Wifflesnook

Jus me at home in our living room and in our little garden.the moon rose over the sea which is just a field away (can't see it from the garden). We always went out to look at it and kissed. Of course his absence made it harder but maybe I will feel him close next time. Woke up this morning feeling very low indeed.

I too pushed myself recently. I went on an excursion with the little local history group I belong to. I didn't want to go but thought Pete would want me to rather than becoming a recluse. I kind of enjoyed it if you know what I mean (you will do). And on the night of the full moon I had a little ceremony with candles and poems like Pete and I do every full moon, and then went out to look at it like we always did. It emphasised my aloneness but nevertheless I think I shall try to carry it on as maybe I will feel Pete with me next time or the time after?

Dear Srm You may have read my earlier posts. My husband too was called Pete, and my loss is very recent and very very hard. What a wonderful experience even though it was so brief. You must cling to it, keep it fresh in your mind at all times. I have had three experiences which have helped me a tiny tiny bit. One was whilst I was sitting on a river bank near our cottage, with my little grand daughter. Just for a moment I felt pete's presence near me. The feeling didn't last but I felt him. The second was a dream in which I was carrying very heavy loads, one in each hand and two in my teeth. They were too much for me and Pete appeared and said "Let me help you". The third was the night of our 50th wedding anniversary when I wrote in my journal Dearest darling Pete It's our 50th wedding anniversary today. I miss you so much and love you utterly. Please let me know you aren't far away. Jan for ever And I dreamed that he wrote in my book I am here These experiences do provide me with a little comfort. I will hope to have something like your wonderful experience too. I hope it comes back for you. I too had a wonderful life with Pete, and I want to remember the good times rather than being so sad all the time, but at the moment it is almost impossible. Jan

Lina you truly get how I am feeling and it does help to talk to one another. That is exactly how I feel. Deep down its pretty clear that I think this is temporary and if I manage to get through this for a while then he will come back to me. I can't believe that he won't/can't. When you have been so close to someone for years (50 in my case) your identity is so bound up with that person that you almost don't exist without them. I am getting up, eating, showering etc etc but really I think I am just waiting. But what for? He won't come back and I can't even bear to think that thought. We have to endure this as there isn't any alternative, is there? But how do we do it? You have to carry on for the sake of your nine year old. I too have reason for carrying on as my daughter, a single mother, has two little girls, and they need me. But Pete was my entire world. Everything else was a very poor second. I relied upon him, i loved him more every year that we were together. All I can take comfort from is how lucky I used to be. At the moment this doesn't help me much but maybe it will one day? I am sending you a hug from a fellow sufferer on a very hard road. We have to carry on somehow.

I thought I was feeling bad all the time (it's three month since Pete died) but I woke up this morning feeling far far more depressed than usual. No reason for it, but I think it's because I must subconsciously have been thinking that what I was going through was temporary and maybe I suddenly realised it was permanent. How on earth can I get through this? It will go on and on and on. Nothing will improve it. I am reading lots of things about grief but how can they help me? All I want is my Pete back and things to be as they were. Do you think it would help me to look at photographs of happy times? I can bring myself to do that yet. Oh sorry to vent here but I am alone and feel I must tell someone how I feel right now. Jan

This is a poem which Pete wrote about it and it explai s it better than I could. I included it in his Farewell:- The Tattoo (Pete C.) I bear a mark, A spiral sign In Indian ink Upon my arm. No bigger than A silver coin, It calls to mind A nautilus, The yearly growth Of mollusc shells, The whirling winds Of hurricanes, Or spinning wheels Of galaxies Where stars are born In clouds of gas. It is a sign Of nature's power And energy, The Universe

I washed it and looked at it and knew it wasn't right. However we have a lovely pewter tray with a spiral on it (our symbol as we are Pantheists). Every morning Pete brought me coffee in a cAfetiere in bed on it. and I am thinking to use that as a base and buy a pewter urn to sit upon it. It will then go in our bedroom. His physical remains will not leave me. Funny how differently we look at things after losing our loved ones. The old Jan would consider that this is bizarre. But I think this is what will be a tiny comfort to me.

Yes it does help me to be able to sound off a bit. This is such a new world for me and some of the people I expected to understand just don't. It makes me realise we are all basically living in our own little bubble and I'm sure I would once have been just as stupid about someone's loss I suppose.

Dear Kimberly I just woke up (England so we are hours ahead of you) to yet another day without Pete. I so know how you feel. I feel lost and bereft, lack any motivation to do anything, look forward to an empty and pointless future. I can't seem to summon up a proper memory of him. He seems neve to have existed despite all the photos etc. I just don't feel him close and that is all I long for. This posting isn't going to make you feel any better but I suppose you and I are only a short way along this hard road and maybe some day we will find things easier to bear. We have had love and we must cling to that. Jan

Sorry but I must say this to someone. A really good female friend of mine and Pete's (she and her husband have been our friends since 1973 though we don't see them often) rang to see how I was. I was telling her how I have a friend coming from the States to stay in August and that Pete and I had planned to take her all over. But now I just couldn't summon up enthusiasm for anything and we would maybe just go to a few places. she said "well in a month you may feel differently". I thought A MONTH?. How long does she think I will be to feel differently? A month? How could I feel any different by then? Maybe several years! I don't know, but I do know that this isn't going away in a month. I was truly shocked that someone I was fond of could be so totally obtuse. She doesn't get it and I'm glad she hasn't got to go through this but it made me realise that I just don't want to associate with people who don't get it. It made me feel that I just want to be alone if people are going to expect me to turn back into the person I was when my darling Pete was with me. It made me feel like turning into a recluse rather than have to pretend that I am any other than a totally broken person. Sorry for the rant. You have probably all had something like this and I shouldn't be so shocked maybe?

Harry, you made me weep. What can I say except I know. Jan

I have been looking at urns on the Internet and can't stand the look of any as they don't seem appropriate somehow. I want one with a spiral on it but can't find one. Also am in uk and there doesn't seem a good choice here. I do have a blue ceramic one we used to use for making a rum toft (fruit in rum) and maybe I should use that. It seems kind of bizarre thinking about this but I know it is part of the whole thing.

I have always been a person guided by Oughts and Pete was always telling me not to be. He had to remind me often. Thanks for the reminder. No Oughts. Jan

Everything is hard for me right now but I am finding two things the worst. The first is doing something (anything) for the first time without Pete. It can be going somewhere, looking at something, meeting someone - really anything. And the pain I feel is so deep it feels physical. I wonder, will doing these things the second time be less painful? The other thing is when I get engrossed in something - say a book, or doing something on the computer or whatever, and then stop and realise that just for a while I had forgotten that Pete has gone. And it's such a shock all over again! And yet I know I am still in denial that he has died. Because really I think what I am suffering is a temporary situation and soon things will get back to normal, in other words he will come back. How unrealistic am I? And when I see all the photos I have everywhere I feel worse and wonder if I ought not to have them on display. And I can't imagine he was ever here some times, even though we have been together for 50 years! And I can't hear his voice in my head though I long to. How can we ever manage to live when we have lost what seems to be everything that matters?

I like this one. By Nicholas Evans, from The Smoke Jumper. A poem which I can't shorten:- If I be the first of us to die, Let grief not blacken long your sky. Be bold yet modest in your grieving. There is change but not a leaving. For just as death is part of life, The dead live on forever in the living. For all the gathered riches of our journey, The moments shared, the mysteries explored, The steady layer of intimacy stored, The things that made us laugh or weep or sing, The joy of sunlit snow or first unfurling of the spring, The wordless language of look and touch, The knowing. Each giving and each taking, These are not flowers that fade, Nor trees that fall and crumble, Nor are they stone For even stone cannot the wind and rain withstand And mighty mountain peaks in time reduce to sand. What we were, we are. What we had, we have. A conjoined past imperishably present. So when you walk the woods where once we walked together And scan in vain the dappled bank beside you for my shadow, Or pause where we always did upon the hill to gaze across the land, And spotting something, reach by habit for my hand, And finding none, feel sorrow start to steal upon you. Be still. Close your eyes. Breathe. Listen for my footfall in your heart. I am not gone but merely walk within you.

Thanks. I know now what I want to do, at least in the short term. I shall have pete's ashes at home and wait until I know whether I need to scatter part of them at sea. It's so helpful to have your comments. Thank you.

I'm sorry you can't find therapy. I have just had a visit from a grief counsellor from Cruse, the uk bereavement organisation. It was totally free. He was really good. He left me with a form to fill in for any feedback and also a paper explaining that every visit costs them £40 and asking for a contribution f I can afford it, but no pressure. I shall make a contribution as quite apart from expertise and time ere he had a drive of 25 miles to reach me. He is coming again soon. He also said to ring at any time if I need him earlier. A good experience though obviously all I need is my Pete back and no one can do that :-(

Harry I can't express myself as articulately as you but I just wanted to say that this post speaks straight to my heart. Jan

Thank you all. Wonderful words and wise advice. I do appreciate this site. X

Thank you all so much for replies which have helped me to understand what I do and do not want to do with Pete's ashes. I know now that I want some at least to stay with me until i die and for them to be mixed with Pete's and scattered at sea. What I am still struggling with is whether to scatter some soon which is what I had already intended to do. The mere thought of doing it makes me kind of horrified though. I think the physical scattering might send me over the edge somehow. I just don't know. I do know that having them near me is going to be a good thing though and I am amazed at this as I would never have thought I would want that. Tomorrow I have a counsellor coming from Cruse which is the UK bereavement support organisation, it is a man, which surprised me (for some reason I assumed it would be a woman). I feel that I haven't accepted the fact that Pete has died at all. I live in numb pain, which turns into sharp pain when things happen to make me confront my loss (the word isn't strong enough). But nevertheless despite feeling so very very sad all the time I still don't think I am truly believing it and maybe talking to this person will help? I don't know.

Thank you for sharing that. I am really thinking that when we scatter petes's ashes at sea I shall retain some so that when I die some of Petes ashes can be scattered with mine. I think I will find comfort in this. It's a new thought but it's s good one. I think Pete would approve too. Thanks for helping me to think of this hard thing. Everything is hard right now but this is so important to me nd symbolic as well as real.

I knew this was the right place to say these hard things. Thanks to all three of you. I will read what you say and I believe you are right. I feel just a little bit better for reading it. Thanks so much.

Oh Mary I so hope she will be the person to take Voice forward. And what lovely words from Marty. X

I have just realised that if I were a financial institution I would be in negative equity. My value has diminished. I realised this when I had various thoughts like I am sure we all do about my own death and how it wouldn't be such a bad thing. When Pete was with me my value was HUGE and I never questioned it. Now I just don't feel I have any value. this is despite the fact that I have two children, one, my daughter, a single parent with two little ones who need me I know. But at the moment it doesn't seem to matter to me. I think this is a very selfish thought but my whole life revolved around my Pete and he isn't here to value me above all else. Sorry to unload here, but where else can I do so? It's my 71st birthday tomorrow and not sharing it with Pete is an unbearable thought. My tears just keep on coming

Dear all Today was difficult. I was phoned by one of the funeral directors. She said Is it ok if Ken brings the invoice round? I said Yes, of course. I had been expecting it as its two months. Then I said Will he be bringing Pete's ashes? She said Only if you want him to. So I said No, because we are going to have them scattered at sea by the local lifeboat crew but we don't have a date yet. I put the phone down and suddenly felt as though I had rejected Pete himself. I almost rang back to say please bring them. But I stopped myself as I don't know where I would put them that is appropriate. I need time to think about this. I know he isn't really there in his ashes but it's all I have of his physical body. I hadn't realised how this would hit me, but it has done. I am thinking I will ask for them to bring them soon and keep them here for a while and maybe even keep back a little to stay here and let most be scattered. I imagine those of you that opted for a creamation will have struggled with this and I wondered, if it is. It too painful, if you might share your feelings about it with me? Jan