Gwenivere

A friend adopted a star for us too. I finally got the certificate. I tried to find it in the sky but haven't. I know it's being named for us means nothing in most astronomic circles, but it was a very special gift amid the condolences cards. As it turned out, tho, when I look it up on the computer it was twin stars.

I just passed the 2 year mark that you are approaching, Laurie. I am going to be 61 soon. There are people here in you age group I hope will provide some answers on the age issue. But I can tell you that all of what you feel we do too, no matter what age we are because of the devastating loss. Funny you should mention the election as that is one of the main things I miss about my Steve. We would be talking a lot about the insanity if it. I, too, am particularly hit by 2 years of not talking with him about anything. Even down to what to have for dinner. The loneliness can be suffocating. The silence too loud.

Egads Patty! I cannot even imagine someone pressuring me to help them about missing Steve. They didn't lose what we did. Sure they miss them. But it is our lives that are the ones that are truly changed. The closet I had talked to someone (and it was in sharing the loss) was his brother and sister because they had lifelong ties with him. It would have been the same if his parents were alive. Friends of his miss him, I get it. But to expect me to bolster them is ridiculous. I'm barely keeping myself going. Alcohol is no excuse either. It brings out what they truly feel and that would be a huge red flag of selfishness on your friends part, IMO. I want to isolate too sometimes and i know from prior experience it is not a good thing. There are already enough hours of my day now I am alone. The trick is finding something I want to do that doesn't feel like I am just killing time. Haven't found that yet. But I do go out every day because I don't want to have spent it holed up here. I'm afraid it could become too easy and it makes me feel crazier. This is so damned complicated!

Thank you, everyone, for thinking of me today. I plan on doing my volunteering and not try and emphasize the day. It was the worst day of my life and I would prefer to honor good ones like his birthday. ? I'm hope for no phone calls as it is the last thing I want to talk about.

Thank you, Gin. I'll find out when I wake today and how it progresses. ?

I remember! I remember! It was when we just lived our lives with our partners and hummed along like everyone else. Tomorrow Steve will be gone 2 years so normal has become scratched out of my vocabulary. i haven't seen anyone that looks like Steve either. Especially the healthy and gorgeous guy I knew. Probably a very good thing. Dont think I could take that. Pictures are hard enough. I might just grab the poor guy that looked like him confirming my insanity!

I have to admit to becoming more callous too, Ana. I have little to no patience about people's complaints about thier loved ones. I sometimes want to scream at them.....at least you have something to complain about! And it's usually such minor stuff. I have no interest in the news either. Have to feel like you are a part of the world to do that. All I watch is the weather forecast and for where I live that is depressing. Time for months of rain and gloom. Blah.

Thank you, Marg. It's a little tougher these days joining the ranks of the widow/ers there. Puts a whole new spin on things.

I was married before too. 6 months of misery. He made a great boyfriend, but I knew getting married would change all that. I also knew Steve (who was married) at the time and thought maybe getting marrried would stop or lessen my desire to be with him. Even my best friend back then asked why I was doing this knowing it was not the right person. It didn't change a thing for either Steve or me. We both divorced and finally were free to be together instead of hiding in the shadows to do so. We weren't proud of that time we deceived others, but the heart wants what the heart wants. It was a marriage that lasted almost 32 years and survived 2 separations. That is why I know there will never be another and bristle when it is said to me that there could be. This isn't like being in your late teens and early 20's when you are seeking and people are interchangeable, as long as you have companionship.

I think there are times we can sense our future. I know many have remarried, my mother did when I was 4. I'm sure she didn't plan on or look for it. I look at who I am, the age I am, the changes that this has caused and know I am on my own now. No one will ever fit into my life in that way. Maybe if I was younger and hadn't had 39 years of the perfect person for me and now 'set in my ways' as they say....who knows. Part of my baggage is knowing no one will ever fit with me again. That is something I work to accept. I had the best and now I have to go on alone.

So....Steve us both a fruit and a veggie? That's talent!

I'm not living for the both of us so it's hard to relate to that feeling. There is no more Steve and Gwen and that is so hard. It's so glaringly apparent he is not here and has nothing to do with anything I do now. I,too, was happy before I met Steve, but once he entered my life I experienced a happiness I never knew existed. Going back, if possible, to being content (I cannot imagine actual happiness at this point) would be settling. I'll never come close to feeling life as I came to know it because of him. My feeling is you can't have that experience, lose it and ever come close to feeling life is full again. Emptiness is the worst feeling I deal with every single day. It does literally make it hard for me to breathe at times. The mind and body are so tied together in this. That's so evident in love songs I hear that crush my heart now. Everything I see and hear now that was a part of our life feels so very changed. Something what once was just background or fun feels almost alien now. It's frozen in time. Saturday is 2 years he will be gone. I look around me at what has and hasn't changed. Things I had to change and the more numerous things unchanged of what we constructed. I'm glad you have your grandchildren. Something living that came from your union. Never worked out for us so it's really dead around here. Friends are off in thier own lives. I know you still have the time alone and that is so tough.

You are so right, Marg. This is when we learn to do for ourselves now. It's not an easy thing to do as we all know. i do smile at people. I try and talk with strangers when in line to check out. Try and connect with people as I can in the world. It does help some. Isolation is tough and tho I might not remember it later in the day, I know it has got to help. I do wonder about people that are put off by it. They are unhappy for some reason or possibly uncomfortable with strangers. All we can is try.

Steve, you are right, even the few things I buy are influenced by the person I was with my Steve. It's all about the life we created and that won't change. Unlike you and Kathy, it was him that came up with some whoppers of changes and things always went back to what they were after I let him try his experiments knowing they weren't going to work. But he did have a few that did and that so pleased him. I've come up with a couple that would have made life easier, but we never noticed when we were both here. For an emotional vegetable you sure are blessed with a great veggie brain!

Steve and I talked about how he imagined he would feel if I was gone. He was a very strong man but felt that all reason to fight to live alone would become lost. I know this blow was too damned hard. It's changed everything of what I knew life to be. Rolling with the punches is extremely hard now. A solitary future is the perfect wording. i was thinking when I was out doing my 'thrill' errand of buying dog food that all the work we did to make sure the other would not have to worry financially was certainly helpful and something to be grateful for. But when all meaning disappears, it doesn't make a dent in the void of the loneliness life will be now til my own demise. All those places we went to shop and browse have no meaning now. I see things I know we would have bought but walk by them now. I've added some small things, but they almost glaringly stand out from our stuff. And this is how it will be now. The growth of our life together is over.

I keep reading how so many of you feel those we have lost are still with us. I know what you mean in our hearts, but those are just memories to me. I don't feel them at all in any other way. I don't feel I can talk to them and feel some relief and I have tried. It's like yelling into a canyon without even an echo. When I talk to people, which is rare, about it, I don't feel any pleasure from the casual saying he and I did this or that. I feel nothing but emptiness. I wish I could feel it, but I just can't make happen something I don't. On a side note, this being alone is really tougher than I realized lately. Normally if I had an idea about something (little things like changing something in the house or a new idea for dinner) I would run it past Steve. I could also run it by a friend. I realized today I have absolutely no one to do that with. Not a soul to call locally. Talk about feeling isolated. Can't even talk about the mundane things of every day living. Can't even buy a new couch pillow and say....what do you think? Someone posted about going shopping and what was the point. I see little things I would normally buy for fun, but they just don't matter anymore. It's only the necessities now. I get practically giddy if I actually need something. Today it is dog food. Yippee. And I say that sarcastically.

I'm like you, Gin. I cannot even fathom doing all decorating work to sit looking at it alone. I still can't stand waking up alone and living the day that way much less reminders of special things we did for holidays.

It's so good to hear from you, Patty. Not so good the struggles you are having. I hear you about dreams. I prefer the nights I don't recall them at all. Even some 'good' ones with Steve leave me too sad in the morning. I live that all day, don't need it at night too. i don't think it is feeling sorry fir yourself. It is living the hugest void you will ever face and whatever you feel is perfectly valid and understood here. Some very rough days coming up for you. I'm facing the 2 year anniversary of Steves death this Saturday. I know we will both make it, just wish we didn't have to face them at all. I'm so sorry for the memory of losing your dog too. It just adds more to the load we carry.

I never thought coherent would apply to me right now, so thanks for that! i can totally understand why you would not want your kids to have to relive what they went through with thier mother. I am much more aware of the residents at the nursing home I volunteer at and cannot imagine being one with no family like some and my only contact is with rotating aides for my needs. So many things we never thought of before. We not only lose our partners, we now see the reality of our mortality. I envision grief as a horrid monster. Worse than any horror movie!

This was reassuring for me to read because that is where I am right now. I can't believe the thoughts that go thru my head when I wake up. Ways to end this pain and meaninglessness. It scares me to feel this way. I don't know why it is hitting at 2 years, but all I can think of is it has been so long I've missed having some sort of interaction with Steve. Or that the reality has truly hit and I'm on a very different pace. Nothing social goes on in this house anymore. There are no significant interactions with the world. You have grandkids send your trips to Phoenix which I know does not fill the entire void. People flowed in and out here when Steve was alive. No reason for that now. As I told my counsellor, I've never been alone before. Even when I lived alone a long time ago, I had my family and friends to visit and visit me. There are none now. I'm also more shackled by the panic disorder since anxiety is a large part of grief. My biggest fear is not dying quickly and stuck here dependent on strangers. Sorry, rambling again. Life was life before. It flowed and I never gave it a 2nd thought. Not until his death became imminent. I don't see it as a gift either. To see it that way you have to have joy and happiness. Something that balances the negatives of it. When it gets tilted in the wrong direction for a long time there is no way to feel that. To MLK, yes I know how you feel. My parents are long gone and there is no one else to lose but my dogs. I communicate with a few people, but not at a depth that it would shatter thier lives if I died. I wish I had something to hold onto like that. I need something to get me thru this what I hope is just a phase of it.

Thank you Brad. ?

Brad, after 5 years of being the one to witness his pain, 2 of ultimate devastation being alone, it was so help if I knew he could see how much his being gone has made me truly feel how deep our love is/was. Gin, when I feel the wrong one of us died, I see Steve as the healthy man he was. The strength he possessed. Its all just thoughts from a grieving mind that hit me in the dark of night.

Here is my problem with voids. Coincidentally, I was thinking of this last night in my going to sleep crying ritual. Whenever a void entered my life Steve would fill it. I can't really explain how beyond his being my best friend and person I loved most in the world. I was able to adapt to other losses because I always had him which I felt would always be there, always. Now that he is the void, I have no clue how to handle that. We all know that people on the outside cannot do this nor truly understand it. So what do we do? (Rhetorical). It really hit me hard last night and gives me a clearer picture of how deep and cold grief is. Losses I felt from parents to friends were not easy but I had someone to talk to, cry to and share the pain. I did the same for him when he lost special people. My frustration is that he never had to experience this ultimate void. It sometimes angers me. I was his caregiver thru his cancer too. He was never alone. I know life isn't 'fair', and as crazy as it sounds, the time I need him the most I will ever in my life, he is not here. I have to keep reminding myself I am not losing my mind. I am alone for the first time in my life. Not just because of him, but family and friends too. When I said that to my counsellor she said that spoke volumes. There was a time I was so strong and independent. That came knowing there were people in my life that I could always turn to. Now all are gone. All of them except one dog we had as a family. She is my last link to the life I knew and will be turning 12 next year. I try not to think of what that will do to me. Everything from this point forward is now me alone living it. If it can be called living which I am hard pressed to say. I want to care about something again. In a week it will be 2 years I have had no contact with him. I've stopped talking about I to others because finding they didn't get the 'magical' 1 year mark, they definitely won't get this. I just wish Steve could help me a little thru the void he created.

Janet, It's so hard to be alone when the world keeps going forward. It's been almost 2 years for me and all the holidays and get togethers mean nothing now. Loneliness is the worst feeling. I don't begrudge people moving on as they still have thier intact lives. But we do feel separated from normal life. There is no way to ignore holidays and special personal days either. I don't know if you have any close family or friends, but sometimes they help. I don't locally so it's been especially hard as for others here in the same situation. I think on other times I have been 'alone' in my life but I could call my mother for example. Reach out to a close friend for some human contact. Those are all gone. Your loss is so new too. We are but cyber folks here but real people that understand. I hope we can help with the isolation that comes with grief.

Joyce, I wish I knew something to say to ease your pain. You wrote a beautiful post and I can see the happiness you had with each other in the picture. I am thinking of you today and wish I could give you a real hug. I know that feeling of getting butterflies when we look at thier picture. Makes us miss them more because we can't act on it. Sometimes I would get this overwhelming feeling of love and go find him and hug him. He'd say, what was that for? I'd say because i love you so much.