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Marty, I like that article, a long time ago we had a saying of what "fine" stood for and for those that are in the grief process it really fits. F-Screwed up (I decided to keep it clean) I-Insecure N-Neurotic E-Emotions Love always Derek

Dawn, Most of the time I answered "ok" or "just surviving". I usually didn't have to go into more detail than that, nor did I want to. For me I was very sucidal at the begining so I didn't want people to know how I was really feeling. There were some friends in my life however who didn't let me get away with the "Ok" answer and would ask me how I was really doing. While I never mentioned that I wanted to take my life, somehow they knew and by them persisting on how I was actually doing I believe it help me to get through it all. I know that it is difficult when someone asks you how you are doing, I try to look at it as I would me more upset if they didn't ask and am thankful that someone cares enough to ask even if they don't want the full story. Love always Derek

Wendy, My thoughts and prayers will be with you today, I remember the first time I went through Karen's birthday, it was hard for me. You have a good day. Love always Derek

Scotty, For me it took several months to finally realize it wasn't a nightmare that I would wake up from. There were several times that I dreamed I would come home and she would be on the couch watching TV and I would get mad and ask where the heck she had been. I know what you mean with the smoking deal. I had quit for over 13 years and when Karen died I started smoking again, it helped to calm me, there was also a part of me that wished that it would speed up the time to when I could be with her again. I have an 8 year old son though and I know that I have to remain here to take care of him. I have tinkered wwith the flower garden in the front yard several times and just can't seem to keep things going, like you I don't know what I am doing with them, I just buy something that looks good and plant it and keep it waterted. Sometimes it lives sometimes it doesn't. Anyway, enjoy your smoke and try and stay warm. Love always Derek

I wish I could have some of that snow, all we usually get down here is ice, in fact we are supposed to have some Friday. However you can keep the -20c. Anyway, I hope you have a good night. Love always Derek

Dawn, First of all let me tell you how saddened I am for your loss, I am glad you have found this site. I am sure it will help you as much as it has helped me. My wife died from a heart attack on April 6 of 2006, we had just arrived at our hotel from the airport while on vacation, she never made it off the bus. Like your husband no previous signs or symptoms. I remember the feeling of not having anything to live for even though I had a son to take care of. I can tell you that you have come to the right place, you can come here and scream, complain and share whatever is on your mind without being judged. There are a lot of people here that will listen and will give advise as to how to get through this if you ask. I wish that you didn't have to go through the circumstances in order for you to find us, however I am glad you have found us. Love always Derek

Kathy, That is good to hear, I agree with you, I have never exercised before and I joined a gym this past month and it hasd been great. I actually have energy when I get home and want to move around instead of sitting in front of the tv doing nothing. Before Karen died I didn't watch much tv and I was always doing something. I never thought that exercising would give you energy or get you out of a slump. Love always Derek

Scotty, I had a few times myself when I would be over at someones house and I would turn into a blubbering idiot. That is okay, I am sure they understand. It will take time, and it is good that you got out of the house. It is so easy for us to just close ourselves up in the house and not do anything. Just remember to just think of today, think to yourself, "I can get through today" if that doesn't work, turn the day into hour or even minute if you have to. I am sure you will be fine. Hope to see more of you on this site, it was a life saver many times for me in the begining. Love always Derek

Karen, I would like to know how you came up with 2 1/5 years. Love always Derek

Scotty, First of all let me welcome you to this site, I wish I had found it as early since my loss as you have. For me those 1000 things that had to be taken care of gave me something to do and keep busy. In fact I did that for most of the first year, I didn't take time to rest and worked myself to the bone. My son was 6 at the time so that was something else that kept me busy. Right now you are so early in this journey and yes, it is hard to imangine just surviving life and not living it. For me after about 9 or 10 months I transitioned into living life again and not just surviving it. FOr now, just keep coming here there are a lot of people here who will be here for you and won't judge you and just concentrate on today. Don't worry about tomorrow (I know this is easier said than done)I found that when I stopped looking at the future and started looking at just today it made it a lot easier. Love always Derek

Patty, What happend for me and from what I have heard from other people is this: The first year will be the hardest, what I found was during the first few months or so you are such in shock from the change that you just don't truly fell the full impact of losing your loved one. Around 6 months or so you start coming out of that shock and the pain feels like it is getting worse. For me after 9 to 10 months was when the pain started to get easier to manage. It does get better with time, but that time will probably be later than sooner. It will be 2 years for me this April. I have started living life again and there are only a few times here and there where I step backwards and get into the pain of my loss, usually it is after my 8 year old son does something wrong or something breaks at the house that I get into the "why do I have to do this all byy myself" all in all I get over it pretty quickly and continue to go on. I hope this helps. Love always Derek

Suzanne, Make sure to check out the laws in your state and county. Some areas can charge property tax on lease vehicles. A long time ago in my county they did charge tax and we didn't find out until we got a tax bill at the begining of the year for about $500. It used to be the whoule state and then they change it where it was up to the cities or counties. Luckly now my county doesn't charge for leasing so I am able to lease now and that is what I did with my last truck in order to keep the payments down. Later on I might buy out the lease and keep the truck but I have another 2 years to decide that. Anyway, check it out to make sure you don't get an unexpected bill in the future. Love always Derek

I know it is difficult to look for a car. First thing is go to kelly blue book on the internet and find out the value of your car. Make sure that when you are talking about price that they tell you how much they are going to give you for your trade in. I had one dealership in the past that told me that they don't discuss what they are giving for the trade until you are in the finance office. However they wanted to discuss monthly payments. I told them that I couldn't discuss monthy payments without knowing what they were giving me for my trade. Needless to say I walked out. Go into the dealership with a price in mind on how much you want your monthly payments to be. When you set that price tell the dealership a lower price, I have found that I will usually end up around what I want for my payment. I know it is hard once you find a vehicle you want to walk away if the deal isn't good. Try several places and don't let them tell you that the deal won't be any good if you leave. The deal usually is good for several days.give them as little information as possible. I hope this helps and good luck, let us know how it goes. Love always Derek

When I read the book, I was also surprised at how closly the book hit on things I was doing. Dusky, I is so great to hear from you again. Love always Derek

Bob, That's it. I couldn't remember the exact title and didn't want to get it wrong. THe book talkes about all kinds of losses including divorce. While divorce is in no way close to a death there are similarities as to how men and women react to them. I loved the book so far, I haven't read through the whole thing but it really helped me to see myself and what I was doing and that the feelings I was having were normal. Love always Derek

I agree with Bob, you can't sreally set time limits on when and when not to getinto a relationship after the loss of your spouse. I think though as a rule of thumb 2 years really gives you time to grieve and to make sure that you are not trying to get rid of your pain by replacing it with a relationship. One book that might help you and it helped me a lot after the first unsuccesuful relationship was written by the same author that wrote "Men Are From Mars and Women From Venus" the book deals with relationships after a loss. I can't remember the title anymore and I am sure Marty when she reads this will post it. This book went over the mistakes that men and women do with relationships after a loss. When I read that book, I saw a lot of the things I was doing were written on those pages. It really helped me to get through all of this and make some sort of sense of it. Love always Derek

In the grief support group that I was in for awhile last year the counslers said you should wait for 2 years after the death before you get into a relationship. That gives you time to learn who you are. Obviously you and I didn't follow that rule. Looking back I can see what they mean. For me being married for 11 years, she became a part of me and I a part of her, so when she died a part of me died with her. I had to learn all over again who I was as an indavidule. Unfortunately that process doesn't happen over night. As I look back over the past 21 months, it wasn't until recently that I reaally started really learning who I was. For me I had to come to terms with being single, I had to accept that I am single and that I am ok being single. I think for me that was the most important part, I had to be ok with myself being single. Once that happened and I stopped looking for someone to fill that hole, then is when I was ready for the next relationship to happen. This time I decided to approach it like I did when I met Karen, I gave up trying to find someone and make a relationship work. I decided that someone will come into my life and it will just happen. That is what happened when I met Karen. That is what is starting to happen again with the woman I am going out with that I work with, I have known her for about 1 year so she knows who I am, how I act and what has happened. I feel like I can be who I am in front of her and I don't have to put up any walls. Well keep in touch with how it all goes and I wish you the best no matter what your descision turns out to be. Love always Derek

It is difficult for those who haven't been through what we have. It is difficult for us as well, we still love the one who died and feel strange when we consider loving someone again. And then there are the swings in emotions that we go through every so often. When we go through those emotions and we have someone in our life it causes us to rethink the relationship. You are doing the right thing by letting her know how you feel. Give yourself some time to make sure you want to stay in the relationship for all the right reasons. Anytime we have second throughts, the person on the other end is going to feel some hurt, unfortunately that is the results some times. When I ended the relationship I was in several months ago she was very hurt, she had fallen for me very fast. I even told her at the very begining of the relationship that I was still trying to figure myself out and that I could not promise anything. I then saw her falling faster and faster and I just didn't have the same feelings and decided it would be best to end it which I did. I hate that she got hurt in the process but I believe it was the best for both of us. Take your time and be honest which it sounds like you are and everything will work out. And as always if you need someone to talk to you knopw how to reach me here. Love always Derek

I lost my wife of 11 years on April of 2006. From what I have read here and what I have experienced is that your love for someone else will never be the same. It will be different. One thing that you will need to consider is why do you want this relationship to work out. I don't want to sound blunt but I don't believe I shold sugar coat either. This is what I have experienced with a past relationship. I got into the relationship about 18 months after Karen passed away. What I found was I was in the relatoship because I didn't want to be alone anymore, I wanted help in raising my son, and a few other realated reasons. Granted those are valadated reasons, but shouldn't be the basis of the relationship. I wasn't in love with her, I was in love with the situation of going to her house and having dinner with her kids and mine like a family after work. I had to break off that relationship until I got to know myself better and I had to come to the realization that it is ok for me to be alone, I don't have to have someone in my life for compionship, I have pleanty of friends for that. Having said all that, I did after that relationship become ok with being by myself and I stopped trying to look for someone. Just recently I met someone at work and we have started to go out. However this time I am taking it slower and wanting to take the time to get to know her and see how things go. I don't want to rush like I did the last time. I know things like this are difficult, we truly love the one that died, we can love again maybe not as deeply but we can love again, we just need to make sureb it is for the right resons. For me the last relationship was an attempt to replace what was missing. This time I don't see it as that, it is just that I want to be with her and get to know her better and see what happens next. I hope the helps in some way and I apoligize if I sounded blunt but since this does involved someone else's life, it needed said. Love always Derek

Karen, Nothing to apoligize for, I am a prety open person and will answer just about any question. Yes I am still going to church, I am now also an Assistant Sunday School Teacher in kindergarten. I still work will third graders as well on Sunday night. As far as dinner we usually watch tv in my room while we are eating. I joined a gym and am using a personal trainer and it has given me energy to start doing things around the house. I started cleaning up my room last weekend and found areas of the floor that I haven't seen in over a year. Love always Derek

Karen, You are not interfering, however, I haven't seen the top of my kitchen table in about a year. It seems to be the dumping ground for everything. Love always Derek

We all wonder if we are wierd if we leave something alone of our loved ones here is something I noticed tonight. Sitting on my bed eating dinner I looked over at the night stand by Karen's side of the bed and noticed the clock. This was her clock and I have not touched it since the day she died. The alarm is still set for 4:30 am (it is not turned on) the time we got up on that final day to Disney World. The time is way off now due to the ocassional power failure but the alarm time never changes. This is one of those things I haven't been able to change yet. Love always Derek

He has a bunk bed with a futon bed on the bottom, he just doesn't like to be alone.

He is doing well, his psycologist appointments are going well, the Dr. is wanting to set a date for him to start sleeping in his own room.

For the longest time I didn't move any of her things, then I started running out of space and I went for awhile and didn't do anything but finally I had enough and needed the space and that is when I contacted her sister to come and get the stuff. I still have a lot of her things in her night stand drawer, for now that is where it will stay. I may eventually get rid of the stuff in there but for now out of sight out of mind. There are a bunch of things in the computer room that I will go through soon because it is driving me crazy that the room is such a mess. I will do the same thing with those items am give family and friends the opturnuity to use anything they want. Anyway take your time. Derek