodily pick him up and move him and she said yes. My best friend was there too and well, Charley was mine. I wasn't sharing him with anyone. I told them to each grab a leg and I would move him. The nurse was reluclant at first, but then agreed. I picked him up and I moved him with their help. No strangers for him, not yet anyway. But later, after he had passed. When the funeral director and his helpers lifted him to that gurney, I fell apart. He was out of my hands. Now longer would I be carrying for him, looking after him, worrying about him. He would no longer have to worry about me. When I'd come up from the barn, he's not sitting in a chair looking out the window for me. When I come around the corner of the house mowing, he's not on the porch waving at me. When I'm weeding the garden, he's not sitting in the truck watching me. How many people can actually say that they have a job they love and it doesn't seem like work? We were together every day ALL day 24/7 and it was pure bliss. I didn't want to give that up! I want it back in the worse way. I just want him back to hold and love.
  10. This week is sure messing with my sleep. Only averaging three hours a night the last five nights. I've seen five sunrises in a row before I finally fall asleep. I'm running wheat now and its gonna be the best we ever had. Charley would of been thrilled. It was always a good feeling when that happened. I was giving Charley his last haircut this time last year. He really needed one and as I'm cutting his hair I remember thinking, "I hope this isn't the last time". I don't know why that went through my mind, my subconscious might have known though. And afterward Charley jokingly said, "do I look good enough for the box?" Did he know on some level? So many questions that have no answers. I did do one positive thing yesterday. My friends got me a magnolia tree for Charley this spring and I got it planted yesterday. Going to plant flowers around it and later daffodils, hyacinths and crocus for spring. Outside memorial I guess. Its gonna look nice, I think Charley would like it.
  11. As I was reading what you wrote I actually thought your reading my mind. I loved reading books, but can't anymore. Even magazines are too much. I have trouble with my spelling when I write. There are days I just can't. Balance the checkbook, I better be having a good day for that too. I've also been having problems listening to people. We can be having a conversation and I realize I have no idea what they just said and I'm looking directly at them. I'm hoping its going to improve with time and I'm sure it will, but Charley is first and foremost on my mind for now and everything else is gonna have to sit on the back burner for awhile. It is a relief to know I'm not the only one temporarily "loosing my mind".
  12. I've been thinking about Charley ALOT this last week. Today was the beginning of our last week together, but we didn't know. Charley and me were a May/ December couple. I'd known him all my life really. I was 4 when my family moved to the country. Charley had the farm behind us. We were always waving at the farmer in the white t shirt and red seed hat that drove the red dodge truck. When I was 13 and my brother was12, he began hiring us to help bale hay and straw. When I graduated high school he hired me as a full time hired man, so to speak. I could work cattle, drive equipment, shovel grain and manure, bale, you name it i did it. I was one heck of a tomboy and we soon had a joke, I could do anything a guy could do but write my name in the snow! We were inseparable. We could finish each other sentences, didn't mind all the work, and loved each other dearly. Our favorite thing to do together, if the farming allowed it, was to drive back to the little woods in the pasture on a Sunday morning with the Sunday paper and enjoy the morning with the wildlife, the cattle, and the singing birds. It was there I saw a duck land in a tree and I couldn't believe a duck in a tree, it was a wood duck! Charley got the biggest kick out of that. He was built for farming. 6 foot tall, 220 lbs. he had a suntan year round. His hands were huge. Bread hooks he called them. His wedding ring was a size 18. He had gorgeous brown eyes and dimples too. He never looked his age and certainly didn't act it either. He farmed until 95. His running gears (legs) were bad he said. He did everything from planting, driving the baler and running the combine right up to 95. He loved saying 95 and still alive. He was looking forward to 98 and feeling great, but he would fall 4 1/2 months short. Charley was certain he'd make 100. I was too. He was healthy as a horse and only took high bp medicine and a thyroid pill. I didn't know there was a anticipatory grief. I think I may of had that the year before. He began loosing weight, his appetite was up and down and he began sleeping a lot. I began worrying. My best friends sister in law was a end of life nurse and she said he had the dwindles. I worried more. Charley got more clinging. He worried about me more. I couldn't go anywhere without him wondering where I was and what I was doing. He followed me all over the farm even though he really couldn't do much. We had always talked about what he wanted. He wanted to die at home. No tubes or machines. I understood that. But I still thought I had till 100 to really worry. Then a year ago tonight, he began passing out. He refused to go to the doctor or the er. I got scared. For fear of him falling, I borrowed a wheel chair to wheel him about the house. He'd pass out anywhere. He was afraid to go to the er for fear he couldn't come home. I promised it was just to get a couple tests, he wouldnt be admitted. The doctor thought maybe his electrolytes were off of maybe a uti infection. He finally agreed and it was just a kidney infection. But the er doctor wanted to know if he wanted to talk about a pacemaker. Charley said a fast hell no. So we went home. The antibiotics kept him up. I had to watch Charley. I slept at the kitchen table or on the loveseat next to him. I got 20 hours of sleep that week keeping an eye on him. I was so afraid he'd passout and fall again. I had one of my friends stay with him while I did chores. I had 15 milk goats I milk by hand plus kids, bucks and yearlings and no matter how I hurried it killed 1 1/2 hours to take care of them. By the time I got back Charley was worried I had trouble was wasn't coming back. He always worried about me bless him. It was him I was worried about. On that Saturday he finally acted like his old self. I thought the worst was over. We watched a thunderstorm and downpour from the front porch. There was a beautiful rainbow in the east sky. He ate a good supper. We still slept on our reclining loveseat. His head was in my lap and my arm was around his shoulders. He slept really good. The next morning he ate a good breakfast, but said he had a headache. I said I had to do chores and headed for the barn. I didn't think anything of it. When I came back he was sleeping, only I couldn't wake him up. And he never would. The hospice nurse said he'd had a stroke or anyurisum. His pupils were unresponsive. He wanted to die at home, so we got a hospital bed. And Charley was just ten feet from the kitchen table. I could watch him closely. He never moved his hands or right leg, but his left leg he pulled up and started rocking it. I'd go to him and wrapped my arm around the top of his head and I'd talk to him and kiss him and tell him I loved him and it was alright. Try to get some sleep. He would stop rocking his leg and be quiet and I'd go sit down. In fifteen or twenty minutes he'd probably start to worry and he'd rock his leg again to get my attention. We did this all night until those dam chores in the morning and I had to leave him. A friend stayed with him and I told Charley I had to do chores and I'd hurry, but when I got back he no longer rocked his leg. He didn't respond to me anymore. At 2:00 I was standing next to him with my hand over his and the other on his shoulder when he took his last breath. I waited and waited, but he slipped away from me. I would never see those beautiful brown eyes again or hear him call me Kathie dear. My heart broke in two that day and it isn't really any better. I lost my sweetie, my life, my world, my reason for living. My life will never be the same.
  13. Forever His x, I'm so sorry for your loss and your baby's loss. I agree with everything Brad has said. You do need to take care of yourself. Your baby needs you. And when he's older he will need you to tell him what a wonderful man and father he had. I'm still living in my home, although its more of a shelter now. With Charley gone it just isn't home anymore. Its scarey and down right intimidating at times. But I don't really want to leave. I'm hoping this will get better. At eleven and a half months, this is still very hard. And I'm afraid it will be for awhile. When you loose the person that makes your world go round, nothing makes sense and its so unfair. Don't make any hasty decisions about the house. Worry more about you and your baby for right now. The house can come later.
  14. Hi Robin, I didn't celebrate Christmas at home last year. I love christmas and I always decorate my porch and have a tree lit with blue and white lights and lots of glittering ornaments. We wouldn't turn the TV on at all evenings, just turn on Christmas music and snuggle up together on the couch and watch all the twinkling lights. But now this house is just a place of sadness and depression and it just wasn't going to be right to put out any decorations. Charley wasn't going to be here to enjoy them with and it just felt and seemed wrong. The closer Christmas got last year the worse I felt. When I expressed my concern to a friend that I didn't want to wake up alone on Christmas morning, her and her husband invited me up overnight on Christmas eve. That was much better. They let me spend the day and Christmas wasn't completely lost. This is your grief and you have to do what is best for you. I'm hoping this Christmas will be different for me, but I don't know. It is five months away and you'll just have to see where you are and how it feels for you. Keep an open mind for now. Don't set your mind that this is the way it will be or has to be. Maybe it won't be bad. Maybe Christmas at your sons would be doable and that's fine. But its definitely a personal thing, you do what's best for you.
  15. Joyce, What a nice poem. Its a nice picture too. Sorry its such a sad day for you. You have my deepest sympathies.
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