Jump to content
Grief Healing Discussion Groups

Apparantly Love Has Come Again


goldsunshine897

Recommended Posts

I wondered how many more years would go by before I would get to write something like this. I looked forward to the day that someone would want to share their heart with me. I believe I have finally found that person. To backtrack, I lost my common law husband to cancer 6 yrs ago. Then I lost my dear mom suddenly 7 months ago. I'm a pretty shy, introverted girl and my whole world consisted of only those 2 people. I prayed night and day for God to bring someone into my life, and its so ironic. He moved into my mom's old apartment. He's really kind, helpful, and we don't mind putting up with each other's baggage. For the last six weeks its been sort of a world-wind romance, we seem to innately understand each other. I didn't come here to brag about this to anyone. It's not my intention to make anyone feel small, only to uplift people. If someone reading this has lost their significant other, please know that if a shy loner like me, who hasn't dated in years could find someone, anybody can.

  • Upvote 3
Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 2 weeks later...
  • 1 month later...

Dear Goldsunshine,

Thankyou for your post. My loss is only recent. My husband died suddenly 10 months ago. We were together for 19 years. I am only 45 and don't want to spend the rest of my life alone. I'm not ready to date, too many sorrow filled days. But I have this hope that someday my sorrow will soften and my heart will be free enough to love again. I'm so happy and envious of you. Please embrace this opportunity and enjoy life again. You bring me inspiration. cheryl

  • Upvote 2
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Goldsunshine,

I am so happy for you! Just take the progression slow, all the more so the harder you fall for each other...give each other time to really know one another, and if it's meant to be, it'll all work out...I'm hoping you have a lifetime of happiness together!

Kay

  • Upvote 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 6 years later...

I feel so strange writing these words after reading what I wrote years before. But nothing stays the same forever in life and I will embrace this change. Apparently I was wrong about the previously mentioned relationship. I believe that I went into things too quickly and didn't understand who I was getting involved with. This relationship has become abusive and I am currently seeing a counselor to help me deal with effects and to see what my options are. I wonder if the loneliness I felt at the loss of my mom left me vulnerable to this type of treatment. But nevertheless, I'll let this be a good lesson to me to take my time when it comes to starting a new relationship while you are still grieving someone's loss.  

  • Upvote 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

I'm sorry to hear that.  I went through something similar after losing my husband, that's why I mentioned taking it slow.  I'm glad you're seeing a counselor and I hope you're out of the relationship so you can heal.  All of life is a learning experience!

  • Upvote 2
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Goldshine, being in an abusive relationship is very difficult. I know because I was in one too. I'm not sure why I stayed as long as I did. I think vulnerability was a big part of it. I was trying to take care of my dad so having someone there to comfort me when I needed was nice. But the physical, mental, and verbal abuse was traumatic. I'm still dealing with the affects from it a year later. I will say a prayer for you. 

Cheryl

  • Upvote 2
Link to comment
Share on other sites

My first marriage was physically abusive...stay in close contact with your attorney, mine helped me plan my exit strategy!  Being safe is the most important thing!  Back in my day there weren't "safe places" to go to, and the cops were a "good ole' boy's club", didn't help!  I'm glad things have come a ways, but they still have a ways to go!  Let us know how it goes!

  • Upvote 2
Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 4 months later...

What I am about to say is going to sound like a contradiction to everything anyone who knows me thinks I am. The loss of my wife Kathy was so devastating and yet I survived in no small part to Marty and this sanctuary called Grief Healing Discussion Groups. I grew stronger and yet my love for Kathy remained. I understood and spoke often about how I could continue in life living alone in her honor never needing another relationship. In affairs of the heart I was a done deal long ago.  I have even just finished being a part of a book where I explained all of this in an effort to give other men a hope that they could survive alone as I have.  Everything I have said screams CONTRADICTION!

Because the truth is I am in love and I have been for a while. It was not something I sought. It was not something I needed. It sure as hell wasn't something I wanted. I feared deep down in my soul  that Kathy was pushing me there. I felt it so strongly. In the last two visits to the medium I occasionally see,  I was given the name of the woman including the husband she had lost but at first didn't make the connection. I felt so devastated that Kathy was pushing me away. I screamed at her for why was she doing this to me? The anguish seemed intolerable. I could not understand why it was happening but happen it did. It was then that I began to see the connection between four people. Kathy and I along with this lady and her husband were connected on so many levels that it would take volumes to describe it here. It simply left me with no doubt about letting myself go and that Kathy was still with me. In a matter of weeks I have felt this love grow so intense that it equals the love I have for my wife. Believe it or not it does and I know this for certain yet I have not kissed the woman or been intimate in anyway. I have seen her but a total of six days since September of last year when I first noticed something was happening to me. I had only to look in her eyes.

 I know that my love for Kathy burns just as brightly as before and I will not worry about that or feel the need to hide it from this new lady in my life. In fact I love that she can share her feelings about her husband with me. I am so comfortable feeling the love she has for him and always will yet this love exists between the both of us just the same. I can do nothing to change any of this and frankly how could one.  I wrote on another thread that it is possible to love more than one person in a case such as this but one will eventually have to take a back seat. I am no longer certain about the back seat part and in fact I'm not really certain about a lot of things I am going through. I will let this happen one day at a time.  And so now you all know the  truth of who I am.

Marty Joyce knows about what has been going on and I will seek her help to stay focused and grow so don't worry about that but I must take leave of this sanctuary at least for a while. I will always support it with contributions for it is a life saver to so many and I will continue with my counseling course to get the accreditation but I think I have a way to go before I can help anyone else.

Peace and love my friends. You truly are the best.

Stephen

  • Upvote 5
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Steve,

I am very happy for you!  I don't feel this is a contradiction at all.  Love comes unbidden and catches us off guard, usually when we're not looking for it.  You will always grieve Kathy as you will always love and miss her, but as I've learned, grief evolves and does not stay the same, nor does it remain in the intense pain that we had at the beginning.  When we pass from this life to the next, transformation takes place and love transcends the jealous possessive love we have here and rises above that to the truly caring for the other's being in a selfless way.  What we began here evolves to something we can't even comprehend but it's something even greater than we have known...here we are finite and limited.

I know you will be busy with the next part of your journey, and I wish you well in it.  I hope you drop in now and then and let us know how you are doing.  We will miss you here but are happy for you.

  • Upvote 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Stephen, I wish you the best on this new step you are taking. Please let us know how are you. Although many of us are hurting so much, we can be happy too for anyone here who is blessed with love again. Peace and love for you too.

  • Upvote 2
Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 3 weeks later...

I thought I would stop by and update a little. The one thing about finding love after loss is how some things may change in life yet something never will. In six days I will be together with Patty as she arrives on the anniversary of her husband Ron's death. This was her idea for she wanted us to be together as the sixth anniversary of Kathy's death was so close in time. Do we feel each others pain? Yes we do, big time.  There is something so magical about this relationship because it allows us to openly feel the love we have for Kathy and Ron while we embrace the love we have for each other. We hold on to the sacred past while we look ahead to our own future. Yes it is possible to make new memories while holding dear the old ones. One thing I love about this woman is how deeply she loves her husband and why that makes hearing her stories about him so pleasurable. With those stories however comes a lot of pain and if I can give her anything it would be someone to hold on to when the tears come so hard.

Today is the day Kathy left six years ago.  I have been following something Patty wrote called "the last 55 days" which chronicled her life with Ron to the end. As I read each day the similarities between Kathy and Ron's last weeks on earth were incredible even to the very day they were both put in an ambulance never to return home again. As I read it was like I was reading my own words. Very few words needed to be changed such as the names. What this did was remind me of those terrible and sad days and even though Patty feels bad that she brought this on, I am so grateful that she did for I don't want to forget and now I don't have to. I can spend the rest of my life with someone who "gets it".

I learned long ago on my grief's journey that I wouldn't hurt so much if I hadn't loved so deeply. I accept that and hold it very dear in my heart. And, with that hurt I can also bask in the glow of someone's love. I also know that Kathy taught me how to love. I know that I had no idea of what love was or how deep it could go but she was a good and gentle teacher. She led me to the door marked Patty and set me on a journey armed with the skill to take love to a higher level yet.

I love you Patty and yes you are right. It's not "more than you will ever know".

  • Upvote 4
Link to comment
Share on other sites

I've heard some say they didn't want to love again because they couldn't bear going through the pain again.  You can't have love without risk, without being vulnerable, without being willing to pay the cost.  I have never regretted a moment I spent with George, regardless of what it's cost me.  It takes courage to jump in not knowing what lies ahead, only knowing what lies within your heart.  Wishing you only the best.

  • Upvote 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

"But when we lose love we feel as if the whole universe collapses around us. We feel as though we can never have it again."

Thank you Marty

  • Upvote 2
Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 1 month later...

This morning as I sit in the airport ready to fly to Maui I am thinking about Kathy and today which Is the seventh birthday for her since her death. I know I will be celebrating it in Hawaii where she loved to be. This time for the first time I won't be celebrating it alone. This time I will be with the lady I am so in love with. I know she is going through hell right now and all I can do is support her and it is my privilege to do so.

I wish I had the answers but I am certain we will pull through this landlord fiasco. Once you have had a loss so severe as Patty and I have had everything else seems easier to take. She just has grief so fresh that the struggle is magnified.

 

I love two women. I serve them both. I see the light at the end of the tunnel. Some have a harder time seeing it through the tears.

 

So Happy Birthday Kathy. We will toast you tonight.

 

 

 

 

 

  • Upvote 6
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Making lavosh this morning and learning new skills. Yup, she put me to work and I love it.

Resized_20170325_075213.jpeg

  • Upvote 4
Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 2 months later...

I was thinking today as I sit at the airport waitng  to fly to meet Patty how I once said when it came loving someone else,  someone  has to take the back seat. 

Once again I contradict myself. I also said in two  books I have had a part in writting that I would never love or marry  again . It seems I have a lot yet to learn.  Kathy use to say to me "Never say never". It seems that life can change no matter what you do or not do. I am today very much in love with Kathy and yet so much in love with  Patty.  It also comes without conflict. I am an adult and free to feel and,do as I wish. I could  never  love again wotout accepting this truth.

What a very odd place to be. I am flooded with emotion yet calm without conflict. life is a constant that is ever changing.

 

  • Upvote 3
Link to comment
Share on other sites

I'm so grateful to you, Steve, for sharing your story with us. It is a story of hope and healing ~ as well as a beautiful love story. Be safe in your travel today and take good care of you ~ and give Patty a warm hug from all of us 

  • Upvote 2
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Create an account or sign in to comment

You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

Create an account

Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!

Register a new account

Sign in

Already have an account? Sign in here.

Sign In Now
×
×
  • Create New...