My Year #3 Begins

[Guest]

I wonder sometimes why I keep coming back here when I pretty much say the same thing over and over again. Even if I change the wording here and there, the subject matter stays pretty much the same. Maybe it's because it's just helpful somehow to just come here "say it out loud" every once in a while and get it out of my system. Or to read everyone else's posts, and see that I'm not floundering around out here going crazy. I'm not saying anyone here is crazy. I'm only saying that if I thought that I was the only only one going through all this craziness it would be easy to think that I needed to be in that proverbial rubber room.

I had to let my wife go in 2016 on this day. So I guess this day begins year #3 without her. I don't imagine very many of us would be here unless we had been lucky enough to have had that very special relationship with our spouse. My Cookie was my everything. She was my rock and my anchor. The more time we spent with each other, the stronger my crush on her got. Everything I did, thought or was I did either for her or because of her. We both adored each other, and we never got tired of being around each other. We spent a fair number of years doing the kinds of work that had us around each other 24/7. Some people need a break from each other now and then, but we never experienced that. We just enjoyed being around each other. We fed off of each other. When times changed and it became necessary for me to become a truck driver for those 20 or so years, we were both miserable. But bills had to be paid, so I hunkered down and did what had to be done. How we treasured those brief days off each month or so.  Then, by the year 2000, we both had to start facing the fact that her health was deteriorating and that it was at some point going to be necessary for me to leave the truckin' world and come home to her. And I did. And by the end of that year it was pretty obvious that she was going to need someone with her 24/7/365. Who better than me. What I knew that I didn't have in the way of background or training as a caregiver I did feel like I could try to make up for just from my compassion and love.  And I think it worked out pretty well. 

Then her final trip to the hospital on Dec. 13, 2015 with pneunomia. She spent the last 17 days of that year in a coma, for all practical purposes, instead of being able to enjoy her favorite holiday season. Then c diff got hold of her the day after Christmas, and really escalated her downward spiral. Her death certificate says she died of sepsis. That was the c diff. Finally on New Year's Day I was told that her only way of continuing to live would be to always be connected to a ventilator, and always in a long-term nursing home. We had talked about that over the years. She would not have agreed to that if she had been able to speak for herself. So I spoke for her. It broke my heart to do it, and it was unimaginably hard to speak the words, but I was able to force myself to. So we turned the ventilator off, and let her go be with God. 2014 and 2015 were both miserable years for her. I am so very thankful that her pain and misery of every other kind is over. But how I still miss and wish I still had her physical presence here with me. But I have to be satisfied with her being here in my mind and my heart. She will always be there. Until my time comes to go be with her, for eternity.  Knowing that I have that to look forward to is what sustains me.

Having to be alone is still hard, after spending two thirds of my life with Cookie. Will I ever get over being without her? Probably not. We were a big part of each other's lives for over 41 years. In some ways I think 2017 was harder on me that the first year was. Maybe because the fog had cleared and I was just more aware of everything. Hopefully this new year will be a better year. I want it to be. I hope it's a better year for all of us here. 

HAPPY NEW YEAR to my family here.

 

One foot in front of the other...

Darrel

[Lainey]

Darrell... Happy New Year to you also... 

I'm finding it so hard to look past the next day, much less the next week or month. I have done it once and really don't have the desire or the energy to do it again.I feel like I'm wallowing in so much sorrow and just cannot pull myself out. Time to see a professional and hopefully start living for the future and not the past.

I have a wonderful support system, three kids and six grandgirls. They try their hardest to keep me busy and surround me with as much love and kindness that they can.... they are not Tom and can't replace him.

You could be right about the second year being much worse. I think we come out of our shell and realize the reality that this is our new life and new norm.On my first time with grief, that's what happened to me.

This is not an easy path to be on, but from experience, the pain does lessen, and we do , at some point, start to feel our hearts begin to open up and let love and happiness back into our life.

One foot in front of the other...

Lainey

 

[Margm]

34 minutes ago, olemisfit said:

I'm not saying anyone here is crazy.

“All the world is queer save thee and me, and even thou art a little queer.” ― Robert Owen

Our language has changed so much, If Robert Owen was to return to today's time, he would know his words were not "politically correct."  I remember a movie, probably from the 1930's called "The Gay Bride" and our words mean something so different now.  Gay was happy a long time ago.  (Maybe it is now too, I don't know).  But, I remember my mom quoting "everybody's crazy but me and thee, and sometimes I worry about thee."  So yes, I think we all are a little "off kilter" and sometimes if I could get further "off kilter" I probably would, but I think dementia will creep up on me before then.  I think I hear it slipping up behind me now.  

But, I have been called crazy before.  I had a supervisor who once told me I was crazy, but crazy in a delightful way.  Oh well, anything works.  

I hope we all have enough craziness to protect us over the next few years.  And Darrel, we are all family.  We make life in some strange way bearable.  We cannot really say misery loves company..........but  I just did.  I hope all of yours, mine, and our misery is lightened in some way in this new year.  Otherwise, next New Years day, we will be giving out the same wishes.  

Best wishes to you Darrel (and for us all) for coming times.  

 

[kayc]

It took me all of three years to process George's death.  And I was still floundering, it took much more time to find purpose or build a life I can live.  I know he's dead, I've accepted that it's happened, I know this is my life now but I still miss him each and every day.  If they knew how much I think of and talk to him they'd haul me off right now.  Darrel, I, like you, look forward to being together again and that also is what keeps me going.

[iPraiseHim]

I am also approaching the three year mark and just beginning to feel like the Shock and Awe of my wife's death is diminishing.  I don't like it but I also know that I can not change the outcome. This grief is not an easy and swift process.  It takes discovery, acceptance, learning, sharing, and eventually accepting life on its own terms.  Some days are better than others.  New Years eve I just broke down emotionally.  This is all part of grief.  My prayer is that we all find our way through this grief and healing journey.  - Shalom 

[kayc]

For me it was Christmas Eve that it hit me hard.  I'm sorry, George.  This doesn't get easy, does it!