dpodesta

Awww Fred, are you blushing???

Kay, You are anything but weak. You will make it through this. I will be praying for you and I oray everything works out. I had to file bankruptacy after Karen died it is a process and a half now a days. Make sure to talk to several lawers concerning this, I think I talked to 4 before deciding who to use. We will be here for you during this time of uncertainty of yours. Through all of this remember this, we all make mistakes some bigger than others but they are mistake none the less. Do not beat yourself up over this, he like you said was a con man and they get the best of a lot of smart people. Knowing when to pery on their vunurbility. Kay, you are a great person and an asset to this board. Plaese take care and keep us posted. Love always Derek

Jan, The first 6 months or so I went through a lot with finances and getting a lot of work done around the house that needed to be done. It was awhile before I could slow down and really have time to grieve. I actually think it kind of helped however. With everything going on it was a distraction and allowed me to focus on other thigs at first so that when I did slow down and had to face the reailty of it all it wasn't as painful. I think that if I would have had to face that in the very begining it would have been more than I could have handled. Love always Derek

Wendy, You know that you and her will be in my prayers. It is all in God's hands. Love always Derek

Deborah, While I don't have the answers to why, I wish I knew myself sometimes. Try to look at it this way, he is in Heaven, where there is no more sickness, pain, hunger, etc.. everythin is perfect as it can be up there and he is happy. Unfortunatly we are the ones left behind that have to deal with the sorrow and the pain of missing that person. One day we will be united with them again, until then you know that they would want us to be happy again, to enjoy life, and to try and move on. I know it is difficult, very difficult however life is just too short. It can leave us in an instant as we are fully aware. I know today must be difficult, but just keep your chin up and take it one minute at a time you will get through this and we are all here for you to support you and help you. Love always Derek

Summerbelle, I do understand the hassels that we must go through when our loved ones pass away unexpectedly. My wife passed away 2 1/2 years ago just as we were arriving at Wlat Disney World from the airport. She also had a heart attack from hardining of the artries. The changing of names and utilities and so on and so forth is a major pain in the ***. It was almost 2 years before I changed a lot of that. I refinanced my house this year and had to go through a bunch then as well since there wasn't a will. Things will get better as time moves on, however some rough times are still ahead. We will all be here for you during those times and there will always be someone to respond to your posts. Take care. Love always Derek

Who is this Derek guy? I am jealous.

Marsha, At the beginning it does seem like we have blocks of cement on our feet and that we can't move forward. Those blocks will slowly lighten and you will be able to move faster and faster. Just give it time, I am sure you have probably heard enough about giving it time by now but it is so true. The next few months will be difficult and it will seem like it is getting worse instead of better and most everyone on this site will agree with me that during this time period it is normal to feel this way. Just keep coming here and we wil be here to help you through it. Love always Derek

Jenn, I completely understand where you are coming from. My wife died when I was 36 and my son was 6. It has now been over 2 years. I had those thoughts of wanting to die and take my life. I was also on medications for sleeping and depression. I did find that the group sessions were very helpful for me and my getting better. Just hang in there the next few months will seem like they are getting harder and harder. I will tell you however that it will get better. It will take time. Coming to this site is the best thing you can do, there are a lot of caring people here that will help you. I have been thorugh a lot in these past 2 1/2 years and the people on this site can attest to how far I have come. I am not going to tell you it will be easy, because it won't. But if you take it one step, or even one hour at a time you will get through this. Because of your age, you will likely get a lot of comments of "You are young you will find someone again" For now ignore them, they don't know what they are saying. When you hear that your instinct will be to say to yourself "I don't want anyone else, I want him". Just remember this is normal and unfortunately people out there don't understand and think that it is supposed to help you feel better. You and I know that it so. So just let it go in one ear and out the other. Keep coming here and don't feel like you are a bother, a lot of us here feel that when we are helping others, we are helping ourselves. I know it will be difficult raising children without their dad, I know it has been hard raising my son without his mom but I am making it, and starting to rebuild my life and my family. Take care and God Bless Love Always Derek

I would love to respond to each and everyone of you personnally however time is short. All of you have meant so much to me and have been here when I needed a pick me up. You are all like family to me and I can't even begin to share how it makes me feel to be able to share my happiness with you all. We come to this site during our darkest hours with little to no hope of ever living life again. No hope of every being able to love someone again. I can tell you now that I have experienced it that it is possible to love someone deeply again. The love I feel for Wendy I thought would never be possible. Again I want to thank you all for everything and I look forward to still hearing from you and being able to help each other as time goes on. Never give up hope, with God all things are possible. Love always Derek

John, Thank you so much for your comments. I have always respected everything you have had to say. You were the first one to post when I first came on this site over 2 years ago and helped through a very rough time in my life. I miss reading your posts and hope all is well with you. Love always Derek

Let me start out by saying that this site has been a wonderful site to me and to the many others that are members of this family. There has been a lot going on the last few weeks and this is why I feel compelled to write this post tonight. As you know 2 of our members posted about dating each other, well unfortunately that didn't work out between them, however Wendy and I have been talking a lot to each other and have decided to persue a relationship together. While her and I met here on this site I hessitated in posting this because I don't want this site to be turned into a site for people to come and find dates, that is not what this site is for. This site is for people to come together and share their experiences with death and to have others here that understand and help them to get through this rough road that we are on. It is also here to be able to share as life gets better and we start to be able to move on. I share this tonight to share the love that Wendy and I have for each other and to let you all know what is going on in our lives and also to make sure that as time goes on and we grow closer together that there isn't any confusion about what is going on as Wendy and I are so active on this site and I am sure that this will show in our posts from time to time. Love always Derek

Barb, I am sorry that you had to find this great group of people here under these circumstances. I can't add to much more to what everyone else has said. Unlike many people out there in the world, we do understand and we don't have to imangine as we have actually experienced the loss. Feel free to post what you are feeling or any questions, especially if it is something that you are experiencing or thinking and wondering if it is normal and I will almost guarrentee that someone will come back with a similar experience. I won't sugar coat anything here, this is a tough journey you have entered into, however this site and the people in it are a blessing and will make this journey a little easier. Just always remember, people in the outside world think that you should be able to get over the grief in a short period of time. The truth of the matter is that each of us has our own time frame, don't let someone rush you to do something that you don't want to do, take your time. Love always Derek

Mrs. Charley Anger is a very difficult thing to get rid of, especially in your circumstances. I don't know if you are a religous person or not but one thing that I have heard and found to work for me is to pray for the person (In your case the company) that you are angry with. It will still take time however I have found that praying for that person slowly allowed my anger to cease. The other way you can look at it is this. By allowing that person/company to get you that worked up and angry is giving them power over you. You are giving them space in your mind and life. I for one do not want someone to have power over me so I work to get rid of it and not allow them to have that affect on me. I hope that this will help you in some way. Love always Derek

Yeah, Yeah. Santa and I are best friends he won't let me down.He is a Cowboy fan as well.

Is that a threat? Love always Derek

OMG Wendy bought something with the Cowboys on it?!? I must be dreaming. You mean they know who the Cowboys are up there?? Love always Derek

They are very stingy when it comes to signatures. Wendy buy something to do with the Cowboys, that will be the day. Love always Derek

Go Cowboys!!!!!!!!

They will only come back because of a certain injured quarterback. LOL

Definately better late than never, it is kind of funny it seems like when we think we are doing better we tend to drift away and then something happens to bring us back. I have drifted at times from this site and always find myself back wondering why did I ever leave. Love always Derek

I think that it was a lot of us do in the begining is we try and exist. We can't see how we can continue to live. Like you said to simply exist is not living. The longer we run from our feelings the loger it takes for us to truly heal and make that transistion from existing to living. One step at a time. Love always Derek

Mrs. Charley, That is exactly what I did at first. I threw my self into repairs on the house that had been needed for years. I would work 9 hours a day at my work and then come home and work until it got dark which being the summer was 3 hours later. I would get my son to bed take a sleeping pill as I could not fall to sleep and then pass out. I did this all summer long. I don't know what it is like during the summer where you ar eput here in Texas it gets over 100 degrees in the summer and doesn't cool down at night. I was also working on filing bankruptacy. So between the two, I kept my mind busy so I wouldn't have to dwell on my real feelings. I posted that year around the end of Sept that the repairs were about done and the court stuff almost final and I posted that I was worried about what next. I knew with all that stuff being done that I would be able to start dealing with what I was running away from and I didn't like it. I didn't want to feel the pain that I knew would come from it. However, I did deal with it and I have come a long way from it. Today I see fond memories of my wife instead of sadness. That isn't to say that I don't feel sad at times, because I do. But today I don't have to be completely absorbed by them. Yes, you are trying to discover who the new you is and part of that discovery is dealing with those feelings and letting go of the guilt and through that yu will start to discover who you are. We will be right here beside you to help you along the way. Love always Derek

I told Kim, she is luckly some of us aren't local, we would look him up and beat the you know what out of him. Love always Derek

Amen Marty, Kim, that is why I stick around I love to help people in any way possible and to me by helping others then I can cope with my loss better, knowing that even though I don't know why God chose to take her this early, I can chose to say it was in order for me to experience death and be able to help someone else get through that same experience. I know what it is like being the third wheel, and that is why I started dating at a year and a half. I have since stopped looking at myself as the third wheel and satrted enjoying being single. While I have dated several times this past year I finaly realized why I was dating. It wasn't out of love or anything like that it was because I wanted to look normal, Have someone in church to sit next to and holod, someone to be with me during family events and so forth and for me those are the wrong reasons. So for now I choose to stay single and enjoy life. If someone happens to come alomg then great but I am not going to be out there looking for now. Love always Derek