Wifflesnook

Dear Gwenivere, it's been ages since I responded on the forum but I still read and your sad message came up on my emails and I just felt I had to. I'm so sorry. I know. My Pete died in 2012 and I am just as lost and sad now as when he died. I'm 76 this year. I do have a son and daughter and two lovely grand daughters so I am lucky but nothing compensates for the loss of a beloved husband of 50 years who was everything to me. I've got not helpful words for you but like I did I hope you find some comfort from friends on the forum even if we cannot reach out and hug you. The spring is coming (I'm in England by the way) and maybe it will help. A bit? Yours in sisterhood, Jan

Dear Anne you inspire everyone. Your determination amazes me. Thank you for being here. It's the eve of a New Year and we have to walk into it with courage. As you are doing. I know we all feel such sadness especially when we have to walk alone. But I'm grateful for people like you.

Dear Rachelle I have been on this forum for three years but mainly just read now. But I had to reply to you. Somehow I just had to. The grief we feel doesn't go away but we do get stronger (a bit) and we all feel the support offered by sharing. Your husband was a very talented man. And I take some comfort from your belief that having had a near death experience you believe you will meet again. I cling to that hope. Blessings and Peace. Jan

At the moment, three years or more later, I'm feeling this even worse than usual. I do have a son and a daughter and I do have grand daughters, and I know they love me. But to Pete I was the centre of his universe as he was to me. And that wonderful closeness and feeling cherished has gone. I'm lucky that I had it as I'm sure you all feel too, but now we have to somehow live on without it. And it's very very hard indeed. It helps to share even just a little. Jan

Dear Anne, it never would have been long enough, would it? When we find our soul mate we want to be with them always and to have them ripped away either fast or slowly, is against everything natural. For you it was slowly, for me ( 6 months) but either way we have to live on in a harsh world without them near us. I wish I had known your Jim. Not so likely as the fact that we have got to know each other is only as a result of the death of Jim and my Pete. But he sounds so alive, so vibrant, such a wonderful person. Our lives now are a shadow of what they were as part of a couple. We know. Those of us who have to carry on after such a loss understand each other's pain even though every loss is different. I hope you can remember the good times and celebrate them. A wedding anniversary is a wonderful thing. And do you remember when Jim proposed (if he did?). I was remembering that the other day, because of a poem I read. Pete proposed to me behind a bus station. Such a prosaic place but to me infused with happiness. in 1962!!

What you describe about being insane with grief fits me too. Even now, four years next May, my whole being is different and will be for ever I accept. I inhabit a changed world where I have to live as well as I can without my beloved Pete. Around me are people still living the dream when I live a nightmare. And yet I carry on, because what else is there to do? Sometimes I can smile and laugh especially when I'm with my little grand daughters, but underneath I'm mad with grief and loss. For some reason I'm going through a worse patch than usual right now, feeling really vulnerable. I hope I'm coming out of it slowly. But it is very hard to bear. I send my best wishes to everyone. Keep on keeping on. It's all we can do.

Yes Anne. A good quote or poem is like a perfect piece of music.

Wise words and heartfelt from everyone as always. Yes it happens or it doesn't happen. Our feelings get expressed but in different ways I guess. I remember my mother saying sadly that she never cried when her own mother died. I only cried a little when she died. But the feelings of grief I have about Pete's death are so different in kind and intensity. They just don't come out in tears and I have to accept that I think. I do believe it stems from childhood in a home where feelings weren't expressed outwardly. Music does release my tears though. Thanks to everyone.

The music worked. I'm sitting with tear listening to Bruch's violin concerto, another favourite of ours. Music bypasses the mind and goes straight to the heart doesn't it?

I meant can't cry properly of course

Dear Marty its strange but I never articulated that before (or at least I don't think I did) as I've written before more than once about how I can cry properly and want to. And we know how as a generalisation men are brought up to hide their emotions and I think I've been raised the same. So it's not my fault lol! But seriously I do feel a need to sob only can't contemplate doing it without a companion. My heart breaks to think of Anne crying alone. If only we could meet and sob together. So many of us cry alone.

I'm still unable to really cry as I've said before and it hasn't changed. I come from a family which didn't share emotions. I married into one which did but it's amazing how that early training goes so deep. Today a chap came to mend my washing machine. He said he last came when I was caring for Pete after the stroke. He said Pete was in bed in the living room. Thankfully he knew Pete had died and was sympathetic. I managed to tell him about the circumstances (Pete's death in the nursing home while I was the birth partner of our daughter) and managed to hold it together. I'd completely forgotten that he came then (my memories of that first year of bereavement are almost totally lacking). But I guess I've always cried when Pete was there to comfort me and I manage not to weep alone by distracting myself. This sounds odd even to me. Does it mean my grief is shallow? Oh no it certainly doesn't mean that. Tennyson spoke of Grief too deep for tears (or was it Shakespeare?) and I think your grief in that first year, Anne, was like that. And I know you've been able to cry since and I still dare not. It doesn't have anything to do with the depth of the grief but it does with inhibitions maybe. I'm thinking I should just accept it. The inhibitions are still strong in me. We tell each other, don't we? It is how it is. I still feel I could cry if I had someone to cry with. But I don't. Soon after Pete died my son and I sat and sobbed. And it was good sharing. But I don't think we can do it now. I think I have to accept that this is the way it is for me. Music may be my way into expressing grief. I'm reading Pete's journal for 1990 (many more to come) and it's totally wonderful. And he mentions a symphony concert we went to so I went onto iTunes and bought the Tchaikovsky violin concerto we heard. And that releases emotions both sad and happy. I think I should do this more often. Anne, I know music is important to you as it was to you and your beloved Jim. We just have to deal with what we are left with I suppose. And I know we are doing as well as we can. And they would be (are) proud of us for our courage.

Dearest Fae thank you for that wonderful memory of your last Thanksgiving with Doug and pointing me to that email which I didn't read until now. I've been reading Pete's journals from 1989 and reliving happy memories which I can bring into the present to enjoy. I'm thank ful for the fact that he wrote them and now I can read and remember. I still have to live on in the present but it's ok to take the past along too.

I think that the depth of our grief may have much to do with many things, but I know that mine is very very much the same as Anne's. We had long happy marriages and we are now at an age when we have in some ways been moulded by those marriages in a very good way. This means that the person we are now is a blend of two people and struggling on alone when half of you is missing is so very very hard. I have much to be grateful for, and at the moment I am well. But the pain of loss after three years (actually three days ago it was four years since Pete had the stroke so I count it as four) is just as bad and the only thing which has changed is my ability to cope with it. That is no small thing. People around me have no idea how much pain I am in because I don't share it, even with my dear daughter. I wouldn't burden her. And I still feel that if I let out this grief it would overwhelm me. However I am reading Francis Weller's new book, The Wild Edge of Sorrow, which I hope may help me to deal with the grief more easily. I hope. My bookshelf is packed with books about grief but I can't say they often help. It's a lonely struggle but this forum has helped me enormously because talking to other widows and widowers does help me. I've a friend, a new widow, and she is dealing with this on the surface, very differently, throwing herself into activities that she didn't or couldn't do when her husband was alive. But she tells me how she talks to him all the time, and cries alone so I think she is really in a similar place to me. We talk about it a bit but not much. Basically with our grief it is just ourselves in our head and heart but talking and writing about it does help. As does keeping busy. My heart lifts when I have projects to do. I don't want to make new grievers feel bad but what helps me is telling it as it is so I hope that we aren't making you feel worse. Be aware that we understand. We know. We struggle with the loss. And we survive. Jan

Yes, Anne, sometimes it seems that just existing in the world now is doing this hard thing. How we do it I don't know, but we do. And I'm proud of all of us