Secondary Losses

[Gwenivere]

We all know that people that have not experienced this do not get it.  That is a given.  I was thinking about Steve and if he exists in some state, neither does he.  I have been trying to pin down why the loneliness is far worse than I expected as time passes.  My go to guy for anything that  I needed to talk to is not here to understand.  It's a crazy thought because if he were, this would not be an issue, but I play it out in my head so I can try to find ways to cope.  

Everyone says they would spare thier partner this.  But I really wish he knew how I felt.  That was how we became the couple we were.  I had to know all his fears about facing a foe that would take him away.  Live with that knowledge every day.  Our paths diverged as he reached an acceptance in the end.  He wanted it to end.  I wanted his pain to stop, but not lose him.  I think I understand why he was drawn to death because it was too much to bear.  I did not feel relief or 'happy' he was free.  I walked into this twisted world because of that change.  

Some may feel this is selfish.  I guess it is in the strict sense.  But it is his very absence AND not being able to experience it with me that makes the loneliness so much harder.  As I said, in reality this would not be an issue were he here.   But he is not and I so want him to be.  H  never deserted me in time of need.  This time he has.  I don't feel anger.  Just want consolation from the one person who could actually do it.

Now I am getting what secondary losses are.  Big time.

[Gwenivere]

Talk about crazy thinking.  If he were here there would be nothing to understand because I am still here.  The mind is really a crazy thing at times.  But, I know I don't have to make logical sense here.  Thank gawd for that!

[kayc]

Gwen, when I cried out to George to hold on, he shook his head no.  I cried out again, again he shook his head no.  It's haunted me because I wish I then could have told him it was okay to go, that I'd be okay (even if it's not true), so he wouldn't be burdened worrying about me on his way out.  But the nurse shoved me out the door and locked the door to the ward behind me.  I wasn't able to be by his side as he passed.  That is the one thing I can't forget and don't know how to forgive.  I didn't want him to think for one second that I deserted him.  We always went through everything together, always understood each other, but at that moment is when our paths diverged.  I believe he somehow knows what I'm going through, he's no longer limited to a finite body, but he knew somehow that it was going to be better or his pain would end, and I feel he couldn't take any more.  It seems ironic he went the one way he never wanted to go...the way he said he never wanted.  None of us get to choose.  If we could have it probably would have been an accident, together, over in a split second, but still together.  Oh well, I guess it does no good to talk about it.

[Gwenivere]

I don't understand.  Why in the world as his wife would you be removed from his room?  That makes no sense.

 

[kayc]

They were pounding on his chest while he was having a heart attack, maybe to protect me from it, I don't know.  I wailed at her "but I'M his "little one"!" as she shoved me out the door!  I will never forget it as long as I live.  They wouldn't have even known he was having a heart attack if it wasn't for me.  I had to go get them, twice!  They weren't paying any attention.

[Patty65]

((((kayc)))))

Gwen, I feel that every night.  I need him to help me through the torment of his death. Every moment of it up until this very second.  It is a secondary loss to me too.

[scba]

5 hours ago, Gwenivere said:

We all khat people that have not experienced this do not get it.  That is a given.  I was thinking about Steve and if he exists in some statneither does he.  I have been trying to pin down why the loneliness is far worse than I expected as time pses.  My go to guy for anything that  I needed to talk to is not here to understand.  It's a crazy thought because if he were, this would not be an issue, but I play it out in my head so I can try to find ways to cope.  

Everyone says they would spare thier partner this.  But I really wish he knew how I felt.  That was how we became the couple we were.  I had to know all his fears about facing a foe that would take him away.  Live with that knowledge every day.  Our paths diverged as he reached an acceptance in the end.  He wanted it to end.  I wanted his pain to stop, but not lose him.  I think I understand why he was drawn to death because it was too much to bear.  I did not feel relief or 'happy' he was free.  I walked into this twisted world because of that change.  

Some may feel this is selfish.  I guess it is in the strict sense.  But it is his very absence AND not being able to experience it with me that makes the loneliness so much harder.  As I said, in reality this would not be an issue were he here.   But he is not and I so want him to be.  H  never deserted me in time of need.  This time he has.  I don't feel anger.  Just want consolation from the one person who could actually do it.

Now I am getting what secondary losses are.  Big time.

I hate this, I hate secondary losses on me. I had a grief attack this morning, lasted not for long but it was a powerful and hurting one. I yelled to heavens why , the usual whys. I demanded them to bring him back. And then I felt guilt because I wanted him here and not in the happy loving and peaceful place I believe he is. Gwen, I understand. 

[mittam99]

Gwen, Kay, Patty and Ana. You know my heart goes out to all of you.

I personally have to walk this grief journey with Tammy by my side and in my heart. I don't think I'd be where I am if I didn't live this way. I have to think that somehow Tammy sees my pain and shares in any triumph in my life. 

If I was to think 100% that death meant absolute non-existence and nothingness... I'm not sure I could function.

None of us knows for sure what lies beyond death just like none of us truly know how the universe began. I choose to believe that my Tammy still exists on some level. 

That's not to say I don't cry in pain everyday. I want to see her and touch her and share with her and kiss her and caress her and laugh with her and look into her eyes...on and on. I want my my old life with my sweetheart back. My life does suck without her. 

Neither of us wanted what happened on March 6, 2015.

The only way I can live in this miserable new life without being miserable is to live with the essence of Tammy in my world. 

I don't know if this makes sense to others but it's how I've survived.

[KATPILOT]

I've seen that sort of behavior in hospitals before Kay. I believe it comes from having to deal with family members while working on a patient in trauma. It doesn't make it right and it does indeed cause emotional distress in the surviving spouse. I am so sorry that happened to you the way it did.  For you it was harder still as you had to bring it to their attention.

It's sad that memories like that stay with us forever. You just spelled it out like it happened yesterday reminding me of how I do it too. How I wish we could lose those because they were the worst part of our wonderful lives.

I did tell Kathy that I would be okay and she could leave even though I knew inside I would not.  Who the hell would be? At that moment when she actually left, I knew so severely as if I had been hit in the face with a shovel, that I was truly alone. It was as if my own life's essence went with her and there was nothing to hold on to but to fall. I still shudder remembering that night. Several hours later I was in a state of shock that lasted two months not unlike when someone sees something so horrific that their brain tries to protect them?

Anyway, I'm much better now but the memory haunts me still.

[scba]

Kay, I'm sorry about what happened at the ER. We were asked to leave the ICU too when his heart was failing and he died without us there. I want to think that he, and doctors, spared us that. I will never forget that day, that moment, each detail. And I am sorry that we wont ever be able to cancel them. 

[KATPILOT]

That's a good way to look at this life we live Mitch. To keep Tammy's  essence in your world is a wonderful thing.

[scba]

18 minutes ago, mittam99 said:

Gwen, Kay and Patty and Ana. You know my heart goes out to all of you.

I personally have to walk this grief journey with Tammy by my side and in my heart. I don't think I'd be where I am if I didn't live this way. I have to think that somehow Tammy sees my pain and shares in any triumph in my life. 

Mitch, I hope to achieve that too. L

 

[mittam99]

It seems all of our beloved soul mates deaths were traumatic.

March 6th was supposed to be a good day for me and my sweet Tam Tam. We were watching TV and eating lunch at home. Just a matter of hours later she was gone. I never had a chance to say goodbye or tell her I loved her one more time. The last words I heard her speak were "help me". And all I could do was watch the EMT people rush her down to the ambulance as she was fading away. 

She was gone before she made it to the hospital. I frantically followed the ambulance and the next time I saw Tammy was the moment it felt like my life ended. I stayed with Tammy in the hospital's trauma room for over 5 hours. I couldn't leave her. This incredible woman laying there was all I cared about. She was all I had. She was my life. She was the best part of me. We were the perfect pair. Made for each other.

Early on in my grief it felt like all I wanted was to be with Tammy even if that meant going to heaven to join her. I couldn't and didn't want to live without her.

Now, over a year later, I'm still here and living this life with Tammy in my heart and living to honor her memory. I still have a long way to go, but thankfully, Tammy will always be a part of me. And no one can take that away from me!

 

[kayc]

Steve, Even if I could wipe out that horrible memory through hypnosis, I wouldn't because I can't let go of one second of him, not even his suffering.  That may not make sense to anyone, but I treasured every moment I was blessed to have him and wouldn't trade any of it.

[Gwenivere]

3 hours ago, mittam99 said:

The only way I can live in this miserable new life without being miserable is to live with the essence of Tammy in my world. 

I don't know if this makes sense to others but it's how I've survived.

I think anything that helps us is something we should hang on to.  As for making sense, doesn't sense take on a whole different meaning now?  I'm still trying to figure that out among the other gazillion things.  

[Gwenivere]

Kay, I am so sorry you are left with that memory.  Steves death was not really peaceful, but it wasn't chaos either.  Death can never leave anyone without memories we don't want.

[KATPILOT]

I think too that it's the helplessness I felt being totally unable to save her and then knowing she was the picture of health and eleven years younger than I left me screaming inside my mind. Yes Gwen there may be memories we don't want yet Kay has a point.  At the end of the day, all of the memories good and bad made up the lives we shared. I must try to remember that because I know by now they are here to stay. One other perspective is understanding how those last few days made me aware of the angels here on earth who did so much to comfort me during that time and I am speaking of the hospice nurses and counselors such as Joyce who also had losses of their own and yet spend their lives working in the business of sorrow. That kind of courage inspired me to "keep on swimming". Hard as it was to go back to that hospice home where she died I did it to bring a gift to those ladies at Christmas. While I was there, I felt a sense of peace. I understood that souls left that earthly place every day or so and yet these people kept on working. I don't think, no I'm certain I could never do that. It's a concentration of tears and devastation of so many families. I also became aware of how different loss is today. We have come so far in how we treat death and understanding grief over the last thirty eight years. I say that because when my mom died I was thirty and Hospice of the Valley had just begun. Somebody somewhere understood the need. We have been adding to that support ever since. This wonderful site is a perfect example of how far we've come. The best part of all is that it taught us to share our grief and help each other through it.

[Margm]

13 hours ago, mittam99 said:

The only way I can live in this miserable new life without being miserable is to live with the essence of Tammy in my world. 

I get angry when I cannot "feel" Billy.  I look to the sky, I look to the clouds, I pray my prayers that might not reach the ceiling.  Then sometimes I "numb down."  I dreamed he was beside me the other night.  I reached, he was not there.  I awoke and got out of bed.  He was not there, neither was I.  I feel our young life in Louisiana, I feel our absent life in Arkansas and hope to be rid of Arkansas soon.  

I remember my grandmother's words at 18 years after my grandfather's death.  It did not encourage me, yet she went on nearly 30 years without him.  She ran her little country store every day but Sunday.  I was by her bedside as she lay in the hospital dying.  She had been given pain killers and in her mumbles I heard "I could not be a wife to him."  My grandmother had had my kind of cancer at a younger age than I had it.  But, she had birthed seven children in ten years from the time she was 15.  Seems she was a wife to him many times.  Yet, for nearly 30 years she kept this guilt, she kept this pain, she lived with it and she died with it.  

We all have our public pain and we all have our private pain.  They did not keep me from seeing what was being done to Billy because we did not have a DNR.  I saw it.  I numb down to keep from reliving it.  I did it because the kids were not there, I knew he was gone, I hope and pray I did not hurt him too much.  I now know what a DNR is for.  It is for their final dignity.  Okay, I will numb down again.  

[Gwenivere]

8 hours ago, KATPILOT said:

IYes Gwen there may be memories we don't want yet Kay has a point.  At the end of the day, all of the memories good and bad made up the lives we shared. I must try to remember that because I know by now they are here to stay. 

Kat, that is the only thing I wish I could change, those last 2 weeks.  Erased from my memory, gone for good.  They add nothing to our life together. They went on so long watching the inevitable in helplessness as you said.  Maybe I would be better about them if Steve had died in hospice, but his body didn't fail fast enough so they made me move him to a care facility that did not give that level of care because they couldn't.  They couldn't do IV's to at least keep him zoned out for the days it took him to leave.  Administering pain meds was not as effective.  To watch that is something I can't believe I did.  Hospice sent a nurse every day, but I will never understand why they didn't take him back the last couple of days when the nurse told me it was so near.  

This is what haunts me.  Yes, hospice is great and so needed.  It would have given me (and him) more peace at that time.

[brat#2]

Gwen, I'm so sorry you didn't have that peaceful time near the end.  I don't understand why they didn't take him back to Hospice either, they could have made him so much more comfortable.

Kay, I can't imagine being pushed away from your husband and not being able to be there with him, I'm so sorry.

Unfortunately Gwen, you are right death never leaves memories we want.

Joyce

[KATPILOT]

I'm so sorry Gwen. Yeah that is a bad memory. I understand now why you want it gone. How nice it would be to have a neutralizer like they had in "Men In Black".  As agent K would say "That's one of a thousand memories I don't want to have".

I remember watching her trying to breathe those last few days with that mask on,  her lungs filled with the metastasized tumors and having chosen not to be kept alive by respirator.  Thankfully she lost consciousness for the last two days as her body began to shut down. That's when the conversation became one way. Now I'm going to leave this topic for a while because it frankly just hurts too much.

[kevin]

I must be wired differently than most, I don't carry bad memories, about anything in regards to people......I think time has a way of rounding the corners and even in the worst of time , there was humour......Angela's death was sad but it could have been a lot worse...and in time I was grateful things turned out the way they did.....Seriously, even my very First Wife I have no ill will, actually laugh about our past...Someone posted something about hate only effects the person who is the originator.....could be Oscar again... Can't have Rainbows without a little rain......have a good day

[Froggie4635]

One of mine and Mark's favorite television shows is Grey's Anatomy.  What they did at the end of last season was kill off a major character, a husband and father.  That made the main character, Meredith Grey, a widow.  I was in shock, but also intrigued by the direction they were taking the show.  One of the first main episodes of the new season, brought everything home.  There was a major flooding of the ER with older patients, and that meant some fatalities and having to inform family members.  Meredith watched how the new interns were being "trained" to give such tragic news. Because she had been in the receptive position of such news, she took it upon herself to teach them a true lesson.  I have never really felt compelled to write to a show, but it really hit home.  The thing she told them was they were going to forever be tied to those families, that they will be the one face they clearly remember, and that they should take that responsibility seriously.  It was so well written, so well acted.  I know that because I have been in that position and that I completely understood where she was coming from with that scene.  All the details of the morning that Mark died will forever be imbedded in my memory; something that I will NEVER forget.  I know this post is about a television show, but it was also about an experience that we have all had.  My heart goes out to all of us as we deal with these memories. 

[kayc]

Maryann,

I remember you or someone writing about that.  That even a t.v. show can affect our grief just shows how encompassing our grief is!

Gwen,

I suppose you're right, the horrible memories at the hospital do nothing to add to the summation of our relationship, that's for sure.  Okay, I could let go of that one then. 

Kevin,

You have an amazing outlook and I know you're right...just don't know too many who actually live it though.  Ill will does nothing for us, that's for sure.

[Gwenivere]

8 hours ago, Froggie4635 said:

All the details of the morning that Mark died will forever be imbedded in my memory; something that I will NEVER forget.  I know this post is about a television show, but it was also about an experience that we have all had.  My heart goes out to all of us as we deal with these memories. 

Maryann, we'll never lose those memories unfortunately.  As someone said, it's too bad that zapper of memory from Men in Black doesn't exist for those memories.  I know what you mean about television shows and movies.  That you could watch that and find  something uplifting is great.  I have a very hard time watching things dealing with realistic death now.  I can do fantasy or action/adventure because it is removed.  What gets me is I often put something on now it it will be about a love loss.  Or a love blooming.  I'm like....really?  What are the odds?  I also run into more stuff about prostate cancer.  Can't it just be non specific cancer?  We are so finely tuned to death now.  I can't count how many times how's have triggered tears.  Sometimes I even hate happy stuff because it reminds me of other times too.  Is this why people shoot thier TVs?