annew

SO glad you and yours are ok....Kay. Big hugs and thanks for letting us know.
I too am so very appreciate of your presence here and how much you have supported me.

Big hugs.

AnneW

I am bereaved for 17 months now. My partner was chronically ill for ten years before that. I have guilt I didn't do enough, didn't see he was dying, guilt for being relieved the long siege of illness is over.....and yes, I find this is the path to healing. I am SO sorry all this pain is moving through your heart, I know how awful it is....and it distorts all the love and care of your partnership, too. Grief is heartless and it lies. Keep bringing it here and letting it out so others can love you through this until you love yourself enough. It does happen and no nothing about it is easy. YOU are doing great and we are never alone. Many blessings and much love, Butch. You deserve it.

Thank you all so very much for your kind support and listening. There are no words for how valuable your understanding is.

Well it's getting clearer to me now that all the guilt is just my mind trying to distract me from the pain....and there is no way through it but through it. Surrender is hard for me, letting go and letting myself just feel it is daunting. I am a born fighter and I don't want to feel it all anymore. Hard to accept that there is no other way but through all this pain. I understand I will never be the same and that nothing ever will be. Thank god life is really only one day at a time.....and apparently I need more love and compassion for me just to walk through all these feelings........

Thanks to all here who have offered such love and care and grace.....

ENCOURAGEMENT

One of the most beautiful gifts in the world is the gift of encouragement. When someone encourages you, that person helps you over a threshold you might otherwise never have crossed on your own. There are times of great uncertainty in every life. Left alone at such a time, you feel dishevelment and confusion like gravity. When a friend comes with words of encouragement, a light and lightness visit you and you begin to find the stairs and the door out of the dark. The sense of encouragement you feel from the friend is not simply her words or gestures; it is rather her whole presence enfolding you and helping you find the concealed door. The encouraging presence manages to understand you and put herself in your shoes. There is no judgment but words of relief and release. ~ John O'Donohue "Eternal Echoes" (Harper Collins 1999).

Thank you, Kay. A really wonderful article came and I shared it with some friends who really are a pain, so that felt really good.

And then under that came not just the guilt but then the layer of feeling I failed us both.....and that is more the rock bottom of self blame. I need to accept defeat, that I did not save us....that I could not. I just didn't have that power. It was not going to happen and I didn't get what I wanted. And there seems to be some surrender in that for me, just some. I will take it. I just can't change it.....I lost the battle. It is a miracle I still feel him here sometimes. Even deeper, is the need to love myself more in all this. I have to love the part of me that feels defeated and completely and totally with no conditions. Much love and many blessings to us all, always.

Hugs make me cry too, Froggie. I am not too emotional.

Thank you, hearing from those that get it, just get it, is such an incredible blessing. I am so tired of explaining myself to others.....makes me want to scream....

While I am doing well in healing my grief, there is one area where I keep feeling most stuck and it is most painful because of its stuckness. I sat here for two weeks while my husband was dying and didn't realize the shortness of breath he had was his body shutting down....makes it hard to get to "it was his time," and the peace there. Even since he passed he tells me in my heart that same thing, "it was time." I am one of those that feels so responsible for everything and most definitely for him. I feel as though I let him die and should have made him go to the doctor sooner. He was trying to get dressed to go the morning he died. If I had not been so exhausted and out of it myself he might still be here. Please help me understand that I didn't do anything wrong, please help me accept it was time and not my fault for not taking good enough care of him. I love/d him with all my heart and it still feels as though it was not good enough. Thank you for listening.

Very well said, Fae, I so appreciate your response. Yes, at first others did that for me and then as the healing goes on I do more and more loving nurturing of my inner child self. It has been enormously helpful, less scared and lonely. Not a perfect fix but the comforting is getting in most deeply.

And so has Long Island Medium, some of her work has been the best grief "group" I could imagine. I wish there were more groups centered around that for those of us that know they never really left us. A recent show made me feel even more connected as did several dreams a friend told me about of seeing her and Dad and my dear partner together. I need that so much, to know he never really left me in the ways that matter so much. Many blessings and much love to us all.

So very well said, Kay. Part of me prefers to neglect myself to be honest.....Actively loving myself and speaking to myself with love and compassion matters so much now. I thought I knew this before but still had the constant support I now have to give myself. It's all so tiring and confusing and I very much want to love myself just as I am....with all I can give in any moment.......and receive it.

Hi Kay, I hear you about the holidays and the day to day missing our loved ones. Dear friend called yesterday and we both talked through the loss of loved ones. She just had an unpleasant breakup. We got to a place of talking about how much we rely/relied on the love of our loved ones to back us up and help us through it all and how all this change leads to a place of such emptiness with regard to loving ourselves, that we have to do more of it and that's not often easy for me. Loving myself is hard work sometimes just to let it in, you know? And I find I need to love myself a whole lot more now than ever. Things get most painful when I can't let love in for myself and then I go to missing him terribly compounding the whole thing. Such a whole new world this is........

Hope you are doing ok. Thank you for being there. Much blessing and love for you always.

We weren't really so big on holidays...family far away and not close to begin with. Nearly forgot tomorrow was Easter. It's just the day to day stuff and I so miss just talking/being with him.....best and closest friend, you know all this, too. Found myself talking out loud about something on tv/internet as I would have with him a few times last week. That was a first, hahahahaaa. I liked it.

No, Barb, you are not crazy, whining, or ridiculous. The anguish we all feel at losing life partners is common to us all. I am so sorry for your heartbreak and so very glad you found the site. You are never alone here and everyone just gets it. Many, many blessings for you as you go through this incomprehensible change

The grief is so rugged this morning but I am glad to say I am not resisting it so much. That feels like a huge step in healing for me. Just to allow the pain and loss to be what it is and feel it.....Maybe even understand it for the love it is, the love that will never change, never leave, never die....

The roller coaster is so intense today....feels like I will never be able to get on with my life.......so lost in the confusion and pain.

Anxiety has been the strongest of feelings in my grief recovery. It does get better but it requires enormous patience and loving the part of me that is so scared, hurt, angry, resentful.....that is the part that needs more love and not pressure from me to get better now. I need to love me into more healing.

No Mitch, we never forget our loved one and they live on in our hearts always, whispering their love and care...... They are always there, right in our hearts. Thank you for how well you have shared your Angel Tammy with us. You are never alone here and I hope you will share as much and as often as you want. Much love to all of you and yours always.

I agree, Shalady, how we get through it all brings out strength in me I didn't know I had and ironically, it is in being vulnerable. I am finding I am the worst one in controlling and judging my feelings.....avoidance and then blaming others. Some days are better than others, some days all the change is overwhelming. I have good support and work.....and then comes the inevitable time alone, so much of it. Thank you all for listening and sharing your lives and changes. It means so much.

Yes, Kay, I do.....thanks for the reminder. We are so blessed they stay nearby.

Even though the shock and grief are so unbelievably traumatic, I am also healing, too......And, he is helping along with so many others here and in other parts of my life.....I am very blessed and very grateful right now. <3 While I hate that he is gone; the gift he IS still keeps on giving every day.

Kay, thank you. I know we all get it....venting here so that others who may or may not mean so well don't get hurt. Thanks for hearing me.

And what does come to me is it sometimes gets very tiring dealing with everyone else's fears when I have had so much to take care of with me..... Many are deeply triggered by the idea of losing a partner in particular and instead of dealing with themselves they project it onto those recently experiencing all that change. Think I have had enough of the unaware behavior.....and that's a great step!

Kay and Feralfae.....I am so heartened to hear my words resonate with you. I wish this world was one in which our experiences were just a normal part of living and everyone got it. It's hard sometimes when talking to others who have clearly forgotten my circumstances. We are blessed to have each other and to know our loved Ones never leave....and that there can be joy and anguish in our hearts for their love.

This morning I could feel him within

and without so clearly, as though

nothing had really changed or

if it has,

it is better

and

it is

so

surprising.

Sorrow and joy

So much to feel.