Wifflesnook

Fae I will look out for that film. I have Prime too but it may be different in the UK. I took Kelbi to the vet this morning. My dear friend Sandra came too. The vet gave Kelbi a very full examination including her fatty lumps (just that). He saw her limp and said he could hear clicking in the front leg but couldn't find anything else and said her joints seems supple he thinks it is arthritis and has given us anti inflammatory drops. I said I'd read that long term they can cause liver or kidney problems and he said yes it's possible though in his 13 years experience they haven't. But maybe just use them a few weeks. He said not to walk, her so much and this is hard for me because she is my walking companion and I'm not happy to walk without her. But maybe I should. She seems better in the afternoon than the morning. Anyway I am much relieved. Though I did t like him calling her a geriatric dog but she has gone a bit grey! Onward and upward and live in the moment (mostly). Fae I so related to what you said. If we have loved greatly our loss (which I suppose is inevitable for one of the couple) is all the greater. We three year people have I guess reached a stable place mostly. My grief is ever present and sometimes very very sharp but somehow I get through. How I don't know. I tend to avoid the new grievers on the forum because I can't tell them it gets better with time, just that we get stronger.

That is lovely Anne. I received a very good lesson from my beloved dog Kelbi today. She has been worrying me as I think she has a limp sometimes. It may be arthritis. She is nine. Anyway this morning she wouldn't come for a walk with me and just sat about and looked subdued. I made an appointment for a check up tomorrow at the vet and worried and worried. She is such a boisterous spaniel and I'm not used to her being slow and sad. Anyway this afternoon I decided to try again and to my amazement she came happily and we walked about two miles (which is usual). So I thought "Jan, live in the moment. Enjoy this moment just as Kelbi is doing. Don't fret, try not to feel sad. Enjoy the sunshine and the landscape and talking to people you meet". So I did. And how my Pete would approve of that! He was good at living in the present. I'm not. I never have been actually but now that my present is a sad one I'm sometimes not sure I want to be in it at all. But here I am, and here I must be. Just be.

Dear Brian Like Anne I lost my beloved husband three years ago . He was everything that mattered to me. Like Anne I have somehow survived and I'm sure you will too helped by your family. I feel gratitude for the many years I shared with my Pete and there would never have been enough. I understand totally that everything seems pointless to you now. I think all you can do is let the feelings be as they are, don't judge them, try to live one day at a time, and keep posting here. You will find that we all understand though evryone's loss is different. It helps to share and I don't know how I would have managed without this wonderful site. Jan (in England)

How did I miss these lovely messages to me? I don't know but thank you. It's true I've been very busy and I suppose that is good. But it's almost ten pm here in England and I'm in bed with a hot chocolate and my iPad. I've got into the habit of lighting a candle every evening to make believe my Pete is near me. And I've just ordered an enormous canvas photo of him. He truly isn't far away and he would so approve of the way I've revived our web site and I thank you all for looking at it. I'm going to try my best now to make changes. I can add some more of Pete's poems. I'd like to cover it with photos of him but I shall restrain myself. But I've also been busy putting a lot of our videos on YouTube. The ones I've done lately date from 1991 and I hear my Pete's voice on them. How lucky am I that I can do that? Thanks again. Big hug from Jan

Dear friends Don't worry about Kelbi, she can go in the garden on a long leash and she gets two walks daily anyway. Am just a bit troubled about her as she is slowing down. She is 9 this month so I suppose is middle aged. But as she has always been such a hyper dog I worry if she isn't hyper! Even though it makes life easier. Yesterday was the third anniversary of Pete's Farewell, which I couldn't call a funeral. Just couldn't. Words are so powerful. I can say 'he died' but I can't bear people to say 'the late Pete Crowther'. I can't bear to think he had to have a funeral so I insisted on calling it the Farewell. It happened on a beautiful May morning, his favourite month. Anyway a good thing happened yesterday as my friend from the next village helped me get my new web page on line. It's to help with our campaign to save this area from over development. Pete would thoroughly approve (does do). So long as I live I shall feel he is close I hope. Not close enough though. Fae I love reading your musings. I'm glad you find yourself in quite a good place. Here is the link to my new page http://www.wilgilsland.co.uk/page41.html Jan

Please share the wisdom you find there Anne. That poem is beautiful as is the image. Yes I've changed too though Pete would still recognise me.

It's always on a Sunday here too, but in tnose bad old days servants worked just about every day. Kelbi gets two walks daily of about three quarters of an hour each (I am obsessed!) so she doesn't do too badly. And in the garden when I'm working there I tie her up. It's not the same as being free though!

Dear friends I walked down Spurn Point, my beloved peninsula, today, with the former warden. He is older than me and knows so much about the area. I, of course, wished it was Pete I was walking with, but I cope with tnose moments as I'm sure you all do. We have to. I feel close to Pete when I walk there because we have spent so many many hours there. The weather was good and I enjoyed it. Kelbi can't come because dogs aren't allowed. She will have to be on a lead in the garden for the summer so that the birds are safe. Not all dogs chase birds but sadly she does. I loved your rose story Fae. As you may know our Mother's Day in England is linked to the Lent calendar so varies with that. I can't remember which Sunday it is but it was always called Mothering Sunday when girls in service were allowed a day off so that they could visit their mothers.

Your BIL is lucky to have such a lovely daughter Anne.

Dear friends Yes some of us share this three year anniversary. It's something I find hard to deal with. I have to measure the months now years of my loss alongside the months now years of our beloved second grand daughter, born the day before Pete died. The time stabs my heart. How can it be that long? How could I have managed to live that long without Pete? I would not have thought it possible. And smaller losses nearly throw me. We had an election yesterday in the UK And it was not a good outcome. And then I let Kelbi loose in the garden and she killed a blackbird. And it was either a female who might have been looking after young or a youngster just having fledged. I could t bring myself to look closely as I bagged the poor dead bird. And that was entirely my own fault. Kelbi does chase and kill birds and I encourage them into the garden and then they are killed. Oh so sad. Pete would be so upset with me. It has happened before. And I have not learnt. But it has made me upset of course. Until much later in the year Kelbi cannot be allowed in the garden unless on a lead. I feel like you all feel. We manage to walk and talk and behave normally and inside we feel such pain and loneliness. I miss my Pete desperately. As you all miss your wonderful life partners. It's just after nine pm here and it's very quiet. And lonely. But at least I can talk to you. On May 16th is the anniversary of what I called Pete's Farewell, in the barn of the farm next door. My heart is full of memories and pain. But in some ways no different than at any time. Anniversaries are not very imprtant. We think about our beloved ones all the time don't we? And like Fae, I can remember with gratitude and joy the happiness I shared with Pete. Not for long enough but when would have been long enough? Thank you everyone for remembering me. I'm doing the same for you. I couldn't cope if I didn't share this with you. Jan

Mary I am so sorry but I know what you mean about a positive. My beloved Pete after the stroke would not have wanted to live a long time in such a diminished form though I'd have kept home somehow in whatever state. But I am so sorry. Jan

Thank you everyone. It's almost midnight here in England. I'm going home tomorrow and I think that is when I will feel this anniversary the most. I'm glad I haven't been alone and yet I need to be alone. You will understand. I hate that three years separates me and Pete from breathing the air, even though we weren't together when he died. And that is still the hardest thing in many hard things. But thank you all of you. It helps. Jan

And hugs from England and thank you for being there for me. I will cope tomorrow. I always have so far. I'm sure Pete is with me somehow. Jan

Thanks everyone. I had a real melt down the other day thinking of May 4th and remembering that I wasn't there with him (for very understandable reasons as you know). And I just kept thinking that after 50 years of being together I let him down by not being there. And I had to talk to myself about it. And this is what I said. Pete understands. He understood. And maybe he knew that he should slip away when I wasn't there. Because one thing was sure and that was that I would kill myself caring for him. And I would also have been pulled to go and help our daughter often and since I always put Pete first (until I had to go to be with her) I would have killed myself trying to help both of them. And this doesn't really help. It's a rationalisation of one of the worst things I have to deal with. But I'm hoping that I don't have to go through it next week again. In a long life together (for which I'm always grateful) I have to accept it. An try not to imagine the circumstances (which I could never bear to ask about). I know he got another bout of pneumonia and died. It was the third one because he couldn't swallow after the stroke. It would have happened whilst I was caring for him. I would have thought it was my fault for lack of care. One thing which occurred to me the other day is that every single great love ends in loss. What an awful thought. Ok it binds us together on this forum but oh how sad. Anyway as Anne says we have got each other through these times. There will be more. Anne and I share a lot. We have done well to reach this point, we had to survive the unbearable and unthinkable and we now have to cultivate gratitude for what we had. And I do. And I shall. Thanks from my heart. Peace.

I just saw that the moon is more than half full and thought "oh no is The May Full Moon going to coincide with the anniversary of my Pete's death?" And yes it is. I didn't want it to, but now I will take it as a sign from him because the full moon always speaks to me. Think of me on 4th May. I will be with our daughter and her littlies but not at home.

I've just received a wonderful book which I had to order from the USA. It's called The Widow's Handbook: poetic reflections on grief and survival, edited by Jacqueline Lapidus and Lise Menn. Here is a poem which will resonate with you Solving an Astronomy Problem By Lise Menn It's certain, as I had always suspected: You were my sun and moon and stars; Not one of them rises any more. So then, what is that yellow light that heats my skin And which occasionally warms me for a moment? It must be someone else's sun that I can see. It must be someone else's moon that changes shape. And those must be their stars: faint, blinking, useless

Dear Teri I'm in England.. My beloved Pete died three years ago. Just coming up to the anniversary on 4th May. I have found this site a life saver. Everyone here knows what it is like to lose the love of their life. As you write so eloquently the losses pile up and up and those who haven't experienced it just don't get it. And they expect us to get over it. We don't, we learn to live with it. But you has those happy years and I hope they will give you strength. Keep writing here. Jan

Hello everyone Just wanted to report from England. I'm pleased to say things are as they were, which means despite everything I'm still surviving. Still creeping around the massive hole where my Pete should be and still not looking closely at it lest I lose all the strength I've managed to amass. It's now very close to the anniversary of Pete's death. It's the 4th of May and the day before our little grand-daughter was born. I shall be with her so I can't be at home. It goes without saying that this anniversary is something I fear. But I know from experience that the anticipation is worse than the actuality. On a positive note I am making a very new and special garden. Pete made a new hardy geranium before he had the strike and in the course of doing it he had to dig up many sods of grass which he placed in a mound upside down to rot. They have been there ever since and Sandra my lovely neighbour and I are now going to turn it into an unusual garden. We are going to put gravel all around it, stones from the nearby beach, plant it with little succulents, and I'm going to call it the Moonhare garden. He loves hares, he loved the Moon, Moonhare was one of the names he used sometimes. And I'm going to buy a Moonhare statue and risk someone stealing it. This special garden wiz in the front of our cottage where people walk past. I will post some pictures for you. This special garden is meant as a special memorial for my Pete and Sandra, who paints stones, will paint a Moonhare stone for me. I am pleased with this idea as you can gather. I may just light a candle sometimes and place it there too, but I can't sit near as I would be sitting in the road! I've also started doing the garden and I do find this therapeutic. And thirdly I visited our little field ALONE on Monday and there were flowers all around our pond. They are wild flowers called Cuckoo flowers and they have flourished this year thank to the work my friend J did in Strimming around the pond last year. Anyway these are positive things in my life and I wanted to share them.

Anne this is such sad news and I am keeping all of you in my heart. Jan

Thank you for the update Anne. You sound so brave but you must be really worried and I'm thinking of you as you deal with this. We are all thinking of you. X

This is wonderful news Fae. Keep smiling! And write whatever you feel whenever you feel it. Happiness, sadness, anger, whatever. This is what this place is for. Now let us celebrate!

I don't want to add my story (it's three years old and it's here already) but I did want to say how everyone of us here knows the pain of "did I do everything I could?" And no I did not. And hindsight will tell us we could have behaved differently but we didn't have hind sight. We just loved our beloved ones, did everything we could have when we were living through it and I believe that they understand that somehow. I have to.

This piece was on Facebook today and it just says everything to me. I do meditation and One of the tenets is we should live in the present. I can't get along with that for the reasons mentioned in this piece. I'm betting it will resonate with you too.

It has to be a day which brings many happy memories and I hope you feel him close QMary

Dear Harry Thank you for a lovely piece. We all have our different ways of dealing with these things. For me it's to keep my rings on my hand where Pete placed them over fifty years ago and to have his ring on my right hand. I too invest objects with enormous meaning. His pens are really significant, to the extent that it worries me. I let our little grand daughter use one last week and she lost the top and I felt enormous panic (we found it). I wore Pete's watch until the strap broke and then I wore it on a chain around my neck but now the battery has gone and I'm waiting until I get to a shop where they can replace it. I sleep in our bed with under his pillow two of his sweat shirts which I think haven't been washed since he wore them. As I slip into bed at night I feel comforted and I think it's because of them. Maybe this sympathetic magic is rubbish but it isn't to me so it isn't. I live in our cottage which I try to keep unchanged within limits. I think maybe my attitude, three years after he died, shows enormous vulnarabilty, but I've learnt one imprtant lesson from grief It is what it is. I do try to do stuff which pushes boundaries a little bit. I live an independent life, I smile, I laugh, I look normal, I have friends. But if I analyse my behaviour I realise I still live with very active grief and pain. And symbols are hugely imprtant to me as, reading your heart felt piece, I realise they are to you. So I know that we all have our own ways of dealing with symbols. I love to read what you write Harry.