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Adele

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  • Your relationship to the individual who died
    Spouse
  • Date of Death
    12/26/2016
  • Name/Location of Hospice if they were involved:
    NA

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  • Your gender
    Female
  • Location (city, state)
    Saint Paul, MN

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  1. Welcome TomPB. I am so sad to read of your wife's sudden death. My husbands death was sudden also. He just didn't wake up after going to sleep Christmas night. Sometimes I am so glad we were spared the unique and extended anticipatory grief of a long illness. But sudden loss brings such immediate shock and confusion with no time to say anything or process anything with our loved one. It's all awful, but as one who has experienced sudden loss, I relate to the trauma you describe. Even 5 months later, with life radically altered, the one person I want to talk to about all the changes is my husband. This morning I took out the waffle iron to please our 11 year old and her friend who slept over last night, and all I could think about was how it is the first time I've made waffles since he died and how much he loved them. You are right; the reminders are everywhere all the time. I am learning that it is sad to do these things, but it is not less sad if I avoid them. For me the right choice is usually to push onward and the next time it is not quite so hard. But I expect these things are different for everyone.
  2. I am so sorry for your loss. My 49 year old husband died of a heart attack in his sleep Christmas night with no warning or history of any heart issues. We had 23 years together but of course we assumed we had another 23 ahead of us. I can see it in people's eyes when they run into me and remember, oh that's right, Scott is gone. But I am never not aware of it. I think grief like this is atmospheric, its a change in the very air we breathe. It doesn't just live in our thoughts, it's everywhere all the time. At almost 5 months certain things are easing somewhat but other things are harder. I love your description of your relationship with your Lori. I wish you peace in the coming months.
  3. I too am approaching 5 months (5/26). I keep pushing hard to keep life together for the kids, get some billable hours in, figure out how to mow the lawn etc., but this week I just feel totally used up. So exhausted. It's like the kind of exhaustion you'd have from the flu but I'm not sick. I decided to just spend the day in bed today if that's what I want to do. Its not a viable long term plan but it feels good to just quit even fighting for normalcy. At least until the kids get home from school. It makes me feel less alone to see that others are struggling at the 5 month mark also, though of course I wouldn't wish this on anyone!
  4. Yes Kayc and autumn2 that's exactly how it feels! My husband died in his sleep Christmas night so New Years was surreal. I had to just put my head down and avoid all the "your best year ever" propaganda! It is inconceivable that he has not been here at all for 2017. Maybe that's why spring feels like even more of an insult. It actually snowed in Minnesota today though, so I guess even Mother Nature is having trouble letting go: )
  5. Thank you for the kind words Dave and Kevin. That's interesting that you were in hr and not realizing what people were going through. It's been humbling to realize how little I understood about grief before this loss. At 48 I still have both my parents. To me it is inconceivable that my daughters (11 & 14) must proceed through life without their father. It's like my heart is doubly broken, for me and for them. They will certainly have empathy with grieving from an early age though. I hope they can use that in some positive way.
  6. Tonight my daughter Stella (14) told me sometimes she misses the weeks just after her dad (my husband) died. I couldn't imagine why (!), but asked her to explain, and she said, "Back then it seemed like it was the most important thing. For everyone. Now, they're all forgetting and moving on, and for me, it's still the most important thing. It's all I think about and if I say I'm sad, I can tell they are thinking, but that's so long ago..." This past week was 4 months for us. I feel like I weigh 10,000 pounds and, like Stella, as if the whole world is moving on. I am even astounded that here in Minnesota my crab apple tree is about to bloom and all the perennials are popping up. Everyone is excited for spring, and to me it just seems outrageous and even insulting that even the earth is moving on without my beautiful husband here. For no reason whatsoever, today has been a really hard day.
  7. I haven't had anyone tell me I should be over it yet, I would bristle like a porcupine at that! Lately, I have people tell me how great they think we are doing fairly often. I find that to be so confusing and sometimes irritating. Grief is such an inside job. I really think if you are walking around and mostly getting where you are supposed to be, people think you're fine. It feels like they think that if it's their perception that we're doing great, then we are. And whatever I have to say about it matters less than whatever they think about it.
  8. A couple weeks after I lost my husband, I got a beautiful card from a woman in our community. I had never met her, but our kids attend the same school in different grades. Her daughter died (9th grade) last September of a brain aneurysm. We have since become supports for one another because we are members of this fellowship of deep grief and understand our mutual experience in a way that many cannot. The humbling thing for me is that it would not have happened if she had not reached out. When I learned of her family's tragedy last fall, I thought of them constantly, but I didn't reach out. It really didn't occur to me to because I didn't know them. She said prior to her loss, she would never have written a card to a virtual stranger either. Prior to December 26, 2016, I think I was one of those people who didn't have a clue. I very possibly said some of the very same things that now rub me the wrong way; I don't even know what I did because my own discomfort got in the way. I'm trying to pay attention to what genuinely feels supportive and what doesn't, so I can use that in the future to help others. A couple people that I wouldn't even have said were close connections, have done some amazing things. Just randomly dropping off gluten free brownies (my 14 year old can't eat wheat), or a simple pasta dish, or soup. Stopping by on a Saturday morning when they knew we had visitors with a tray of things from Starbucks and then disappearing again, dropping off some magazines that might be interesting, shoveling the walk without me needing to ask. I think I would have been one of those people who said, "if there's anything I can do, let me know." But I'm finding that for me, what I really appreciate is people just doing something. Me having to think of something for someone to do feels like an added burden, and mostly I don't know what they could do anyway. Maybe some people wouldn't appreciate the same things I appreciate though. In many ways, I think I'm pretty hard to help right now! I hope I do better next time it's my turn to be on the other side of the equation though...
  9. I'm so sorry for your loss, DanyGreen. It will be 4 months tomorrow for me. My husband died in his sleep Christmas night - just didn't wake up. He had an undiagnosed heart condition, so we had no warning at all; he appeared perfectly healthy. It still leaves me breathless just to write it. Our daughters are 11 and 14. They are both in counseling also and are handling it SO differently that literally the only thing they have in common about it is that they both lost their dad. I know it feels like forever in some ways, but I think 5 weeks is virtually nothing in the life span of this kind of loss. It is overwhelming to consider that we are just at the beginning of this process, but we really are. Of course I don't know your son or you, but it sounds very normal to be struggling still, struggling hard. I'm finding it overwhelming to figure out how to parent through this - how could it feel otherwise really? I know my kids are in deep water, but so am I. And I worry all the time about whether I'm doing what I should be doing. Plus, just figuring out how to run a household and do the household work and parenting of 2 adults instead of 1, plus the finances, plus... At 4 months into this journey, I feel physically sick when I think back to the 5 week mark. So, that tells me that it has gotten some better since then! I don't know any of you, but I want to throw my arms around you and your children and hug you forever. It was that bad at 5 weeks. I wish I had something great to say that would bring you comfort, but I don't. I will just wish you peace and another step in front of the last one.
  10. I'm so sorry to hear of this added loss to your already heavy heart...
  11. Oh, Maynard, I am just weeping reading about your experience. What a beautiful and loving gift you gave him in telling him you would be okay and giving him your blessing (so to speak) to go on to whatever is next for him. Such courage and love for you both. In our case, his was a sudden death, no illness, no warning whatsoever. It helps me to know that even with months of knowing what was coming, you were still unprepared. I agree - I just don't think you can prepare.
  12. Maynard, I, too, sometimes imagine my husband off doing something really wonderful and I also take comfort in that. I've been trying to use a mantra "I choose love over loss" every day. Not that the loss isn't there, of course, but I try to use his love as a legacy for remembering to look for the love in my current life and in my choices. Most days (if I remember) I try to give him a report and tell him 5 ways I chose love today. It sounds corny, but it does help me sometimes. I was with my husband 23 years - I truly thought we'd have at least 23 more. To me it's kind of an identity vertigo that I'm experiencing. Even when we weren't together in the course of a day, we always knew where the other was and what they were doing. It's so profoundly disorienting to not have that anymore, or to have it be so different at least. It's almost literally dizzying.
  13. I'm new to this page today and really appreciate what everyone is sharing. The loneliness is unlike anything I've ever known. I lost my beautiful husband suddenly and unexpectedly when he died in his sleep Christmas night. So, I'm approaching 4 months and the loneliness seems to be getting more intense. Like many of you, I am blessed to have people around who want to support me, but what I really miss is just being alone together with him. I didn't even really realize how much that was a thing, but I sure miss it. Often we'd go long stretches of an evening speaking only rarely as we each went about our own activities, but I never realized how "together" that time really was.
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