Wifflesnook

Thank you Anne. Lovely. And as its your birthday please know I am thinking of you specially today.

Those who are near me do not know that you are nearer to me than they are Those who speak to me do not know that my heart is full with your unspoken words Those who crowd in my path do not know that I am walking alone with you They who love me do not know that their love brings you to my heart.     --Rabindranath Tagore (1861-1941)

Mary I am SO pleased that you came home. You were so wise to realise that it was necessary to look after yourself. I'm glad she has people who will support her, and you have already shown her yours by going over and staying there. I do hope her treatment will help but the whole thing sounds so worrying. I hope you have a very quiet restful weekend and take care of you for a change. You must be utterly exhausted both physically and emotionally. Jan

This forum has kept me going since I lost Pete and I am so thankful I found it. It's thanks to Marty's wise guidance and the lovely people here. Jan

Dear Kathy, moving after all those years will be yet another hard thing (though I guess everything is hard anyway right now). Wll you have help to do that? I have a photo frame in our living room that changes every minutes or so and Pete's photos are always there. I put it on in the morning and turn it off as I go to bed. At first it gave me more pain than pleasure as in every photo he looks so well and vibrant. Now I can bear it and I suppose it helps to see him. We have been blessed with loving husbands, and not everyone can say that. A partnership like ours is wonderful but the pain when we lose them is correspondingly hard. All this sounds so trite in the light of you loss but what can I say? I will never get over losing my Pete and indeed I don't even want to. But I am managing somehow to live on even if the living is hard. Jan

Dear Kathy My husband Pete died in May. We had been married almost 50 years and we were everything to each other. I can't say that I am coping, only that I am existing without him and managing to eat, walk our dog, and do basic things. I have received so much help from being on this forum because the people here truly understand. They won't say things that don't help like others, however well meaning do. They know that when you have lost your life partner you are lost. We have to carry on but as Anne says its just one step after another. I know that my life wil never be the same (and to be honest I am still in denial in many ways as I can't beleive Pete has really gone). But with the help of people like Mary, Marty and Anne and others here I have survived six months. It's good that you have found this site. I live in 3England but distance is meaningless when I can talk to people who truly get what it is like to lose a life partner. I never expected it to happen to me as my Pete was so well before he had a devastating stroke and our lives changed utterly. I still can't think of him as dead and I try very hard to think that because he loves me so much he is near me. I am not conventionally a believer but nevertheless the only way I keep going is to think that. Please post regularly as this forum is a life line. We are here for you and we check in daily. Please do know that you are not alone and that we know what it is like to lose our beloved husbands or partners. Everyone's loss is different but a partnership like you and I had is a lifetime. What is his name? Jan

While you are in the world so is Celene, Anthony. I think we can all take inspiration from your way of commemorating your anniversary. Thank you. The love is undiminished.

So delighted about Bentley's success and the story of the stroke patient is so inspiring.

In the UK we have a programme called Desert Island Discs. A celebrity chooses eight records which are meaningful and talks about their life. This Friday it was an American theatre critic called Blanche Marvin, aged I think 87.. She has lived in the Uk many years and is still going to the theatre and writing columns. Anyway she met her beloved husband when she was quite young, and he was a lot older. He committed suicide when their children were still young after a Diagnosis of cancer which he didn't tell her about. She didn't blame him in the slightest because as she said he did it to spare her. Anyway the reason I am telli g you about this is that he was so alive still in her memory. Many of the discs were chosen by her because of her memories of him. She began an award for new plays in his memory. And despite her being such a lively vibrant person and living in the present she was able to keep him alive in her heart and life. To me she was an inspiration. She showed me that it is possible. If you can I'd suggest you try to listen to this programme. Her choice of music is lovely (made me cry whilst I was walki g the dog). The BBc have Iplayer which you can download and listen to programmes. Presumably it works in the States too. I think you would like this programme a lot.

Dear Anthony I know how it is to have intense feelings sparked off by places. I suppose I have got 'used' to being in our lovely cottage without my Pete, though objects around me set things off. But places we visited together are still no go areas or places that make the pain very sharp. I hope on your wedding anniversary you can remember all the happiness you had with Celene. It's still there. I have been looking at old photos because our son scanned some slides and put them on his Facebook page. It's so bitter sweet as they show such happy times, and I'm trying to educate myself to understanding that past happiness isn't in any way marred by the death of our loved ones. At first each photo seems to be too connected by the sadness of the present and I feel I have to just enjoy looking at how happy we truly were.

Yes Lina. Each other's universe gets it for me too. And now? We have to keep them close in our hearts. I so wish I could dream about Pete. It seems strange that I don't when he is in my mind all my waking hours.

Thank you Anthony. I think I just have to try to 'be' without analysing too much. I feel so confused sometimes. This is a different world I live in. I have lost my centre and I am just floating free, and I hate it. But like all of you I just have to keep going.

I've just found this site. The poems truly speak to me. http://www.candycecounseling.com/griefquotes.html

I'm still not able to play music Mary. Are you I don't know how to break through this barrier.

When the new fridge freezer arrived I had to move Pete's motor bike helmet and gloves off it. He always kept them there all ready. I put them in the garage and when the new one was in situ I debated with myself about bringing them back. Common sense prevailed and I didn't. There was a good reason for them being there before as I'd have had to take them off deliberately. I decided that putting them back was a step too far. TThis was my way of reminding myself he had died. There are many more reminders of him that I've no intention of moving. His dressing gown hangs on the back of the bedroom doors under my own etc etc. I don't think I can bear th thought of moving his other things. All the drawers on his side of the bedroom still contain his stuff just as he left it. I realise I am stacking up problems for myself as one day I will have to leave this house but never mind. If only a stream of poor men with no clothes were to walk past the house and I could rush out with warm clothes for them! What an image!

Our daughter lives in Leeds which is quite a cultural place with a ballet company and an opera company. At her suggestion I've subscribed to their newsletter so that maybe we can go if something good comes up. We both like opera and ballet as did Pete. We would need a baby sitter but as Rosie-Mae gets older (she is six months now) that would be possible. And I am going to see a play by our local playwright a week on Saturday. So I will try to keep my cultural life going even of my enthusiasm is very low. Such activities are life enhancing and maybe even in grief we can get something from them.

Ha Mary. For us in the UK distances are different. London is about 230 miles away but it's another world. Until our daughter moved there 20 years or so ago I had only been twice. When she lived there we went about once a year. Pete always called Kilnsea, our village, the Back of Beyond, and even people who live about 8 miles away think of it like that because the road runs out into the sea just beyond our cottage. So people don't pass by here. They have to make an effort to visit. But we love it and even though I am now alone I want to stay as long as I'm able to. I'm so sorry you are having a hard time. I can't say anything helpful which would sound in any way meaningful. We are all in this situation and we all do our best with it, you more than most, it seems to your many admirers. I survived the anniversary of Pete's stroke yesterday. I did it and the old Jan wouldn't have thought I could ever survive so that is something I suppose. (Even if sometimes I think I don't want to survive, but know that my survival is important to those who love me)

I wish I had such classes nearby. Your area sounds to be full of opportunities like that which I assume is why you chose it. I have various apps and sites I visit of the Internet for meditiation and mindfulness, but none of them seem quite what I want. Still looking. Yes, I am thinking about what my counsellor said, but I know I'm not ready to be pushed into anything (and anyway it wasn't so much about action as attitude I think). Anne, your Pinterest site is getting better and better. I also visit Marty's and yours, Mary. My ipad wouldn't let me play the Billy Collins for some reason, so I will have to visit it on the PC.

Phew Anne. My counsellor would be so proud of me if I had a list like that lol. I saw him on Tuesday and he seemed very gently to me nudging me towards doing something independently, because he had picked up that I was only able to do anything when I thought Pete was with me and approving. It's true, but I don't feel ready for anything else right now. Rather than trying to move forwards I just seem to want to burrow back into our old life even though it doesn't exist any more. Your list albeit tongue in cheek is showing the way. I'm 71 and could live quite a few years yet. I do need to see my way forward somehow. But I'm hoping I will know when I can do that. Everything I read about the kind of loss we have sustained suggests that it's best to 'go with the flow' so I won't worry if I'm not ready. I am studying archaeology, and I am finding it interesting. I am meeting people who want to talk about our (Pete and mine's research in the area). But today is the first anniversary of Pete's stroke and I spent the first hour of the day sobbing. And only slept about an hour last night (maybe a mistake to watch the USA election?).

I wear Pete's woolly hat, when I walk our dog. It's a bit big for me but before I put it on I sniff it as it smells of Pete's hair. If there were not such a big height difference between us I think I'd be wearing his sweat shirts too, but perhaps it's just as well as I think I might be considered very eccentric. :-)

When Pete was really ill in hospital (he pulled through that time) I was allowed to stay the night. He had a single room because he was so ill and I don't think they expected him to survive. Anyway the nurses checked on him every few hours of course, but rather than sleep or try to in the chair I decided to get into bed with him. I'm only seven stone and he was very thin by then so even though he had an oxygen mask I managed to snuggle in. When the nurse came in I just pretended to be asleep and she left us alone. I will cherish this memory. Wen he came home for the five weeks before he died I used to get into the hospital bed beside him sometimes. I now wish I had done more often than I did. But anyway I'm glad I did it. We always slept without night wear so now I am wearing pyjamas for the first time in fifty years :-( On the side where my Pete should be is a filter coffee maker on his bedside table (he brought me a coffee in bed every morning). Honestly I still can't believe he isn't coming back somehow. I'm glad we are sharing these things. Jan

Thanks for posting this Marty. I thinks it's an incredibly powerful description of raw grief and I can totally identify with it. His wife Josephine was obviously his soul mate and I hope he is finding some comfort in being able to produce this app (which as Mary says is great).

Another Mary Oliver quote:- “maybe death isn't darkness, after all, but so much light wrapping itself around us--” ― Mary Oliver, Owls and Other Fantasies: Poems and Essays

Sorry couldn't copy URL but if you put Maria Shriver and Mary Oliver into Google you will get it.

Pete and I have almost all Mary Oliver's poems, and when we were in Priovincetown last October (where she lives, and what a lifetime ago that seems!) we bought another two. We bought Thirst, which was published after her partner of 40 years died, but were rather disappointed in that because having been admired by us for her Pantheist beliefs that volume seemed to be moving away from that. However I shall order her latest (books being my main indulgence these days). I envy you, Mary, in being able to hear her. Have you read the interview with her! I will try to find it and post it here.