Wifflesnook

Dear Missing Him My Pete died five months ago and I feel as though I am in exactly the same place as I was then. Maybe I am not. Maybe at least I am able to eat, wash, talk, walk, but inside I feel just as damaged and lost if not more. But everything I read has to,d me that this is so early on the path. Truly I don't even want to progress. And I know I am still denying the fact that my soul mate has really died. I just don't want to beleive it anyway. I am having regular visits from a counsellor. He is a nice person and I do talk to him, but what can he do? Like you I am stuck but I think we just need to stay stuck until we are ready to move. One of my many problems is not even wanting to move on. I want to go backwards really. No one understands except people who have lost their soul mate. If like me you had a wonderful husband/partner then your whole life was wrapped up in them. Without them you are half a person and yet you have to carry on somehow. I don't know how to do that. The wonderful people on this forum do understand. They don't preach, they just understand because they have experienced this. We just have to survive somehow. Jan

They take some getting used to Mary. Several months actually. But you do get used to them. Still nt much good in large gatherings though. I hate how people patronise people with hearing problems as though we were stupid as well as deaf! But never mind it's just something we have to be tolerant about.

Forgot to mention the Wordsworth quote Enna. We love poetry and have three shelves of books. That is a very powerful quote. Thanks. Jan

Your background sounds interesting Enna. I suppose we have to keep connected with our interests and accomplishments even in our grief and even when we don't feel in any way like doing that. I'm a writer and researcher in local history, particularly the history of this area where we now live. It's the tip of Yorkshire at Spurn Point and had a fascinating history. Pete and I have written about it and I wrote a book called The People along the Sand: the Spurn peninsula and Kilnsea, 1800-2000. It's in my name but Pete helped with it enormously. Whenever people who had ancestors associated with the area, whether military, lifeboat, lighthouse, find their way here they are directed to our door to talk to me and in the past I have welcomed them. Ad I have carried on collecting material enthusiastically with Pete's support. Now I have NO interest whatsoever and have to force myself if someone talks to me about it. I think Pete would be unhappy about this and everything I do is based upon what he would want me to do so I try to at least go through the motions. Last week a lady came whose grandmother was the lighthouse keeper's daughter in 1912 and she brought a lovely autograph album with drawings and messages by the soldiers. I would have been ecstatic to see such a thing and shared it with my love and I tried to show enthusiasm but how hard It is! Everything is grey and no colour now. Nothing seems to matter. I am feeli g tears pricking my eyes as I write this. I know we all have to carry on don't we? And I think we know that our beloved soul mates would want us to do that. Re make up etc I find I just about manage to keep my hair in a decent state. I always was particular about wearing foundation and I haven't bothered for months. I just think Who cares what I look like? I might as well just turn into an old lady! And this is so not me. I think it's not a good sign actually and I wonder if I should try harder to take a bit of care of my self, but it seems pointless. I hope if Pete had been the one left he would have cared for his well being.

I read your story of the hawk when I started on this forum. Yes, maybe it was a sign, though don't forget I live on a migration route in the middle of a bird sanctuary so rarities aren't so rare here! Isn't that YoYo May YouTube beautiful? I loved it and thanks Enna for sharing this. I wish I could get back into listening to music as we have so many CDs and good equipment to play it on. But I'm afraid it wil, be too powerful a trigger for me. We always listened together and I'm not sure I can cope with listening on my own. Our house too is sooo quiet Enna. I live in the country and its quiet anyway but now the silence is so strange. Music would be good and maybe I should try to listen. I know that Mary feels the same. We shared a love of Mahler and his music is so powerful I think I need to steer away from it. But the classical music we liked tends towards the slow and emotional kind. We also love folk music, African music, American country. But all these types were shared and I'm just nt sure if I can bear to listen. When I meet friends when on walks I have become aware that I am talking too much - a sure sign of a person who lives alone. I must be careful about this. I don't want to be someone to avoid! Jan

I wear hearing aids and have done so for quite a long time. I used to be a local history lecturer and it gradually dawned on me how difficult it was to hear responses of students. Here in the UK we get our hearing aids free. I have digital ones. They are not so discreet as if I paid for higher spec ones but I can't really justify that. When I go to get my hair cut I always ask for the hair to be left to cover the top of my ears (I keep my hair very short) but the last time she snipped and snipped and ignored what I said. I shan't y go back to her! Oh Mary I am so sorry for all those friends and for you having such sad news. Jan

Dearest Enna I am close to you in time after loss, in age, and in time I was together with my Pete. If you read all my postimgs you will see that almost withot exception they are shouts of misery and the replies have been so wonderful. Whe I came onto this forum I was so new to this grief and had no idea of what it was going to be like. Here i find somewhere with people who TOTALLY understand and don't spout trite answers like we sometimes meet outside. It's amazing how the warmth can come through words on the screen. My pain is so sharp and yet as I have said its still being suppressed by me as I float over it, not being able to truly acknowledge the huge loss I have sustained in losing my true soul mate. I am searching for contact with him, but as a somewhat cynical soul (ha a good word) I tend to look at things like contact from 'beyond' rationally and my first Impulse is always to doubt. But I need to feel that Pete hasn't completely gone. I totally relate to your post earlier. I think you shouldn't feel at this stage that you can't be open about how damaged you have been. From what you say you have been nurturing people all your life and that is wonderful, but now it's your turn to feel cherished in this caring place where there are people on the same path. Those further along help enormously. To me the most helpful remarks axknowledge that I will never be healed of this loss. How could I be? I have lost half of myself. When I met Pete I was only 20. Since then my life has been entwined with his. My personality has been moulded by his (and vice versa). We felt ourselves to be one person truly. Without him in the world I am like a tree struck by lightening and trying to carry on living. This metaphor seems appropriate in the light of your loss of your tree. You must plant another. Yesterday I walked the dog as usual and saw a rare raptor. I came back and looked it up and sobbed, looking at all our bird identification books and feeling incredibly lonely. No one to share it with. That was a trigger for me and they keep on coming. I wander through our house touching walls and door because he touched them and they must bear some mark that he did so. I run Pete's moth trap and talk to him as I look at the moths, identify them, record them, and release them as he did. Well I must close here Anne but I feel so close to you in so many ways and am glad you opened up because by opening our hearts we do get comfort every time we do, in this wonderful community of damaged souls. Jan

Nothing now can come to any good is how I feel every minute. Every time I am asked to do anything or try to do anything I just am thinking What is the point? Nothing matters at all. I know I am loved and mustn't show these feelings. I try to put a brave face on for the world (and the family) but its just a facade. I can only hope that eventually I will find some purpose and meaning in a lif without my beloved Pete.

I've ordered the one recommended by Marty and also his latest. I am getting quite a library of books on grief. Some don't speak to where I am (very early on the journey) but I took advice from Mary on that and she said dip in and you will find the bits which are meaningful to you. Am still obstinately not wanting to accept this and can't imagine being anywhere else. I don't want to heal. I don't want to move on. I don't want to accept. I can't imagine being able to accept this. How unrealistic is that!

This is for Marty and anyone else who knows his work. I have read a lot of books about grieving and find something helpful in most. I open them thinking they are going to magically bring my Pete back and of course as we all know nothing can do that. But I am very new to the grieving process and still in that unbelieving denial phase. But I am doing Marty's course and one of his books was recommended. When I looked on google there were three which he has written and all look good. But are some repeating what the earlier ones said? Or should I buy all three? I wonder if anyone has read all of them? I really like the sound of each.i don't mind buying all three. Jan

Anne I think that at this state in our grief we aren't expected to give. We aren't ready. We are deep deep inside our own grief and its not possible for us to help anyone else whilst we try to manage day by day. This is how it is for me anyway. I am self obsessed, self centred, selfish. And that isn't like me, but this new life is so different and horrible that all I can do is put one foot in front of the other right now. When I used to think of how I would be if pete died first I knew it would be a nightmare and it is. I used to think I couldn't live without him. I am living, though it isn't what I used to call a life. And at present I don't even want to get better. But I am reading one of Pete's poems out loud to him every day and weeping. In a way (odd) this is a release of my feelings which are all choked up. Peace. Jan

Thanks for positive comments. I read it out loud to him and it made me cry but it felt right. I am pleased I did this. It's what he would want. I knw that. And our daughter dreamed of him last night. He sat on the other side of the table from me and we held hands. I like to think he was communicating though her dream. Maybe?

Dear friends The funeral director brought me Pete's ashes yesterday. I was inspired this morning to add to his poem on our dressing table. I haven't changed anything. It just came out easily. I am quite happy with it (well happy isn't the word but you know ...) Here it is:- The Dressing Table I got to looking at this dressing table, the one we share, my wife and I, plain white painted wood with a backing mirror, she has the right side, I have the left. Between in no man’s land presides a large moon-faced Akuaba, mother goddess of Ghana, whose tranquil gaze takes in impassively three family photographs— two nieces and a son and daughter. Just now, my side is cluttered and untidy, I admit. Some things are always there, my mother’s crystal ball in which I’ve never seen the future, or anything at all, the wooden inlaid Indian box for polished stones and pendants, the Polish leather pencil case from Zakopanie, a wallet with my banker’s card and sundry papers, all these I keep upon my side and would expect to find them there, but all these other things—a tennis ball, a plastic can of cashew nuts, “More Poetry Please”, a pack of pancreatic enzymes for the stomach (three times a day with food) , an “England’s Glory” box of matches, a notebook, spiral bound, the pages filled with useful phrases in Tigrinya, and so it goes—a five-pence piece, a lens, a box for holding moths without a lid, a trading card from Carol Nashe promoting best deals in motorbike insurance, a pile of coppers emptied from my trouser pockets every night, a two-pin plug for continental sockets, a tape cassette, a Royal Navy seaman’s knife, a tattered clipboard and two AA batteries, now spent. My wife’s side seems by contrast almost bare, a box for jewellery on which there sits a leather purse that holds an antique cameo brooch; it shows a lady in a dress beneath a tree beside a hunting dog and what appears to be a goat—it was my grandmother’s once, I think. Next to it is a plastic stand on which like Noah’s ark, two by two, neat pairs of earrings hang, half-moons and moondrops, clear stones, galactic spirals, silver ankhs and flowers, two cats and a pair of silver hares. Not much besides, just a long-tailed comb and a fluff of cotton wool, a pebble picked up from the beach, now dull, a small shell, and a length of folded string. Tomorrow I have resolved to put my side in order. Written in 2005 by Pete Crowther The Dressing Table revisited And now the left hand side has all been cleared A pewter tray with spirals takes the place Of all the daily items you put down. And on the tray there rests a pewter urn. Within that urn your ashes, there to stay Until my death my darling, when we'll share Some other urn when we will intermix. We'll both be scattered in the estuary. Before that time I'll have you here with me. I'll talk to you and share my time with you. Please stay with me if only in my dreams. We'll light our candles, share our ceremonies, Just like we did when you were here with me In body. Please don't go too far away Until the day we can be reunited. Jan Crowther September 2012

The friend sent me a nice email when he got back to say that he understood. To be honest I think he is like many men who dare not reach out because they are fearful that it will trigger grief both in the grieving person and in themselves. I think my own son is like that. I am finding the women around me are so much more empathetic, and I think this is a cultural thing. Colin clearly understood better than I thought. But still his company was too much for me as all it did was make me feel guilty that I couldn't act normal. But yes Guilt is something to be avoided. And being selfish right now is totally understandable. I hadn't realised how much a part of me was the feeling that somehow I was always making progress when Pete was alive. I always thought I was quite an introspective person but really I just took so much for granted. Sometimes I wish Pete and I had talked about the future and being alone but we avoided it deliberately because it was too painful. And this awful stroke came so much as a surprise and shock when Pete was so well and hearty so we never expected to be parted just yet. I think Pete would say to me that he was glad we didnt dwell on our parting. I think he would say it was good that we just enjoyed life whilst it was good. Because I know him so well I can read his thoughts and I think he would think this. Well today I hope pete's ashes are coming. I keep thinking about it and I want to be quiet and concentrate upon this. I have just read a book by Justine Picardie called If the Spirit moves you. She lost her beloved sister and it's about her quest for connection via mediums etc. she doesn't really get anywhere but it's interesting. I had hoped that she would do, but she did feel the closeness in some ways. She seemed to dream about her a lot though. I wish I could dream about Pete. I've only had three dreams that I remember but my friend Pam (who lost a son six years ago) said she was told that if you are in the early stages of grief and are thinking about nothing else but your loved one all day your brain needs to switch off from it at night. Well it's seven o'clock in the morning here. My day is starting. Jan

Yes Anne. That is heartfelt and so much how I feel. Jan

Dear Babylady I can't say anything helpful as I am in the same place. I don't cry actively often but just feel numb most of the time. I sometimes wonder if I would be better if I did cry a lot but it is what it is. I have had a hard weekend with a male friend coming to help a bit in the garden but it soon became clear that he was expecting me to be getting better (he last came in July) and I am actually worse. I want to talk about Pete all the time and he wants me to get a grip, he didn't say this but it was obvious. I have to drive along to get him from where he is staying half a mile away and then take him to the bus six miles a way. I think we shall both be glad to say good bye. It's pretty clear to me that it will be a long time if ever before I can take part in anything remotely 'normal'. After being ill (and still feeling very weak) all I want to do is stay in our house, walk the dog and grieve. I have made no forward progress whatsoever. But it isn't even five months yet and in the context of a wonderful marriage of fifty years what is that? I have no hope, no anticipation of any good events, I never manage to smile. But tomorrow pete's ashes come home. It won't make me happy but maybe it will help? I do so hope so. And Friday our daughter and our two little girls are coming for a long weekend. I will get hugs and cuddles and maybe I will smile. Heck I sound so low but ts here we can tell it like it truly is isn't it? Perhaps one day you and I will be telling other people who are treading this hard path that we know that the fog will lift because it did for us. I hope so but from where I am right now this seems I possible. Mary provides hope as do others and we just have to endure this dont we? Jan

Dear srm Your idea of a pressure valve is really meaningful to me because my emotions are bottled up and although I think about nothing else but losing my Pete I'm well aware that I am only feeling part of the pain. If I felt all of it I couldn't carry on and so I think it is a blessing that I'm only experiencing part of them. But I do get frightened of how I shall be when I do experience all of them. It's four and a half months since Pete died and almost a year since he had the devastating stroke. My life seems worthless most of the time and the only thing which keeps me going is my daughter and her little girls. Peace to you and all on this forum. Jan

Just another thought. I have been so selfish and am feeling bad about it. I decided I needed to concentrate upon my own needs but I just learnt that an elderly friend who I have always put myself out for and who came to stay in her caravan this weekend is going back early because she feels that all her former friends are withdrawing from her. She doesn't necessarily mean me. It was another friend who let her down and I think she realises how hard it is for me right now. But I still feel I should have reached out to her. She has never married, never had what I have had and now she is very much alone and old. I could have been kinder to her and I think this will be a lesson to me. I have been so lucky in my life even if not now. I should be able to reach out even now. I will make a resolution to be kinder to her. Maybe being too self centred in my grief is not so understandable as I had thought? Maybe by reaching out I can heal quicker? I don't know, but I do feel very guilty right now.

Enna oh yes ths lack of touch is so hard. Just the near ness, in bed or across the table or in the car or anywhere of Pete was so wonderful and I keep thinking how I never truly appreciated it. But if I had anticipated his death daily I suppose I would have always been unhappy when I needed to be happy. I had a vist from my counsellor yesterday. I had to tell him I was actually worse then the last visit which was a month ago. We talked and he understood but obviously it didn't help much. He had five cards and asked me to take one. I did and it said Smelling. He said if my thoughts were all over the place it might help to concentrate on one thing like smell. So I told him what it brought to mind. Like having pete's comb which I sniff and I can smell him. Smell has always been important to me. And then other things came back like the smell of new baked bread (Pete always made ours), the smell of coffee that he brought to me in bed every morning and then slipped back in to share it with me, the smell of lavender on our pillows sometimes, the smell of the diesel when we strimmedthe paths in our field. These did bring him back but made me more sad. Phil said You are not so tearful. But I thought This isn't a good thing. I think I should be crying more. I am not crying much and I think this is because I am numb. And I told him that I dnt want to go forward. I don't want to recover. I just want to stay where I am (wherever that is). He said four months is very soon after pete's death which I suppose it is. Next week the funeral directors will be bringing pete's ashes here. I have prepared a place in our bedroom, with the pewter tray with spirals round it to put the urn on. Phil said this may help me. I am lowering my expectations of this as I don't want to raise my hopes that it will help me. But maybe it will. I still feel frail and very very tired. I have a friend (male) coming to stay locally for the weekend and I feel rather sorry he is coming but he has offered to help in any way (last time he painted the new bedroom and the summer house). I have asked him to help me tidy the garden ready for autumn and also try to mend our water feature. I suppose it will be ok but every thing in the future seems to be a huge undertaking. Do you know what I mean? It's 7.30 am here and I have to start the day. Another hard day. I read your post Mary and I do take comfort when you say that it has got better in some ways, as I know that your feelings and relationship with Bill are so like the way I am. I suppose one day I might feel some relief but when I think of that I have this strong feeling of obstinacy that I don't even want to. And maybe I need to trigger the tears to give me relief? I still feel so frightened of never never stopping. My 92 year old aunt rang me last week. Her beloved husband died a week before their 70th wedding anniversary two years ago. She said just recently she was going upstairs and she suddenly felt happy! Mary, do you ever feel happy? Or is that too much to ask of our new selves? Or can the best we can hope for be to feel accepting? Love to all on this hard hard path. Jan Well I will drink my morning coffee which I have to prepare myself now. I have a filter machine which sits on pete's side of the bed and I get it ready the night before. What a difference from having a coffee brought to me by a loving caring husband. Enna thank you too. We are on a similar path and we must hope we can get through somehow. Jan x

Mary thank you. This is fantastic. Isn't it amazing how something so apparently hard to read can paradoxidically comfort? It just seems to me to ring so true. How could it not take so very long for us to recover (not the right words, I mean survive) the loss of our soul mate? Jan

Dear Dwayne Thank you. I do feel a tiny lifting of my spirits when I talk about Pete. I have dreamed of him a few times. I am reading lots of books and some of them help a little bit. I did my first proper long walk with the dog today so that is something. But I feel deeply deeply sad. Just asked my neighbour to take the ashes urn to the funeral director and they will bring Petes ashes here so I can keep them near me. I don't know if this will help me. It seems unlikely but you never know. Thanks for prayers. Jan

Thank you Dwayne. From what I have read illness after such a dreadful loss is very common. It's so hard feeling ill when you are used to a loving partner to take care of you. Pete was lovely when I was poorly and I hope that I was for him. In fact that is one thing that gives me comfort. After the stroke I gave everything to him. He wasn't always aware of what I was doing but I feel comforted that I didn't fail him in any big way apart from not being with him when he died :-( I have to pick myself up and carry on now though I feel an even deeper reluctance to do it. I don't have your strong faith and I never will but I am beginning to come to some feeling that Pete must be with me in some way and I hope as I move forward along this hard path this will help me. It's so good to talk.

Dear Enna Yes I am subscribing to Martys course. I chose to have it daily but I am going to copy it all and read it again slowly. It is very good indeed. I am accumulating a lots of books to read bout bereavement but my problem is (like any of yours I dare say) that every time I pick one up I think it will have the answer to my problem and the answer to my problem is Pete coming back as he was before 7th November and none of them can tell me how to get that! I am living in cloud cuckoo land but my heart won't admit it. Yes Enna your situation is very like mine and we must share our feelings it must help a bit mustn't it? Jan

I have thought about it but am in the uk and miles away from the nearest town. I don't really believe in them but I would like to.

Thank you all. Slight improvement in me today. Onward and upward if I can. This illness has made my sadness worse if that were possible. Have to rebuild somehow. What is the alternative? Am getting really interested in Buddhist thought and similar spiritual belief as conventional Christianity doesn't connect with me. I so need to feel that I can connect with Pete at some level. It's a long hard path.