PattiR

Deborah, The responses you have received have all been good ones, but I'm going to take a different tack here with what I've done and just recently. Let's get this out there before you tear yourself up any further...YOU didn't make this choice to lose your Larry. Larry did NOT break your heart. Hon, you have to remember that life has a finite quality and we all have to deal with the inevitables. I lost my fiance almost 6 weeks ago and felt like everything had ended...I had died with him that horrible day in December. (Read some of my previous postings on here...not pretty at all with all my whining and self-pity.) Everything that we hoped for, had, and dreamt of died with him. We were going to have a wonderful life and we, in our early 50's, finally were going to get it right this time around. His family and friends had totally dismissed me, and I was left a wreck and not feeling like I had anywhere to go, no one cared. All I wanted to do was die, give up living, and join him. For 5 weeks I had been making myself sick every day grieving horribly, when I had a friend of my Ed's remind me of the Serenity Prayer. He had gone through AA with him...almost a decade of meetings and the like...and the Serenity Prayer is the heart of every AA meeting and in the heart of everyone that has dealt with Recovery. My Ed lived his life around the Serenity Prayer and the 12 Steps of AA as no one that I'd never met before. How in the world could I forget the Serenity Prayer? It was so, so important to my Ed!! [i must add that I was so proud of my Ed being clean and sober till the day he died...almost 10 years to the day...9 Jan. would have been when he would have received his 10 year chip.] Please take the time and Google the Serenity Prayer. Read it and take it to heart. Carry it around with you, make it your mantra when you start coming apart. It hurts horribly to admit that we are not in control of such circumstances as that is human nature to be in control. We have to ACCEPT what we cannot change. We cannot control what has happened in the past regardless of the devastation, hurt, or the deprivation that we felt. As dear as my Ed was to me and I loved with all my heart and being, he is now in the past. He is in the past and I'm in the here and now...it is that simple. I cannot change his dying so unexpectedly of that heart attack...there was no warning and no good-byes to be had. I cannot change his family's actions. I cannot change a bloody thing because it is in the PAST and where I had NO control over the situation(s). It hurts me to have to admit that it is all in the past now and should be just a lovely, warm memory that he'd want it to be. We make the conscious choice to be miserable and to allow such misery to dictate our emotional and physical health. Do you really enjoy being miserable and wallowing in the pain, making yourself ill? I didn't and was doing exactly that till I had my Ed's friend throw the Serenity Prayer at me as a wake-up call, something to live by. I will love and cherish Ed till the day that I die. He was my soulmate in every sense of the descriptor. He gave me such joy and love. I had dreamt that such would never have been mine to be found again in this life, but there he was, my middle-aged gallant on a Harley with his long moustache and flowing George Custer-like silver hair. Our time together wasn't long enough in my humble opinion and not what he and I had planned, but we were given just a little time to call our's. I miss him and everything about him. I know that what we had is now in the PAST and in order for me to heal, for him to find peace with his Higher Power, and for life to move on, even if it is painful and not by choice, that ACCEPTANCE of the inevitable must be. He's never coming back and has died, but he made my life so bloody wonderful and even with all the pain I'm going through now I wouldn't change this ride for all the tea in China. I still cry and it hurts, but it has eased with the acceptance of what could not be changed and placing things in their perspective. And it will continue to ease as the days pass. Ed's my "forever love" from that one Josh Groban tune. Trust me, as there is peace of mind and heart to be found in acceptance and to know that we cannot change the past, distant or immediate. This is the first step to taking the long road to healing and living again. "God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change..." Pat

Kayc... Ed and I had not had the chance to marry, that was to be sometime in early summer after his next to last graduated from HS this coming June. I think that if we had actually married back in early Nov. when we first started discussing our options, though his family and friends would have been screaming "too soon, too fast..you're in for trouble" things would have been handled quite a bit differently with me. We were just two people acting like normal adults and biding our time. No brownie points to be had there. I've come to the conclusion that I just have to let it all go. It is their loss not keeping me in their lives. His family is from the lower rung of the "food chain" shall we say and I don't think that they know how to behave any differently. As we all know that the lower one is, especially here in the olde south, on the socio-economic ladder, the more they think that their fecal material has no odor. That is pretty much what I'm dealing with and just have to be sensible about the entire matter. I know that he would be in shock and totally disgusted with them for their treatment of me at this time. I find that in being practical and sensible I no longer need their validation for what was between their son/brother/father and myself. Yes, it still hurts horribly to be dismissed in such a manner, and yes, I shall still whine about it occasionaly, but I know the truth and that is more than they will ever have. I am fortunate that I was brought up not to be so classless and that graciousness was to be exercised to the nth degree. I would have NEVER left any of his family feeling like this if the situation would have been reversed. Different breeding, different backgrounds....just that bloody simple. I will say that I am ashamed of and for them. And in many ways I still have a difficult time reconciling the fact that he was related to this redneck-whitetrash lot and he was so very, very different, not play acting, but being simply true to himself. (Ed used to call me "Lady Elizabeth" due to my background/pedigree/upbringing.) Grief does very strange things to families and individuals, but I was not even remotely prepared for what I have had to deal with in the past weeks. Indeed, Dusky/John, said it all and so succinctly in that it is not me, but them that are having the problems. I can say that I had Ed's heart and held his soul. He died happy with his relationship with me and was so very well loved. I have no guilt whatsoever with this man as I told him on many, many occasions how appreciated he was for just being himself and thanked him profusely for loving me the way he did. I was so proud of this man for overcoming such severe problems in his life and told him that as well often. I don't think that there's anyone in his family that said anything like that ever to him, or rarely if that. Thanks...Pat

Yeah, the replaying can be a nightmare...the waking up at 3 a.m. in tears is gut wrenching, agonizing. I never cried much till this happened and I don't know how to handle it. Everything is just so overwhemling. I'm working with a clinical psychologist and she keeps telling me to just roll with the tears and things will get better. Yeah, right. Yesterday was a month since my Ed died and it seems that the longer this goes on the worse it gets. All I want is him back and life to go back to normal--our marriage to have taken place, get his two teenage daughters started off in life properly, trailering his Harley to Key West this summer as we had planned, etc. etc etc. Now everything is gone...kaput. I had a friend of mine tell me that I just have to get back to living life as it was before him and that made me ill. Life before this man coming in the proverbial door was miserable and it was so long in coming. Ed looked past my having had polio as a child, vaccine failure in '60, and treated me with such a protectiveness and dignity that I'd never experienced in either of my two prior marriages. All I do is ask "WHY?" and "haven't I had enough bad things in my life to now face his loss?" I know that I should be grateful for having had Ed in my life, but dammit, I don't want to spend the next 20-30 years on my own without him. One person, though imperfect in many ways, did make such a difference for someone like me. I asked for an extraordinary man to want to just live an ordinary life, and I got him, but now it is all gone....everything is gone. I rattle around this house during the day in tears...his family has totally dismissed me. Everyone says hang on to the memories of what was good and that will get you through. Well, it was what was so bloody wonderful that I mourn for...it was all good. Yes, I'm scared of facing a life without him as I have no where to go and no one to go to...I'm an orphan in this world and this one man, Ed, filled so many horrible voids that are now back multiplied many times over. Sorry for my rambling on...just having a very, very bad day with the memories and looking at a very bleak future.

Maylissa... I will join you in saying that the holidays were bloody awful. So many reminders...my best friend, Jo Ann, died Christmas Eve and my father the day after Christmas of '95. Loosing both within days of each other was horrid. Then on the 15th of December '05, (Yes, just a few weeks ago.) my fiance' had a massive heart attack while at the bank on business and they couldn't bring him back. For near a decade I lived with terrible holidays and were so looking forward to this one with my Ed and his family. I had actually felt like celebrating this past holiday season and knowing that 2006 was going to be OUR year....going to look at a house after the holidays were over with, settling his daughter at college's summer session, and marrying to give us a life of our own. I was in gear to see that this was going to be a grand one...had picked up his Christmas present that I had commissioned for him the day before, had been cleaning silver for a surprise dinner for two, dragged out my mother's antique ornaments and the little tree...and make up for all the years in sadness. Back to Christmas cards...My cards were all set to go with pics of the two of us and hinting of a mid-summer wedding in my "newsletter." The cards were stamped and sitting on the counter in the kitch when I got the call from his family of what had happened. I stood there in the kitch just staring at that pile of paper; that's what it had become in a heartbeat. I just picked them up and dropped them in the garbage. And then I broke. I feel like a darned "drama queen" with this happening. It is funny how you recall such things when disaster strikes. Definitely not a Kodak moment. I will never write out another Christmas card. I give up on the holidays...no one called me to see how I was doing Christmas Eve, Christmas, or New Year's...his family has deserted me in their grief and I've none to speak of. All my friend's have their own lives and were just too busy or heading out of town. Now I am sitting here awaiting a call any day from his eldest daughter to see if she can get back the engagement ring. She was asking about it at his service on the 18th of Dec. Happy holidays...not!

"You describe being “dismissed”. I can relate to that feeling and can understand your pain. Just when you need the love and support of the people who loved your fiancé you are left to feel “less than a part” of the life of the man you loved. The reality is that you were the largest part of his life – the most important part – the one he wanted to spend his life with. You are not the problem - they are – and their inability to be able to adequately deal with his absence from their lives." John/Dusky... Thank you for your affirmation that I am NOT the problem. I really needed to hear that as I've been blaming myself left and right. It helps me tremendously to see that my situation is not unique, but then these are circumstances none of wished to have ever found ourselves. I've been well aware of the fact that a death can either blow a family apart or bring everyone closer together from my past experiences with same, but this has been just a bloody nightmare. I've been making myself nuts as to: "What did I do wrong in dealing with his family during this tragic time?" "Did I suffer from a case of 'foot in mouth' disease in my shocked state?" "Am I a reminder of their loss?" I could go on here with the questions, but I shall cease and desist. The sad part to all of this is that this is not what my fiance', Ed, would have wanted. He always told me that I could trust ALL these people and could go to them. I am so hurt. The one time in my life when I need a "family" around me, they dismiss me like an errant child. It is the most desolate feeling of nowhere to go and no one to go to in this situation. Yes, I have a few close friends, but they have their own lives. This is one of those times when I wish my father was still alive and he could make it all better, but, alas... And I have spoken with two people in his hometown who were supposed to be considered my friends as well, but was treated so coldly. I have vowed to have no dealings whatsoever with any of the family or friends, nor make any overtures of any sort from today forward. I guess you could say that I know that I've go to cut and run. Time to close the door, even if it hurts. I really need to stop being so doggone reactionary, but it is so hard to control such feelings right now with all the sorrow and pain burbling madly just below the surface. My Ed would want me to be there for them at a time like this and I've offered such, but they don't want me. My heart goes out to you with what your partner's son is doing to you. I hope that eventually he will come to his senses and embrace the compassion and love that you have for him. Be patient, John, and see how it all plays out. As for your advice as to reading material, it is so appreciated, but next week I start in with a clinical psychologist to do a bit of grief therapy and take it from there. Now I'm not saying that I've not been reading, but have been reading AA's Big Book and there's alot in there that can be applied to my current situation. My Ed was in recovery and this month would have been his 10 year anniversary. I was very proud of him with his commitment to sobriety and his still going to AA meetings about twice a week. The Serenity Prayer, or as Ed used to call it his "Sanity Prayer," is something that I really need to adhere to moment by moment in this situation. I need to practice what he used to "preach." Again, John, thanks for your story and helping me feel a bit better, a bit more at peace. Your partner was a lucky man to have had someone like you in his life. You're a darned good guy! Peace to you as well and a hug...Pat PS: God gave us memories so that we could have roses in December.

Three weeks ago today I lost my fiance to a massive heart attack. (No, this was not an expected scenario, but right out of the blue and like a very bad joke.) Needless to say it has been devastating. In the past I've lost both parents and my only sibling suddenly, but I handled all that so differently. My fiance's family is quite large...7 brothers/sisters and their spouses/significant others, his four children, two ex-wives, his widowed mother, and a gazillion neices, nephews, aunts, uncles, and cousins, and not to mention ALL his friends and contacts. He lived in basically the same area all of his life, so you can imagine the network that he had, whereas I came from a very small family and my roots obviously didn't run quite so deep shall we say...work and lifestyle for a number of years had me all over the country and Europe, etc. I'm coming to grips with the loss of all the tomorrows, plans, dreams, etc. that he and I had and appreciating what time we did have together...a blessing. My pain at the moment is the way his family has pretty much dismissed me. I understand their loss well from my own past experiences with my family over the past decade. I just don't understand why I'm being dismissed and treated like his and my relationship really never existed. Whilst he was alive they treated me like a member of the family and were kind, but now I'm nothing and not even contacted at all. I just don't understand. Am I seeking validation of the relationship? Am I an unpleasant reminder? Do they hate me for they feel that he spent more time with me the past months than with them before his heart attack? Has anyone else experienced this sort of craziness from the "other" family?