TomPB

So sorry April and yes those who have not  lost a soulmate are totally incapable of understanding that this is infinitely different even from grief over other close losses and they will say very wrong things. Please ignore things like timetables to "get over it" etc.  Sharing with others in the same sorry club is what helps me the most. Tom

Cookie I know exactly what you mean and I wish you the best getting through the day. Sharing with others who have lost a soulmate is what helps me the most. Nobody else has a clue. Geez, this AM my local therapist (NOT my angel grief counselor) suggested that Susan's siblings might be experiencing the same grief that I am. Unbelievable. ❤️🐼

Kay, if only I knew...

3 hours ago, kayc said:

Tom, just be candid up front about what you want and don't want.  

I understand all those thoughts & am very conflicted. I do have a woman friend and it’s uncharted territory. We do a lot together but I can’t help comparisons to Susan popping up at random. I really want a sailing buddy for cruising but what are the sleeping arrangements?

BTW we have a saying for everything in AA and "fine" means Fd up, Insecure, Neurotic and Emotional. So maybe it's not so bad to say I'm fine.

I have no problem with being asked "How are you" when it's an actual question. What I really dislike is the formula/script where it's used instead of "Hello" and the expected answer is "Fine".  Yes Marg, I don't want to force a real conversation on a random person who's just using the formula, but I can't bring myself to say "fine" either. So I say "hanging in there" or "day at a time" or most upbeat "OK I guess". A little more negative, "surviving" or "still breathing". When people who know what happened use the formula anyway I've often said "riding the grief roller coaster" and once when really annoyed at an old friend with a big smile on his face "Wish I was dead". I wish people would just say "hello".

Why is it so hard for people to say "Hello" or "Good Morning"? Why has the default greeting become a question that is not supposed to be answered? Especially, if you know someone is grieving, is it so hard to stop asking the question if you don't want the answer? It's really annoying.

I wonder if thiis was always part of the conversation. I mean, when Adams saw Jefferson, did he say "How ya doin'"?

42 minutes ago, Marg M said:

I somehow am jealous of them dying before me.  (I know how sick that sounds), but crazy is something I have never denied.  

I will never take his name off our Amazon account.

Doesn't sound crazy to me

Good summary!

Before my meditation group this AM a guy asked me "how are you" and I broke convention by actually answering, talking about the grief roller coaster and how it had hurt to cancel Susan's zipcar. Conversation stopped as people adjusted to my failure to say "Good" like you're supposed to. Then we talked about grief a little - these are very nice people - but the happy talk is relentless, with one woman saying it is a good thing that I got that cancellation done. I said true, but it's about 0.1% good and 99.9% pain. Then another started on how we should be grateful for all the good things in our lives. Well I believe that too but right now I mainly feel the pain. Even the nicest people don't get it.

Geez! Super insensitive. The minister, unbelievable. But I'm not surprised, greetings and goodbyes are supposed to be "happy talk".  I really hate that sort of thing. I've come to especially dislike "have a good one". Sympathy....Tom🐼

What's the Arabic word for a Mexican dish that may or may not be served?

Inshallada

Thanks Janka. Very nice. Music has become a big part of my attempt to live. For a long time I was not going to classical concerts but now am going to a lot with my grieving swimmer friend. I try to lose myself in the music and lose the grief for a little while. I didn't even realize how much activity there is in Boston. New England Conservatory has many free concerts. My friend's son plays cello in their youth orchestra.

I know everyone is different about going to old favorite places. Thanks for sharing your progression. I'm the opposite bookend from Marg, maybe simply because I'm such a "creature of habit". I go and cry, but I go. I went by myself to a new place in Feb, Puerto Rico, and I could definitely feel the difference of not having memories everywhere. But I will be back in Ptown soon. That was our summer place, and the Virgin Islands, usually sailing but sometines camping, was  our winter place. Once a group of British Virgin Islands (BVI) sailors asked "What's the most romantic place in the BVI" and my answer was "The vee berth". A romantic cruise with someone to share the vee berth with seems very far away now.

Today I cancelled Susan's zipcar, and cried. A few more things like that to do. Don't think it's any easier. Maybe I cried less than when I cancelled her phone, but it's less a part of our life. ❤️🐼

Last year I took the Long Point shuttle. Everyone else getting on was in couples. The mate asked me "Just you?" and I had to answer, Yes, just me.

3 hours ago, Marg M said:

This picture tells me how it really is.  This is something we all know.  What we are doing is walking paths with other people, but they cannot walk it for us and we cannot walk it for them.  We can just commiserate and sometimes that empathy helps.  I see that little girl in old pictures of myself. (We did not have color pictures then)..  I remember Mama had my picture with  the "rat hole" hair-do colored and is still on her wall.  That little girl is me walking down that path by myself.

 

12 hours ago, ElizabethMC said:

"Glowing" is my arch enemy... 

The Cape is glorious this time of year...not to rub it in...but we can get very humid weather here throughout the summer.

I hope things work out for you with this family matter.  Life is hard enough as it is.

 

 

Our favorite summer routine was sailing to Ptown, getting a mooring at the Marina, and living on the boat for a week or so. We made that trip in conditions going from so calm that we motored all the way, to exhilarating,  to dangerous. With my perfect sailing partner we were perfectly relaxed no matter what. We loved the beaches. Best was taking the dingy from our mooring to Long Point. And then just waking up in the harbor, having dinner on the boat watching the sunset over Ptown, the restaurants, coffee shops, are, flowers... 

Now I have no one to stay on a boat with me and the memories are very painful but I'm not abandoning Ptown. 

Last trip to Long Point, 8/16 🐼😢

3 hours ago, Gin said:

Darrel, Tom and Bill,  this journey is so hard.  Hard to imagine anything good coming from it.  I planted a few pots on my patio today.  It sure lost the meaning it used to have when Al was so excited about growing things.  Things that were happy are now so very sad.

Gin, change the name to Susan and that could be me talking. I look at these brilliant flowers in the sun and try to enjoy them but I mainly think about the gardner who's missing.

Me too Darrel. I'm at 1 yr 2 ms. We have a little deck on our 3rd floor home and Susan used to love to plant her flowers. I have pictures if her surrounded by gardening things with her huge smile. So we've had a few nice days and I had to plant a little to honor her and have been sitting on the deck reading today. It looks beautiful, and mainly makes me sad. When I die will anyone remember that this lonely guy was once Susan's beloved? 

16 hours ago, Marg M said:

Don't cry young lovers, whatever you do,

Don't cry because I'm alone;

All of my memories are happy tonight,

I've had a love of my own.

I've had a love of my own, like yours-

I've had a love of my own.

 

"Had" may be the saddest word.

7 hours ago, Rldownes said:

I think what makes it hard for me to is I don't belong to a support group this is my support network so I don't meet guys who are familiar with loss  they try but they will never truly understand what it is like for me, so I have to try and navigate this on my own

If I were to have another partner I think she would have to have also lost a soulmate. Not the usual thing to put as #1. on a dating wish list, LOL

Good question! I think Susan was my one and only and I think I don't want to spend the rest of my life alone, so call me conflicted.

I've become close to a woman on the swim team who lost her husband about 6 ms ago. We do a lot together. I've never had a close non-romantic relationship like this, so it can be confusing. Could it become romantic? No idea. 

Marg, I didn't see anything to be sorry about.

In AA we're taught to have a Higher Power, but HP can be anything and tolerance is total. Some have God, some have the group ("GOD = Group Of Drunks"). I've decided my HP is Susan. Also there are plenty of atheist or agnostic members, no problem. There aren't any republicans, so that doesn't come up :). I try to have the same tolerance with grief friends.

23 hours ago, MartyT said:

Dear ones, I want to recommend to all of you a book I'm reading now by Alan D. Wolfelt, PhD ~ himself a highly respected author and educator on the topics of companioning others and healing in grief ~ entitled When Your Soulmate Dies: A Guide to Healing Through Heroic Mourning. This book is aimed especially at those who've lost a soulmate ~ the person you would describe as the love of your life.

In the Preface, Alan writes, "The soulmate's grief is unique . . . It is more profound and pervasive. It is more akin to the death of a twin. It is the severing of a timeless relationship, one possibly formed before life here on earth . . ."

From Amazon's description:

You were one of the lucky ones. You found a partner or friend with whom you shared a deeply profound connection. You understood, opened fully to, served, and challenged one another. You were the heroes of each other’s lives. You lived a grand adventure together. But now that your partner has died, what felt like luck may have turned to wretched despair. How do you go on? How do you live without your champion and other half? The answer is that you mourn as you loved: heroically, grandly, and fully. In this compassionate guide by one of the world’s most beloved grief counselors, you’ll find empathetic affirmation and advice intermingled with real-life stories from other halved soulmates. Learn to honor your loved one and your grief even as you find a path to a renewed life of purpose and joy.

 

Marty, I'm gonna get this book. There are so many books and blogs out there that my usual reaction is that yet another is not going to help me, but acknowledging the uniqueness of the grief of losing a soulmate is refreshing, when the default seems to be that you can't compare griefs. To me it's ridiculous to say that losing the person I intimately shared every day with is no worse than losing someone I talked to a few times weekly on the phone, but I'm just a simple 🐼, not a professional.

Happened again At a concert last night I felt the grief lift for a while, almost like a physical thing. Then I woke this AM thinking of finding Susan lifeless. Everything is a wave.

1 hour ago, CairnLady said:

Thank you all for your kind thoughts and words. Yes, tears are flowing hard and fast today.

I am not yet in a place where good memories bring me any comfort or peace, only a reminder of what I’ll never have again. 

Perhaps with time that will change, but not today.

So sorry sending a virtual hug.

I'm in the same place re memories. Can they ever give good feelings instead of the pain of loss? I'm told they can over time. Have no idea.