martha jane

Gdragon33, welcome to this site, I think it will be a big help to you. I must say I don't know how it would feel to lose someone at such a young age. My husband was 84 and had lived a very good life, loved his work and his family. I think it must be terribly hard to have young children and go through what you are. My children are all grown and a great help to me even though two of them live on separate coasts. Another daughter is closer and we spend time together when she can take off work. My husband died Dec 13, 2016. People tell me it gets better but you never get over it. Hope things get easier for you. I have old letters that I read, they make me sad but I love to read them.

think about this, Maybe when you go to happy places your wife goes with you. I hope she is there and sees you beginning to smile and have a little happiness. and what better way than with your little grandkids. And a good friend that needed you.

I didn't post the entry above with the poem. I would have been comforted to hear it and feel it was a message to me. I have had songs play that I thought was for me. I makes me feel closer to the person and it is usually an old song that you wouldn't normally hear on the radio today. Will the person who wrote that entry please take credit for it.I would love to know who had that experience.

KayC All the wonders that she talked about were brought about by God. Nothing so perfect could have just happened. I believe there is a heaven because the Bible says so. Yes it is an ancient book that has been read by millions and millions of people for many many years. No one has been able to disprove what it says. If I didn't believe that there was a heaven, this life would not be worth living. What is the use if this is all there is. I don't understand it all but God's ways are not our ways and he promises that one day we will see clearly what we can't see now. The old song says We will understand it better by and by. I don't know for sure if a person goes right to heaven when they die. Most people believe they do, based on the fact that Jesus told the thief, Today thou shall be with me in Paradise. And the bible says To be absent from the body is to be present with the Lord. I hope they do, that my husband is there with my relatives and his. He had a brother die in July 2016 and he was grieving for him so bad. He would call his name during his sleep. I know Jesus will be there because he said he was going to prepare a place for us. I am not a Bible scholar, but I have been told that the best book of the Bible that you should read first if you are not sure what to believe is John and then go back to Matthew, Mark and Luke. I really hope this helps. I understand how you feel. I think we all do. I will tell you about an experience that I had years ago when someone I loved had been killed in an auto crash. One morning, half asleep in my mind I said, If I just knew where he was!. At that moment my shoulder became very cold and then someone pulled the blanket up over me and I became warm. I did not see the person but I felt a presence beside my bed and I believe it was my friend. I had a friend whose mother had died and she had gone to bring her clothes home from the nursing home and all of a sudden she smelled her Mother's perfume very strong. And two days before Valentine's day I found a heart shaped rock on my husband's grave while I was raking it smooth. Maybe God allowed this to happen to comfort us, I don't know but I sure hope it was. I also left a dime at my friend's grave and the very next day I found one right beside my car. I have a small drawer filled with dimes that I have found in some of the most unlikely places. And sometimes when I was troubled and when I needed comforting. Also usually when I tell someone they find a dime in a few days. dimes where they weren't before like in the floor at their house. One last story and I will close. I was staying with my mother, she was very sick. She had just moved into a new mobile home. I was cooking her supper and the dryer buzzed. I had a skillet with oil in it on the stove and I forgot about it and went to the dryer and then in my mother's bedroom to put some clothes up. Suddenly the fire alarm went off and I remembered the skillet of oil. I ran to the kitchen and smoke was everywhere. I grabbed the skillet and just as I did it caught fire and was flaming up to the cabinets. I said the most earnest prayer in my life." Dear God in Heaven help me. I didn't know what to do. I turned to the sink and ran water in the flaming skillet and the flames shot up the curtains and went out. I believe God answered my sincere fervent prayer. h The rock I found at my husband's grave on Sun before Valentine's Day.

Most of this is so true except I can't wire a ceiling fan, change oil, and all that other stuff but I do know where the water meter is and how to read it. Getting up in the morning is the hardest thing.

I have been to the doctor and she found my blood pressure too high and a few other worrisome things. My problem is I don't have my husband to talk about it with. I was here to take care of him and take his blood pressure, count out his medicines , help him up when he fell. Take him places to get him out of the house, buy him good things to eat. Now I have no one to share my concerns with. I don't want to burden my children so I will just keep things to myself. t

I try not to let my kids know when I am crying, One is in Vermont and a son in San Francisco. The one in Vermont calls almost every day when she is driving her kids somewhere. My son doesn't call as often, usually when he is driving home or taking his kids somewhere. I don't think when your kids live away and only come home once a year they don't miss their daddy as much because they don't have as many reminders of him to see everyday. It is different with my daughter in Montgomery. Sometimes I can't keep her from knowing and she misses him more because she lives closer by and came home every month or two. She is the one who always rushed home when he got in the hospital. We spent 43 days together in the hospital and the last week we spent the nights on a hospital couch. I have broken down in front of her a few times but what can she do but put her arm around me and cry too. We both need help then. We don't have any support meetings around here in the daytime and I don't like to be out at night. I broke down at the Drs office on Friday and when they learned why one asked could she put me on her prayer list and then a woman from the lab came in and talked and prayed with me. She said I was so lucky to have had all those years with my husband, She never had that , her husband left her with two kids to raise and she said all I ever wanted was someone to love me. Then the doctor came in and she talked with me for a long time before she even looked at my lab results and walked me out with her arm around me. This was my first time going to this doctor and I was very impressed that her people would be so compassionate to me, a stranger. She wants me to go back to church but I can't right now, When I get around people I start crying and can't talk and I feel it embarasses other people because they don't know what to say.

I started making my own butter several months ago and I was so proud. I also have two chickens and when I got eggs I would bring them into the den and show them to my husband , he would always smile. I had a churn I could hold on my lap and I would make my butter sitting on the couch with him watching TV. I bought some pretty antique butter dishes that held the round butter that I molded in a wooden butter mold. My brother gave me a big churn and Kenneth was so pleased, he remembered his mama churning so I put some water with dishwashing liquid in it and he sat for a while churning it. Now I just look at it.I am no longer interested in making the butter because he is not here to show pride in my efforts and to help me eat it. I miss him and the little everyday things we shared.

Thanks everyone for your kind comments. I feel so sad and unloved this morning. My little cat must sense the way I feel. She is following me and when I sit down she sits beside me. It seems each day my feelings are different. It is like being on a roller coaster that never stops.

I talked to a friend today and it was all I could do to keep from hanging up on her. She really badgered me about what I am going to do and then telling me what I should do. She said she had talked to a lot of widows and this is what I should do. I don't care how many widows a person has talked to if they haven't become one they don't know what they are talking about. She said, you can't stay in that house alone, you need to get somewhere that you can be around people. I am around the people that I want to be around. My daughter, my brother, my niece. I have a friend that I go to lunch with on Tues. I have a friend who lost her husband five years ago( he was my pastor and I knew him well) we understand each other and it is a comfort to talk to her. I have a friend from church, she still has her husband but it helps to talk to her because we know a lot of the same people, went to church together until my husband got sick. My friend has a husband with dementia that knows nothing except to walk around the house and follow her. He can no longer carry on a conversation and forgets to go to the bathroom and he is afraid of water so she has a hard time cleaning him up. She thinks I am lucky and she envys me. Her husband is 86 and in good condition. I know she means well but I don't know what I want to do. I don't know if I want to sell my house, I have many memories of my husband here.She tells me I need to. I could go and live with my daughter and she would like for me to but not now. She thinks I don't need to do anything in a hurry. She does not want me to put my husband's clothes away and Oh it is so hard to look at them. Especially his shirts and his shoes. My family is not telling me what to do. I feel bad that I resented her talking to me the way she did but it was very upsetting to me. She just kept on and on. She calls me often because she needs someone to understand what she is going through. What she does not realize, yes, she thinks her husband would be better off dead, He would not like to live as he is but he doesn't know how he is. He is happy, I can hear him laughing when she calls me.What she does not realize is how she is going to feel when he is gone. She says he is already gone. She says she thinks it is harder than me losing my husband. She is going to feel very guilty after he is gone. Just like most of us feel some guilt, I know I do because some times I got tired of caring for my husband, emptying the bedside commode and the smell It had. I got tired of pee in the floor and washing the many towels I wiped it up with. I got tired of having to strip the bed and wash everything. I got tired of him being so negative about everything. I could go on and on and I feel so guilty for the things I thought and did. Now when I look back I would give anything to be able to do all those things for him again. I had no idea that I would miss him so terribly and feel so , I don't know how to describe the way I feel. It is like someone is throwing icewater on me every time I think of him and realize that he is GONE! For 58 years we shared our lives with each other and I think of when we were young and we had so much fun. We barely made it from payday to payday but we didn't care as long as we had the money to spend the weekend camping at the river with our younger brothers. He loved my mama and Daddy and nearly every Sunday morning they would call because my daddy had thought of somewhere we could go. My husband would drive and daddy would drink a few cans of beer. My husband had never even tasted beer or anything else with alcohol. My daddy would ask if he wanted one and he would say no and my daddy was very proud that he wouldn't drink. They were like our best friends. I have gotten off the subject here but I am just upset and want to talk to people who understand what I am going through. As you all know it is NOT easy. I wake up every morning and realize he is gone. This morning just as I was waking up, I heard a noise and just for a second I thought it was my husband falling. I see him in my mind's eye everywhere. I know all the places that he fell. I see him rakeing the yard trying to find car keys that I took away from him and threw over my shoulder into the grass because he was mad and going to drive away in his truck. And he did because he had an extra key that I did not know about. He was gone a long time and I never asked him where he went. I just preached him a sermon about what would happen if he caused a wreck and someone got killed and how they could take everything we had. I was unkind to him. He was confused a lot of the time and I would lose patience. Kenneth, I am so very sorry for the way I acted toward you and if I could do it over again I would do everything I could for you with all the love in my heart. But it is too late.

I have cried over this song many times. It was played at my daddy's funeral, my mama's and now my husbands. I like to think it is a message to me assuring me that IT is well with their souls. Thank you for posting it for me, Marty.

Kay C I am receiving my husbands social security because he drew more than me. I only had to let them know and they began sending me what I was entitled to. I am not in bad circumstances, I got insurance money but I don't want to spend any of it unless I have to. I plan to buy a prepaid funeral so my children won't have to worry. My husbands cost 10,000 dollars and it was very nice. If I purchase one even if it goes up in years to come I will not have to pay any more. I just don't feel like paying a lawyer to do just a simple thing that I don't think I should be required to have. I have contacted an obudsman and she is going to try to help me and referred me to Public Health. I got a call back but I was at a Doctors appointment . Will call her Tues and see if she is going to be able to help me. They also have lawyers that don't charge if they think it is something that I should have. IF they would just let me come down and sit in an office and view them, I don't have to have copies. I just want to satisfy my mind. I was told that an unwitnessed fall had to be reported to Public Health. I don't know if it was reported. I guess they think I might be thinking of suing them but I know the fall did not cause his death, they xrayed his head and shoulder and found nothing. He did have a bruise on his hip but don't think anything serious was wrong there. I just think they put him out of the hospital too soon but I can't prove it.

The song is I sure miss you by Jason Crabb. While we were planning songs for my husband's funeral a friend told us about this song and it was perfect. We had the minister's wife sing It is well with my soul. And then after the funeral was over and the room was silent Ernest Tubb began singing Waltz Across Texas. My husband signed us up for dance lessons so he could dance with me to that song. But he got Parkinsons and we could no longer dance. I can't begin to tell how that affected me when it played. It may have seemed strange to everyone but I am glad I did it.

Oh, how i wish I could find some way to really comfort you. Is your husband living and does he know about the affair. I understand how you have to grieve alone, you don't have a friend that you could trust to pour out your grief to? It would be so good if you did. Grieving in secret is a sad thing to have to do..

I have poured over my husbands medical records and looked up words I didn't understand. All sorts of things were going on with his body that I didn't understand and don't know why he didn't show any symptoms at home. I don't understand how he got sepsis. He had a urinary infection but never had any pain from it at home. The thing that bothers me is they sent him to rehab while he couldn't even walk or stand. My only other choice was to take him home and I couldn't do that I had no way to care for him. He was in rehab for 5 days. During that time he was neglected. On the last day they found him in the floor. I don't know how long he was there but I keep wondering if he was calling for me, wondering why I didn't help him get up. He had fallen at home several times and I always went running to help him up. He was laying on that hard cold floor alone until they found him. I am trying to get his records but they refuse me because he had no will and I need to be named executor of estate. I went to a lawyer and he wanted $250.00. I can't spare that kind of money. Everything we owned was in my name also. I was named beneficary on most everything that had to have one. He owed no money except on our mortgage and my name is on it too and I have to finish paying it off. We don't need someone to distribute his belongings and take care of his debt. There is just me and my children and they certainly don't want to take anything from me. I am trying to get them through Public Health. I was told they can get them for me. My husband was heavily sedated with morphine so we had no I love yous or good byes . When his eyes were open he looked through me not at me. After hospice came he never spoke and barely moved again. I spent 43 days at his side and I still don't understand why he died. Sepsis. I never heard of it and did not realize it was a killer. I now wear a red rubber bracelet that says Suspect Sepis, Save Lives. And I preach it every chance I get. And today I feel awful. Just sitting here crying and its raining outside. And on my husband's grave.

Thank you Marty

One day Anthony and I went to a large cemetery in the middle of Birmingham. He wanted to find the grave of a classmate that had died his senior year. We were in the old part of the cemetery and there was a wall with a gate near it. He said, this is where I want to be buried. I asked him why and he said when Jesus came back and the trumpet blew he could be one of the first ones out. I gave him a shove and laughed and said You aren't going anywhere and he said well I can leave quick and hide. Three years later he was buried in that same cemetery but not where he showed me. I quess I was the only one he said that to. He was buried in the Italian section as that was his nationality. I did not attend his funeral because by that time I was married. I have visited his grave though and left flowers and a dime. Then I started finding dimes all the time. When I went to close out my husband's insurance policy when I walked to my car, there lay a dime. I felt that it was from both of them now. And then I found the heart shaped rock on my husband's grave two days before Valentine's day. I don't know if it was coincidences but I like to think that it wasn't. I hope somehow they are looking down on me. They were the two most important people in my life. But God wanted my life to be spent with the one I married and I thank him for that with all my heart. My husband liked to tell me that he loved me with all his heart and soul and all that was within him. And he did. All I can do is remember him and cry.

I think I understand how you feel. Years and years ago I had someone else I loved before I met my husband. We broke up because he had met another girl. He was very honest and had to tell me because he knew how I felt about him. We parted as friends and went our separate ways . Mine was to get married and have children and live a full happy life although I never forgot him. He became a state trooper and three years later he was killed instantly in an accident while on duty. Broadsided by some drunk college students. I learned later after my daughter began working for the troopers that her good friend was the son of the trooper driving the car. He said that Anthony was supposed to be driving but hadn't felt well so his daddy drove. If not he would have been sitting on the side that got hit. He said if that had happened he wouldn't be here. He died in 1961. In 1989 I visited his grave for the first time, It also was at night because I had a hard time finding it and it became dark. A man from the cemetery office helped me look and found out I was at the wrong plot and led me right to it. I stood in that cemetery in a large town crying on the shoulder of a complete stranger. A few weeks later I went back and left a dime because we had some funny things happen at special times and we always found a dime. Since then I have found over 1000 dimes all over the places that I have lived and visited. There have been times that I would feel like I was being led toward them because they weren't visible. That made me believe that things could happen like a message. I believe the rock was a message. It would have to be the Lord who is doing it though, guiding me to these things. Although I loved my husband I never lost my love for Anthony. But now I mourn for my husband not Anthony as much. He died on Dec 13, 1961 and my husband died Dec 13 2016. I have thought lots of times that cremation might be better than having your body buried in the cold dark earth. I hate to think about that too. I am thinking about you and wishing there were some words I could say to comfort you but I can't find any to comfort myself.

For six years? I am sorry, it must have been so hard for you and her both. My husband did okay with his Parkinson's up until the last two years. He would drive to get a haircut and pick up a few groceries by leaning on the buggy. He had surgery for a kidney stone and when he came home he went into acute kidney failure. I got him to the hospital just in time. Last year he had trouble with this blood pressure, it got up to 237 in the emergency room. They called in a kidney and blood pressure specialist and I feel he saved his life that time. Then this year he started hurting. I called for an ambulance because he couldn't get off the bed by himself. They seemed to think he didn't need to go but I insisted. I believe if I hadn't got him to the hospital he would have died here at home. After a month and 14 days he died with sepsis. It was so so hard, at first he suffered really bad and was delirious. He told us one day that ya'll don't believe me but I am going to die. We assured him he wasn't , that he had to live because our anniversary was soon. On our anniversary he was put on hospice and he never spoke again. He lived 14 days with no water or food. His eyes were closed and his head drawn back and his mouth wide open. It was so hard to see him like that. I had never seen anyone die before but my daughters and I stayed by the bedside until he was gone. It was just a last deep breath. My daughter had her hand over his heart and was praying. I was holding his hands and my other daughter was stooped in the floor crying like a wounded animal. I will never ever forget this as long as I live. I did not know he would die, he had been sicker before and came home. I have tried to do some housework but all I can do today is cry. I can't talk on the phone because I don't want people to hear me cry. I am glad I can come here and pour everything out even though I am probably repeating everything that I have already posted but I can't help it. The pain is so hard to bear and I don't want to worry my children.

No, We used to do cards and I sometimes got candy but after he got sick those things went by the wayside. He couldn't go shopping, couldn't drive very often.

The pictures you posted showed my just how much you have lost. I am so sorry. I did get to spend 58 years with my husband for which I am thankful.

I think I understand how you feel. Years and years ago I had someone else I loved before I met my husband. We broke up because he had met another girl. He was very honest and had to tell me because he knew how I felt about him. We parted as friends and went our separate ways . Mine was to get married and have children and live a full happy life although I never forgot him. He became a state trooper and three years later he was killed instantly in an accident while on duty. Broadsided by some drunk college students. I learned later after my daughter began working for the troopers that her good friend was the son of the trooper driving the car. He said that Anthony was supposed to be driving but hadn't felt well so his daddy drove. If not he would have been sitting on the side that got hit. He said if that had happened he wouldn't be here. He died in 1961. In 1989 I visited his grave for the first time, It also was at night because I had a hard time finding it and it became dark. A man from the cemetery office helped me look and found out I was at the wrong plot and led me right to it. I stood in that cemetery in a large town crying on the shoulder of a complete stranger. A few weeks later I went back and left a dime because we had some funny things happen at special times and we always found a dime. Since then I have found over 1000 dimes all over the places that I have lived and visited. There have been times that I would feel like I was being led toward them because they weren't visible. That made me believe that things could happen like a message. I believe the rock was a message. It would have to be the Lord who is doing it though, guiding me to these things. Although I loved my husband I never lost my love for Anthony. But now I mourn for my husband not Anthony as much. He died on Dec 13, 1961 and my husband died Dec 13 2016. I have thought lots of times that cremation might be better than having your body buried in the cold dark earth. I hate to think about that too. I am thinking about you and wishing there were some words I could say to comfort you but I can't find any to comfort myself.

I went out to eat with a friend from high school who reunited with me at my husbands funeral. She invited me to eat with her and her friend every Tuesday. I enjoy it and try not to dwell on my grief. But as soon as I started home everything came rushing back and I knew there was noone waiting on me but my Cat. I couldn't keep from crying and have been all afternoon. I found that I could go on you tube and make a list of music videos they have posted and they will play through my TV. And that made me cry because of the songs i played. I keep thinking about the last day he was home. He sat at the breakfast table for the last time. He sat in his usual place on the couch for the last time. He worked his last word search puzzle and walked down the hall to the bed because he started hurting. The ambulance drivers lifed him off the bed for the last time and he was taken out the front door for the last time. And the last times go on and on and I had no idea. No idea at all that he wouldn't be coming home. He had gone to the hospital much sicker before and came home. I had no idea.

Thank you, Kayc

Ever since 1958, I have known where my husband was each day and the same for him. Now he doesn't know where I am and he is not here to tell me to drive carefully. He is not waiting for me to come home. He is not here to go with me to get pizza. He is not here to go to Ruby Tuesdays and use discount coupons. He does not need me to help him bathe or get ready for bed. I don't need to wash his clothes. All his shoes are getting dusty. He isn't here to go with me to let the chickens out and stay outside until they are ready to go roost. He is not here to eat an icecream cone with me. HE IS NOT HERE AND HE WON'T BE AGAIN AS LONG AS I LIVE. I can see him when he drew his last breath and how his color changed. I see him when they let us return to his room and I had to run out, I couldn't stand to see him like he was . He had lain with his mouth wide open and his head thrown back. I asked the hospice nurse to please close his mouth and she couldn't. In his casket it didn't look like him. His face had gotten thin and he looked like a very old man. His eyes and lips didn't look normal. Again, I couldn't stand to look at him. Now he is lying buried in a church yard near my house. I can't believe it ! But I did find a small heart shaped rock on his grave as I was raking it off. Was it telling me Happy Valentine's Day from him?