crazy

Your post, Marty, will be good to hold for the future. How fortunate to have modern technology. Right now the present is so painful that it blinds us to what will be. I am beginning to understand that this is a journey I will survive. Through the posts of others I think we will be able to take the bits and pieces of others and draw from their strengths and struggles. I know this has been true for me. I hope that my story will go from telling what has happened to what I'll find myself doing in the future. I hope I can learn from Mary's journey that it would be good to take this pain and do something positive with it. Jan, you are a treasure and I hope that we will see ourselves in a different place as we go through this first year without our loved one.

I have a question that I'm almost too afraid to ask but here goes. Has anyone struggled with the lack of touch from their loved one? I find myself hugging his pillow so tightly that when I wake my hands are numb. enna

Yes Enna I do hug a pillow every night I sleep, in fact I can't really fall asleep unless I am hugging a pillow. It is weird but it comforts me and makes me feel like he is with me. I'm lucky to have 3 cats who are the loves of my life next to my husband. I don't know what I would do without them. My husband and I picked all 3 of them, so they are part of us. And guess what I talk to them all the time!

I am 6 days away from the year anniversary of my husband's death and I have been hit by the overwhelming power of grief again. I've cried at least once a day again for the last month. But I am beginning to know it will pass and I will have some good days again.

Take care of yourself and keep hugging that pillow. Love yourself and do what comforts you.

Melina-

I can relate so much to what you are saying. I am 6 days away from the year anniversary of my husband's death. And boy oh boy about a month ago it hit again. I was not expecting it and I thought I had come so far. But the uncontrollable throws of greif just hit and all it seems we can do is ride the wave....

I too am taken aback by co-workers, friends and family that seem so surprised that I am still grieving...what are you kidding me. I don't think they mean to be cruel, but sometimes, it makes you wonder that they don't have any sensitivity towards a greiving widow. It was relayed to me by a friend in fact that because I was taking a lot of time off of work after my husband died, that "I was milking his death for all it was worth!" Can you imagine saying that about anybody. I sorry but I can't. I quess I'm different because I always tried to be sensitive around persons who were grieving and had lost loved ones.

I feel very scared that I am on my own now. I never realized that at the year mark it would hit me so hard that my husband is really gone and his physical body is not coming back. I know I will get thru this, but the acceptance that I will never get over it, is really really hard.

I don't believe people really do understand unless they have been thru it themselves and then even some that have seem so indifferent to someone else's grief. Almost like a jealousy of your loss as if I guess the spotlight is off of their grief...so strange. It has been a long hard road and will continue to be. One thing I am positively sure of is that I will never be the same person ever again.

I am determined to keep moving forward, although my heart aches, I know my husband would be in pain to see me in such pain. One thing I find that does help is to go with your grief. Be good to yourself. Love yourself and do things loving for yourself. I think about the loving things my husband did for me and then I do them for myself. I've started putting fresh flowers in my bedroom every other week to cheer me up a little. That's one thing my husband gave me thru out our 33 years of marriage was to give me flowers all the time.

I hope I'm not rambling...I do tend to do that these days, but I hope my sharing will help you with your grief and pain.

Signed,

Crazy

(cuz that's how I feel most of the time)