KATPILOT

It's good you brought up drinking Kay and the perils of. I did a lot of that at home when the demons came. It served no purpose for the demons in my glass just joined with the others who came to visit. Demons like to come at night when we are alone and things are quiet and that is the absolute worst time to be drinking. gdragon thank you for sharing your story and welcome to our group. Lot of good advice and suggestions will be available to you here.

Just to let you all know Patty is winging her way back to Maui as I write this. We spent Thursday remembering Ron and celebrating his life and Kathy's as well. Emotional yes but loving it was and now we start another year fully aware that the pain and memories do not end here but we have each other and she will survive while our love for them shall never end. She will write again when she finds herself strong enough but she has read what you all have written. It helps. It truly does. I will be flying to Maui in 25 days to celebrate Kathy's birthday there, a place she truly loves and I will share it with a lady who I also love quite deeply. This is all something I cannot explain and frankly don't even care to try. It is what it is.

Thinking of you on this day Patty when Ron left one year ago. Always remember he travels with you

"But when we lose love we feel as if the whole universe collapses around us. We feel as though we can never have it again." Thank you Marty

I thought I would stop by and update a little. The one thing about finding love after loss is how some things may change in life yet something never will. In six days I will be together with Patty as she arrives on the anniversary of her husband Ron's death. This was her idea for she wanted us to be together as the sixth anniversary of Kathy's death was so close in time. Do we feel each others pain? Yes we do, big time. There is something so magical about this relationship because it allows us to openly feel the love we have for Kathy and Ron while we embrace the love we have for each other. We hold on to the sacred past while we look ahead to our own future. Yes it is possible to make new memories while holding dear the old ones. One thing I love about this woman is how deeply she loves her husband and why that makes hearing her stories about him so pleasurable. With those stories however comes a lot of pain and if I can give her anything it would be someone to hold on to when the tears come so hard. Today is the day Kathy left six years ago. I have been following something Patty wrote called "the last 55 days" which chronicled her life with Ron to the end. As I read each day the similarities between Kathy and Ron's last weeks on earth were incredible even to the very day they were both put in an ambulance never to return home again. As I read it was like I was reading my own words. Very few words needed to be changed such as the names. What this did was remind me of those terrible and sad days and even though Patty feels bad that she brought this on, I am so grateful that she did for I don't want to forget and now I don't have to. I can spend the rest of my life with someone who "gets it". I learned long ago on my grief's journey that I wouldn't hurt so much if I hadn't loved so deeply. I accept that and hold it very dear in my heart. And, with that hurt I can also bask in the glow of someone's love. I also know that Kathy taught me how to love. I know that I had no idea of what love was or how deep it could go but she was a good and gentle teacher. She led me to the door marked Patty and set me on a journey armed with the skill to take love to a higher level yet. I love you Patty and yes you are right. It's not "more than you will ever know".

What I am about to say is going to sound like a contradiction to everything anyone who knows me thinks I am. The loss of my wife Kathy was so devastating and yet I survived in no small part to Marty and this sanctuary called Grief Healing Discussion Groups. I grew stronger and yet my love for Kathy remained. I understood and spoke often about how I could continue in life living alone in her honor never needing another relationship. In affairs of the heart I was a done deal long ago. I have even just finished being a part of a book where I explained all of this in an effort to give other men a hope that they could survive alone as I have. Everything I have said screams CONTRADICTION! Because the truth is I am in love and I have been for a while. It was not something I sought. It was not something I needed. It sure as hell wasn't something I wanted. I feared deep down in my soul that Kathy was pushing me there. I felt it so strongly. In the last two visits to the medium I occasionally see, I was given the name of the woman including the husband she had lost but at first didn't make the connection. I felt so devastated that Kathy was pushing me away. I screamed at her for why was she doing this to me? The anguish seemed intolerable. I could not understand why it was happening but happen it did. It was then that I began to see the connection between four people. Kathy and I along with this lady and her husband were connected on so many levels that it would take volumes to describe it here. It simply left me with no doubt about letting myself go and that Kathy was still with me. In a matter of weeks I have felt this love grow so intense that it equals the love I have for my wife. Believe it or not it does and I know this for certain yet I have not kissed the woman or been intimate in anyway. I have seen her but a total of six days since September of last year when I first noticed something was happening to me. I had only to look in her eyes. I know that my love for Kathy burns just as brightly as before and I will not worry about that or feel the need to hide it from this new lady in my life. In fact I love that she can share her feelings about her husband with me. I am so comfortable feeling the love she has for him and always will yet this love exists between the both of us just the same. I can do nothing to change any of this and frankly how could one. I wrote on another thread that it is possible to love more than one person in a case such as this but one will eventually have to take a back seat. I am no longer certain about the back seat part and in fact I'm not really certain about a lot of things I am going through. I will let this happen one day at a time. And so now you all know the truth of who I am. Marty Joyce knows about what has been going on and I will seek her help to stay focused and grow so don't worry about that but I must take leave of this sanctuary at least for a while. I will always support it with contributions for it is a life saver to so many and I will continue with my counseling course to get the accreditation but I think I have a way to go before I can help anyone else. Peace and love my friends. You truly are the best. Stephen

Patty if you read this remember and don't forget. This collision is temporary and you know you have someone to bring you out of that dark place.

Thinking about you in the "55 days" Patty. As Toto would say "Who says a crescent moon doesn't shine?". Ron may not be with you in the physical plane but his love carries on. All you have to do is look up.

Truly

We had a similar experience Brad. I never expected death and never acknowledged it was going to occur. When things settle just enough for reality to set in, well Ranger Kate that's when you discover that you never were actually aware of the impact. In a way Brad it is like we were in a movie, just playing a part somewhat detached.

Ranger Kate welcome to our home. Your story really touches me and how hard this all must be for you I know is an understatement. Here at least you can share and learn and yes even possibly grow. Those landmines we hit? How we deal with them? I can only say that they were carefully laid by two loving people who never intended the other would be forced to hit them but when you do and when we all hit them, it's only because you loved Rich in the first place and perhaps that can bring you some comfort for you will be hitting them for a long, long, time. Today so many years later as I hit one every so often, it brings me mixed emotions of sorrow tempered with some joy at who my wife Kathy was and still remains. The fact that I still love her is what brings the smile.

Martha Jane welcome. Your story is so hard and this is so new. For what it's worth I can relate to much of what you said and most all of us can.Everyone of us has checked that widowed box so we know what it's like. You are not alone and you will find friendship and comfort here. Lot's of good people travel your path. Marge you have it right. We need to forgive ourselves for only doing the best we could at the time we did it. When we lose someone so dear to us it is so easy to blame ourselves because we were the ones who should have seen it coming or sensed the right path to take, In the end all that matters is "Did we love them?".

Just a note. That is my son's plane My little puddle jumper is quite smaller and she's is down with a cold right now.

But one of the hardest to get rid of Patty. I have so lost the understanding of what an ideal world is yet I can find a new world way better than the one I just crawled out of.

I've been on this road long enough to appreciate the love that surrounds me. I just got back from a belated Christmas with my son in Norfolk too Wolfskat. To be with my granddaughters made me smile so big. And I got to meet my friend George who new on this grief's journey is finding the flying bug biting. Good for you George and remember it's never to late to follow a dream. Rose Anne will be pleased to feel you in her sky.

Good luck to you Darrel. I started smoking the day after my wife died. She smoked and I had quit years before. Somehow I started to care about myself later and now I am down to two a day because it's so freaking relaxing after a stressful day at work.

Yes it is so hard Patty to heal in grief when so overwhelmed by this kind of c*#%. Maybe if you just get away for a few minutes and let him reach you then you can feel his strength. I know that is hard to do for you have been blasted today and being in that hospital didn't help but I wish for you so many good things. Perhaps one of them will get through. Hang in there Patty and vent as much as you can. Always remember the sun will come up tomorrow. And who is the sun? And who is the moon?

I think in grief our security grows weak. Our emotions fly on their own for we have never been stripped so bare as we are. Best we hold on to each other to help ride out these occurrences and we do just that. You people are quite beautiful that way. It makes me feel good to be part of this community.

Thanks for sharing that Harry. I can feel your words. Absolutely beautiful and as you do it is spoken so well.

Your speaking my language Kim.

So incredibly true. And if we can survive each day then one day will find ourselves still standing. I was always telling myself at the end of each day before I would sleep. 'Well, I lived to fight another day'.

"And in the end the love you take is equal to the love you make" Lennon/McCartney

Kay we go through a dozen large cans of 3M spray adhesive every month at work and there is a reason I have bare concreate floors in the back room.

Gwen you will be surprised at what the heart is capable of doing. You can't feel much love when the heart is broken but as it heals even though scarred it will show you some things. When we give love as you talk about to Steve the heart gets nothing back and that is going to drain it for certain. What if the love they have for us still goes on from where they are? I like to think it does for true love never dies and if that is the case, can we not draw a little strength from that and feed our hearts just enough to survive? Even if we can't see or hear it, it's out there.