Deb and Pat

40 minutes ago, kayc said:

It's worth a visit!  Sounds like your area is as well.

Sure does!  Right now we are averaging 90+ degrees in the daytime.  The humidity is also very high.  But it is a lot better than snow (yuck).

Deb

26 minutes ago, kayc said:

Oregon, the Cascades.

Nice - have not been to Oregon -

Deb

58 minutes ago, kayc said:

The same with us!  We love living in the country, up in the mountains with both a forest and a creek.  He always called it "Our home in the clouds".   My old mobile home isn't worth anything but the land where I live, the surroundings are beautiful!  Deer, elk, foxes, skunks, bears, you name it, we have it...the only "visitors" I don't welcome are the cougars.

Oh my no cougars here - what state do you live in - I live in Iowa?  Just raccoons and skunks here -

Deb

On ‎6‎/‎14‎/‎2017 at 6:15 AM, Dr Lenera said:

Possibly only slightly related...but looking at that picture caused me to think of it....I think there's something about being with nature that's very calming when trying to deal with grief, at least to me personally. I've never been the most 'outdoorsy' person, but of late I've enjoyed going for longer walks,and just being 'out there', listening to the sounds, looking at the water...I can't quite explain it, but I tend to come home feeling very refreshed and even fulfilled.

Happily we lived in a house that is in a wooded area.  I continue to love being here - I continue to tell him when the yard is full of deer as we loved to watch them together.  A simple but happy thing for us.

Deb

1 hour ago, kayc said:

I've come to appreciate the memories we have, maybe in a way, all the more so for knowing they won't happen again this side of heaven.

I am beginning to see this and have started to concentrate on the good and not the bad.  Thanks

Deb

34 minutes ago, Dr Lenera said:

Possibly only slightly related...but looking at that picture caused me to think of it....I think there's something about being with nature that's very calming when trying to deal with grief, at least to me personally. I've never been the most 'outdoorsy' person, but of late I've enjoyed going for longer walks,and just being 'out there', listening to the sounds, looking at the water...I can't quite explain it, but I tend to come home feeling very refreshed and even fulfilled.

I agree very calming - and such neat memories - you have a good point here - focus on the memories you have not the ones you won't have.

Thanks

Deb

11 hours ago, kevin said:

Deb and Pat,....Welcome to club Grief, a place no one wants to be  , but a home we have all found....interesting quote from Robert Frost  in  three words I can sum up everything I've learned about life: it goes on......

Thanks kevin.  I look forward to being a part of you guys.

Deb

28 minutes ago, Marg M said:

Deb, we don't all have the same situations, for sure.  The only thing most of us have in common is we grieve.  But you see, I had 54 years of marriage, two children, three grandchildren and three great grandchildren.  Lots of family friction in my family, always has been, but lots of already lifetime problems held and defeated, drug addiction, alcoholism, a marriage that was a wonderful marriage (the last about 30 years), but we got married in 1961.  I was not yet 19, he was just a few days from 21.  I had never been away from home but knew I could not go back and we did a lot of terrible things to each other, but grew up with our children.  So, every relationship is not the same.  Ours could have been destroyed by things we did, but it wasn't.  Some had wonderful marriages the whole time they were married, magical ones for more years than ours.  

I wish you the best and know your stepson is by your side and that is wonderful.  The girls will either come around, or they won't.  Do not know the circumstances, but you still have family and family can be wonderful, and I would not want to try to live without any of mine, but I would like to kinda lasso them ever so often and put them in a corral.  

It is the grief we all share.  Billy was my best friend.  We do what we can to honor their memory.  I am not far enough along that I don't hurt often.  Just this morning I thought he was on the other side of me, but I jumped up as fast as a 74-year-old woman can jump and went and made coffee (which he would have already had fixed for me to just flip the switch, then I would have brought his coffee to bed to him when he got ready to get up.  (Retired, and he would read sometimes to at least 2:00 a.m.) so he was not a morning person.

Here I go again, another word salad.......sorry.  I could talk about Billy forever.  My story on FB today was our various jaunts throughout the Arkansas backroads and rivers and creeks.  

How wonderful.  Hey I like salad so tell me some of your stories - hearing about others in a way I cannot explain really helps. 

Deb

Marg M. thank you.  I have very similar feelings.  I did not have any children - Pat had four.  But the almighty $$$ gets involved and so the chain gets broken.  My very great (step) son takes good care of me with help and assistance.  The others there is no communication.  Perhaps it is the guilt that drives their feelings.  I don't know.  The divide is too large to ever be recovered with the girls.  To me it is lonely - sure I have friends yet no one to come home too.  This was not the life I ordered.  At times I don't care either.  My parents are a big support but they don't live around me.  Thanks for answering me and thanks for the advise.

Deb

1 hour ago, kayc said:

Deb and Pat,

I am sorry for your loss, but am glad you found your way here and look forward to knowing you.  This is a good place for helping one through grief, it helps to have those who "get it".

Thank you - I have really found comfort here.

Deb

TomPB, hang in there -

Deb

On ‎6‎/‎12‎/‎2017 at 7:25 AM, kayc said:

Marg,

You're lending a whole different perspective to this, which I appreciate.  When George died, all of our friends disappeared, and I have to say, I resented that.  I didn't ask to lose my husband, and I sure didn't ask or expect to lose all our friends overnight.  I still don't think that's an appropriate way for friends to respond, but I've had to learn to live with it.

That is sad - friends should be there.  I still have people who do not know what to say to me.  Its like hey I am human and just like to talk - doesn't have to be about the loss - I see people avoid me in the grocery store - oh well - ignorance is bliss I guess.

Deb

Hi Marg M - probably because there was so much support at first.  Now others look and I feel like they are thinking just get over it and move on.  I did not plan to be a fifty year old widow in my life.  I lost the identity that I loved.  So slowly I have tried to re- identify myself - what helps you?  I have read tons of books -

Deb

Thank Gin. 

Thank you -

Deb

Hello all, I am new here.  I have never been on anything to do with social media.  I lost my husband last October after a very hard four month fight.  We had just gotten married two months before this nightmare started.  We have been together a long time.  I just cannot seem to feel better.  I agree with Marg M - I hate to pester my friends and family.  Hopefully here I will find a way to move forward. 

Deb