iheartm

I think the above is a very good point and one that I've been thinking a lot about lately. I am pretty frank with my friends during this time. My view is "don't ask the question if you don't want the answer" so acting like I am okay is something I'm unable to pull off. I've always been a pretty private person that did not wear my heart on my sleeve. At all. Since M left, I have had what I consider no choice in whether to be open and honest or not. The grief and sadness is just too much to bear and any attempt at hiding or cloaking it in any way is something that just would not work. I'm not a wailing lunatic at all but I've cried in front of many (unheard of in my life) and have no care about it because this event is so much larger than anything I could ever hope to contain. I do think though, that now that a few months have passed, that time means something very different to me than it does to friends. For friends and acquaintances, it may seem that a good bit of time has gone and I "should" be starting to come to grips. To me, it feels like it happened yesterday and there is no day that I do not dissolve into tears at a few points just because. I know that everyone means well but their clock is out of sync with mine. I have noticed more and more people who are willing to speak to me more about how I am or writing me emails, texts, and messages because they feel enough time has gone by. I am still unable to answer anyone. On the one hand, I really hope at some point I will become stronger and more able to fend for myself but it feels to me like that will never happen. On the other hand, I am having what I guess you could call anticipatory guilt in wishing for that because just entertaining the thought that that may happen at some point makes me feel so bad because it will be like I am moving on without him, cutting him out, leaving him behind...

A bunch of friends told me that for whatever reason, health insurance does not typically pay for the ambulance ride so I was expecting to get a bill at some point but will only pay a bill when my insurance company tells me that I am responsible for it. The first hospital bill that I got said "Past due" even though it was the first I'd seen it. It also indicated that they had contacted my insurance company and had not heard back. Last week, I got a second bill for the same thing marked Past Due and a note at the bottom that I can pay in the enclosed envelope or contact my insurance company to see if there was a problem. I logged into my health insurance account and this bill was paid in early January. Several other bills that I have received have no information whatsoever (date of service, who performed said services. etc.) and just say Previous Balance. M is the responsible party on these bills so I am tempted to suggest they hire a medium and attempt to get the money from him.

I still have this feeling that if I just wish hard enough, look at his picture long enough, express hope enough and beg and plead to the universe that he will appear to tell me he is okay or that he will be watching out for me or that he did not want to go but had to and that we'll see each other again but just not now. Wishful thinking I know. I also get consumed sometimes by feelings that he is trapped somewhere and banging on a wall calling my name and trying to come back because there's no way he would ever leave me. Then I think, "No, he passed away. He is at peace now with his parents, my father, our two deceased cats and he is taking care of all of the animals and playing pool." Then I crumble and cry.

Same here. A few people have told me that since I'm young (50), I need to go on. I don't see where age makes any difference in the loss of a spouse. I was with M for half of my life... If you were "only" married for 5 years, is your loss any less than a person that was married for 15 years? 20 years? Of course not. What else is there to do except go on? Of course we go on. If we didn't, we'd all kill ourselves. It's kind of like when a child goes through the divorce of their parents or they experience the death of a parent and people call kids "resilient" and marvel that they adjust, but what else is there to do but adjust? What are the choices we are given? We are forced to adjust to a life altering, devastating situation that was not of our choosing, nor the choosing of our spouse. That's the bottom line. No one wanted this and there are no backsies. Our spouse is at peace but we are in anything but a state of peace. From one minute to the next, the emotional scale can go haywire. You curse yourself for smiling at something. How dare you smile at anything under the circumstances. We are in a perpetual state of grief. The loss is so huge that we can't see or feel anything except that and won't for a while. For others on the periphery of our lives, the death was an event for which they stopped, paid their respects and continued on. Some of those people may think that we should be doing the same thing because they just cannot understand. I got a medical bill in the mail marked past due again. First I've seen it. I looked it up online and it was paid nearly two months ago. The act of looking it up online was such an enormously difficult thing to do. I felt so lazy but it's not laziness. The smallest effort of any kind is just so incredibly taxing for me right now.

Today makes 3 months since M left. It was a Sunday at about 2:50 in the afternoon. I spent a good part of the day cleaning up and doing errands to keep me busy but kept welling up no matter where I was. We loved to watch sports together, especially golf and I haven't been able to put it on. Tonight his beloved Yankees play a preseason game against Philly (recorded earlier but televised tonight) and I am going to put it on and hope that somehow he knows that they are on. I'm just so terribly sad. I keep looking at his picture and how beautiful he was and thinking how unfair this is. I so badly want him to know how lost I am without him. I want him to know that I've been crying every day since he left and how my life is so broken without him. I want him to know that so much. I want him to know that when I went to Walgreens today, I parked my car in the regular parking spot so that if he walked by the lot, he'd know I was in there. I was crying walking back to the car wishing more than anything that I'd see the baseball cap and his walk coming down the street. That I will never see that again is just too much to bear.

I think it is so amazing how many things we strangers all have in common. It feels like very single post I read here is something that I have happening to me on a regular basis. Then I start thinking people reading my posts are going to think I am making these things up because how can someone have all the exact same experiences? Well, here we do... M loved a cold O'Douls too because he could not have regular beer. He also loved Trop50 Blueberry Acai juice. There are two unopened bottles of the juice in the fridge here that expired in January and I just can't get myself to throw them out.

I made two pictures of M framed to send to relatives of his. I thought they would like a current picture. First, I printed the pictures out. A week later, I brought the frames into the office. Another week to put them in the frames and then they sat there for a month. I put bubble wrap and brown paper around them and they sat for another week. This past week, I finally said, "I'm going to stop being a lazy ass and mail these." Then I realized that I could not just send them as is, but would have to enclose a note. I did not want to type the note so I wrote a brief message on an index card. It took every single ounce of my being to be able to write the first index card. I never thought I'd be able to write the second one. But I did. And I sent them. Every single little act, whether it's routine or something new feels like such a huge task that I'm just not capable of doing all at once. I am working in such tiny, baby steps that I began to think that I was being stupid and lazy and needed to just do it. The problem is, I can't "just do it" because it's overwhelming and exhausting. No one except the people here are going to understand that and I am truly grateful that people around here do.

Oh this is just so true. It is my life every day. Out of nowhere I just well up in tears. Sometimes it's just a moment and I can pull myself together after a short time but other times it is an hour or more before I cry it all out. Grocery shopping is the worst. It's so lonely when you are shopping for one. No more thinking, "Ohhh, we'll have this tonight..." or "We'll have that tomorrow..." or calling him and saying, "Wanna have xyz tonight," and him saying, "Sounds good to me, babe." No more. If I pick up something from a takeout place, it feels so sad to be only getting one meal. Using Seamless or GrubHub is a rarity now because as one person I'd have to order more than one meal to reach the minimum delivery order.

Gin: I feel the same way. There is no one that can know unless you are there. Lucky for us, everyone here either has been where we are now or is right with us. We need to use that to help us along. Brat: I so agree with you. Someone I know suggested that our identity is wrapped up in our partner and that it would be a good idea for me to seek out and do things that I would like to do but for whatever reason did not do when M was here. I could think of none. I am not going to knock on doors asking for friends or join a gym or book club to "go out and meet people" because for one thing that is not me. Another reason is because I am still so hurt and raw and sad that doing anything, any little thing, that feels like I'm leaving him behind or cutting him out is devastating to me. I was crying when I had to take him off my health insurance at work because I felt like I was cutting him out of my life.

Gin: I am sitting alone at home thinking the exact same thing. I had such a bad week of missing my M. Everywhere I go, everything I do, he was a part of for 25 years. That's gone now and everything just seems so wrong.

You should complain. You should be selfish. I am and proud to say it. M was my life. I love my friends but they are not him. I want him back. I don't want substitutions. I don't want to develop new interests just because he is not here anymore. Maybe as time goes by, my mind will change and adjust but that has to be an organic event and certainly not something that I try to force into happening. I don't think that would do any good at all. Hang in there Marg. Just "do" and "be" what YOU need.

Sorry, but this made me crack up. Never heard it before... Welcome Corgigurl to the grief pit. My last words to my husband were "I'll be right back" so I know how you feel. He died in December after a sudden onset of illness. The shock was unbearable. It still is. All I could think about at work today was coming home and spending the entire weekend lying on the couch in tears. I want him back so badly. We have no kids and I don't have a close family at all so what used to be the two of us is only me now and it's absolutely horrible. We were homebodies that liked to go out to dinner on occasion. Otherwise, we just hung out together and were perfectly content and happy with that. Now all I have are pictures on the wall, memories and this huge pit in my stomach that just misses him so terribly.

The subject line is my life right now. In addition to the incredible sadness that I feel all the time, I am now hit with the "Wait, what do you mean he's never coming back? What do you mean I'm never going to speak to him again? That just cannot be." For a while after he passed, I think my brain was convinced that he was on a trip or something as I was crushed, sad and devastated beyond belief, but somehow thought, "He'll be back soon." The realization that he isn't is beginning to overwhelm me and make me cry all the time. I can't stop thinking, "Holy cow, there's no way he would do this to me. He would NEVER leave me." And he wouldn't. But he did.

Marg: I want you to know that I think if you want to be ANGRY and curse and shout to the rafters, please do that. It's a perfectly acceptable response. You know why? Because it is what YOU are feeling. There is no one person, place or thing that can and will invalidate what you are feeling. The purpose of this board is for people like us to share, not be coached on how to feel or react to anything and most especially-- at least for me-- not to learn how to cope. We all just have to do and be. Please do that.

We are all speaking for each other here. I had to walk out of a meeting at work this morning because I just started crying and had to leave the room. I am currently locked in my office in tears. It's just that kind of day. I am having trouble sleeping again. I zonk out at my regular bed time and then wake up, wide awake, an hour later and then sleep in 10-20 minute increments for the rest of the night. Sometimes I just watch the clock tick on by. All I want to do is go home and lay on the couch doing nothing.

Marg: Do not be mixed up. I have discovered that in order to cope and survive this terrible trauma, my only option is to "do" and "be" as I am without regard to anyone or anything else. We are all at different points in our loss and need to respect that and understand that we are not all in the same place mentally, physically, emotionally or anything else. Please don't think you are on your own. You are not. We are here. It was 60 degrees here today and I sat out on our balcony for the first time in tears. I sat in M's chair looking out at the sky wondering why he was taken from me. He used to sit on one side and me on the other. It was delightful. Now it's just me and that's just not the same.

There is something about the supermarket that just gets me. I remember about three years ago, I was in there and my cell phone rang. It was him and he said, "Hey, where are you?" and I said, "I'm in the supermarket." He said, "What aisle?" So I said, "What?" laughing. He said, "I'm in aisle 4!" and we met up and laughed about that. I am welling up right now typing that. we have a Walgreens market by us as well and every time I went in there, I would park in the same spot (I was lucky to get it 95% of the time) so if he was out for a walk and passed by, he would see that I was in there and would come in and meet me. To see him appear in Walgreens and smile and come up to me was such fun. There is no one to run into anymore like that. No one to call and say, "I'm stopping at a few more stores." No one waiting for me at home. No one to have dinner with. It's all gone. I am in a place now in which all of the business elements of his passing are taken care of and now my feelings are a combination of "wtf" and pure sadness. I don't feel out of control, but I am just unable to fathom how after all of our wonderful years together I am supposed to go on without him. What if I don't want to? I don't mean that in an "I'm going to hurt myself kind of way" and I'm sure most people here understand exactly what I mean when I say that. It's just not possible to see a future that does not include both of us because we were everything to each other and did everything together. A friend of mine was gently saying that when you are part of a couple for such a long time, a lot of one's identity is wrapped up in the other person and that at some point I should start doing things that I personally would like to do but just did not do when we were a couple. I was perplexed by that suggestion because I cannot think of any hobby or activity that either of us suspended when we got together. So that puts me in a position of having the option to participate in hobbies and activities that we did together and get very sad and upset or lay on the couch sad and upset. Not very appetizing choices but I am not going to adopt new interests to fill my time because I really don't want to. The idea of doing that makes me feel like I am trying to push him out of my mind and force in something to replace my feelings about him. It's similar to our cat. She's nearly 3 now and right after this happened, I considered getting another cat because M was retired and home with her during the day and I work a lot. I was worried that not only would she be missing him but she had never been alone all day before and might be very sad at that. But then I thought, "She is grieving too. What if someone brought a person to my door and said, 'Here is a new friend for you to hang out with.'?" I would not want to have to be grieving and trying to find my way while trying to integrate someone new into my life. So I let it be. She has been so good. No complaints or changes in behavior. I tell her when I leave in the morning that her daddy will be hanging out with her all day and watching her. I'm so glad she's been so good. I felt so bad for her. Part of me wishes that if he just appeared one time and told me he is okay and we will be together again some day that maybe I could begin to cope, but the idea that he left me is something he would just never, ever do and it's so difficult to accept and understand that.

So ends another week without him. Every song on the radio, every sports game on television, every trip to the supermarket where I shop for one now is a hard reminder that he's never coming back. He would never leave me. But he did. It's so hard.

I was very lonely today, Janka. I know just how you feel. I sit in my apartment wondering what is left of my life. We were each other's world and liked it that way. Now it's all gone...

Funny that this was mentioned today. I said to a couple of colleagues of mine several times last week, "I want to get in my car and just get the hell away from everything." The problem though, is that since my grief and sorrow is all in my own self so skipping town will just bring everything with me. I also thought to myself that if I did not need medical insurance, I would quit the job that I love and have had for over ten years. I am so glad this board is here. I had a very rough day today. Sitting all alone in my apartment with no one to talk to. Some friends asked me if I wanted to do anything but I just don't feel up to it yet. I did laundry and cleaning and stuff, shopped for groceries, but there's such an emptiness. I look at his picture and melt thinking, "Why did you have to go? I hope you can hear me. Please know that I have been crying for hours on a daily basis for nearly 3 months now because you should be here with me." This is so, so hard. Sorry to hear you are having such a rough go, Marg.

Nature, Every time I read one of your posts, I have to ask myself if you are me. We have so much in common with what we are thinking. All I can think is that I need nice weather to come so I can sit outside or talk a walk down by the water. Being cooped up indoors during the winter months causes enough sadness as it is, but add this on top of it and it becomes so much more difficult.

I have been dealing with firsts as well but not holiday firsts. Today, the NY Yankees began Spring Training. My husband was a devoted Yankees fan and I am a Mets fan. Just hearing the season is coming up made me so incredibly sad. Worse yet, over the past couple of days was the Westminster Dog Show. We watched that together every year forever. I saw a commercial for it and got so upset. I was unable to watch it. There are those firsts too which can really stop you in your tracks. I wish you strength in getting through them. It's so incredibly difficult.

Dear Nature, I am so sorry that you are joining us here. My husband died suddenly in December from complications from pneumonia. Neither of us had any idea when we arrived at the hospital that things would go downhill quickly. He died 10 days later leaving me in absolute shock. My mother was recently put into a nursing home with dementia. She has not known who I am for a couple of years now and loved my husband so. She has no idea who he was anymore and I cannot share my grief with her in any way because she is long gone. Dealing with multiple events like this is earth shattering and you have no idea which way is up. I so understand where you are. I have friends but was never a very social person. My husband and I were it. It was just the two of us and we liked it that way. Your paragraph about it being just the two of you mirrors my life as well. I do not have a close family. Now that he is gone, I am so alone. I can so relate to you saying it feels nice to get out and then there is an overwhelming feeling of wanted to be safe at home. That is me exactly. We don’t have children so I can’t speak to that but I can say that you have to do and feel whatever you are feeling to get through. I am still in the “this is so raw” stage and many people here have opened their hearts to me and have comforted me in my grief. Even though we do not know each other here (some long time posters might, but I am speaking generally), we know exactly what each person is going through. As much as you are hurting, please know that you are not alone.

Thank you, Janka. I wish you peace as well. It's so hard... I feel like if I could just have some sign, some message from him that says, "I am okay" I could begin to maybe bear this a bit better. But the fact that he is just gone and I am left bewildered is so terribly sad and hard to deal with. He was such a beautiful man that was loved by so many. Never hurt a fly. Would give you the shirt off his back if you needed it. It's so unfair.

I am just so sad today. Two months in and I still cannot believe this. I look at his picture and cry and wonder why he had to go. He never would have left me. Ever. It is freezing cold outside today so I am cooped up inside my apartment with nothing to do but miss him terribly and wish he was here. I come here to read because sometimes I feel like I am the only one going through this and that no one understands. That is not true at all. I do not want to say that I take comfort in reading other people's stories of such a tragic thing but reading about people further along the journey gives me some hope that I will be better at some point. I hated even typing that: "I will be better at some point" because I don't want to be better if he is not here. Just another of the things you grapple with when going through this.