KATPILOT

AB age doesn't matter in the big scheme of things. All that matters is the here and now and we could go crazy thinking about what lies ahead. Yes many of us have thought about the rest of our lives but for me it got me nowhere. I was always right back in the moment. When my son was 26 his fiancé died suddenly. The days weeks and months were horrible for him and I had yet to know what that loss was like. I helped him connect with a grief counselor and just like all of us, he slowly adapted to what he had lost. He slowly started building his life again. That was almost twelve years ago but I still look at him and feel his pain. I'm pretty sure he does the same with me. There is an artist named Sarah Treanor who is a blog writer on http://www.soaringspirits.org/ You might find her writing interesting if you go back a few years in the archives and listen to her journey. She lost her fiancé Drew some years ago. One of Sarah's self portrait series photographs titled "Nesting"

Good to hear George. I will be heading your way next Friday to visit my son and his family since we missed Christmas together. I believe you live in Norfolk. it would be nice to get to meet you if it worked out. By the way I hate the cold. I can take the heat of Phoenix any day. I don't even own a jacket but I think I have a sweater somewhere.

Karen that is just horrible. No one deserves this. I had no idea we were living in a third world country. I hope an answer can be found soon.

I met this couple in the radiation waiting room at the Mayo while sitting with Kathy. They were there also for the husbands radiation for his brain tumor which was inoperable. They had met there in that same waiting room years before when each was with their spouse who would later die. They began a relationship and then married only for the man to be the next to go. Life is unfair. Life is sad. Life is a risk we take to love again but who can say it's worth it. Only ourselves. Your right Marg. Life is stranger than fiction.

And I'm not talking about losing the love that is and always shall be the most important thing to you.

You don't have to be married to be in love with your friends. And that you can do at any age.

Evenings for me were the hardest too. All of the days distraction were gone and I was back in the house where we shared our peaceful moments together. That Kim is when the demons can come. Over time they came to visit less frequently for perhaps they knew they were not welcome or perhaps they grew tired of the foul language I would spit at them. Perhaps I just got tired of listening to them.

It is so true Maryann that the commercial cards appeal to the majority of people who have not had a great loss. I received a few of those myself. But the person who has lost the love of their life needs a card very different to send. I have learned to write cards and print them on a pretty paper then attach it inside a blank card. Not unlike Kay does but on a smaller scale. Art stores carry some nice thin papers and you can cut them to fit your printer.

I still sometimes wonder if I didn't blow it.

Brad that's where my brief thoughts of killing myself were coming from. It wasn't the despair. It was the need to go after her before she could get too far away.

No ladies! Thankfully your'e not.

Kay I truly feel that when we talk about not having gone through with suicide in the depths of our despair, we give hope and courage to those reading as they see us still standing just as your pastor has done. I know myself that I have said more than once along my journey "If she can do it, so can I". If that one single purpose for why we are still here is all we have done then we did something positive. Marg i'ts great that you have taken that step and in speaking of grief support groups let me suggest that we are in one right now. This sanctuary was started by a grief counselor. It is moderated by a grief counselor and as spoken from one who has been in a grief group, it acts like one. The difference of course is that no one sees your tears and for some newcomers, that is a blessing. At the beginning you see people come into the support group of which many can barely get out their name that first visit. Later they speak more easily and eventually they speak to new members just coming in of their courage to keep on living and that's where the eyes brighten just a little. That's where the new members can find hope.

Kay that's why we call them X's . You have a point about the first moment we lost our spouses. Nothing can be more devastating than that but we sometimes feel grief so long and so strongly that by the second year we are beat down by grief. We cried ourselves into exhaustion so we think it's just as bad. For all we have been through in that first year, maybe it is for our frail hearts and souls.

Thinking of you today Marita on this last of the firsts.

Marita I felt a similar feeling myself. Kathy's mom died fifteen months after she did and her dad went five months after that. I said to him after he passed. "David now you are the lucky one"

Gwen what are proper words to describe this emptiness and grief? Marsha has it right about using the same description as you just wrote down here. You touched upon a concept that I realized long ago. It's the best feeling in the world to have that someone who could never imagine their life without us. That mirror you speak of? It's the closeness two people have when they meld into each other. When you click and be that couple you talk for hours. Sometimes you sit so close to each other without even speaking which is a communication like nothing else. Unless you fall in love with someone else that just can never be the same. If you don't fall in love again you will live a different life. It will be missing that piece just as that person we love will be missing. Maybe it's possible to love more than one person but if that was true I doubt the love could be equal. Somebody has to be second string. Having said all that, we might have to face the rest of our lives with that emptiness but it doesn't mean we can't find a purpose for our existence and matter just enough to others that we can somehow keep going. I will never smile that deeply again but I will smile. Easy for me to say. I've had six years missing that special someone. And I'm still standing.

Believe me Kay it wasn't just because I needed to work. I went because I didn't know who I was. I lost focus as if I was a man walking out of the burning wreckage of a plane crash, still alive, apparently uninjured, but unable to grasp what had just occurred. My car seemed to drive itself. I had been awake since just after midnight when the hospice nurse woke me to tell me Kathy was gone. I had only been asleep for less than an hour. They told me I had to leave so I went to the mortuary sat in the parking lot to make sure she got there safely. Can you freaking believe I said that? My sister had once told me that when my mom and grandfather had died everyone did laundry. Perhaps it was to give themselves something to do, something to take their minds off of the horrible event. I drove home, turned on all the lights and did laundry till dawn. Then I went to my store walking distance from the funeral home waiting for them to open and made the arrangements, then went back to my shop because I just didn't know what else to do. Now as I am recounting that day which seems so vivid in my memory I will have to say it was and still remains the worst day of my life. One I wish I could forget and I often wonder why I remember it so clearly when at the time I was so disconnected from myself. Sorry to ramble on but my safety valve blows out every couple of years. I'll be okay in a minute.

It's a heck of a step forward Robin when you can feel Kevin in your soul and realize his loss from your physical presence. I know it doesn't make things a whole lot better but it can help show you your way into the future. By the way I went back to work seven hours after Kathy died. I did it because I was in a state of shock and disbelief living in a surreal world. I was in the peak of the busy season at my store and when you own your own business, the demands can so easily pull you in. I recognized the financial situation I was in with having been gone so long tending to Kathy and that's why I collapsed weeks later. I could deny it but grief runs faster than I ever could.

Never be afraid to ask for help.

Just a little reminder since we have been discussing grief support, counseling, and therapy. Very few can do this grief's work alone. This illustration says it pretty much like it is.

I love it Amy. In fact your entire blog is an inspiration.

I know it's not okay. It never was going to be okay but I need to hear it anyway.

Ah yes Gin. We lay a guilt trip on ourselves do we not?. It's the gift that keeps on giving. I hope one day you can let that one go for you have to know the truth don't you? I've been listening to you for a while now and I don't have that same impression as you do. Gosh to be loved like that as he did for you, well that's something very special and if you put his words into your mind, what would he say about that guilt? Hindsight is just that. The would have, the could have, just have no meaning any longer. Gwen the "screw guilt" sticker is like my way of giving it the finger. Your'e just a lot less crude. But Gin she has a point.

True words indeed Brad. AB3 the one we love the most is truly also our best friend. He was the one you could say anything to and you could listen to him as well. Listen to him now for he hears you and it's okay to speak to him. Many of us do that. It was once suggested to me in my early days along this journey that I write a letter to my wife. That I could send an anniversary card and such. That's kind of what I am speaking to. I like to think Kathy read what I wrote even before it arrived in my mailbox. I needed to express the most intimate thoughts. Weather she heard me or not it was for me as well as her. I needed to talk to my best friend.