olemisfit

Robin, my sympathies go out to you. Like you, I also saw the butterflies---and other "signs". I don't get those visits from my Cookie nearly as often now, and I have no choice but to be okay with that. I know she is patiently waiting for me to join her in heaven. My faith tells me that we will one day be reunited for eternity, when my time to join her comes. I don't mean that to preach. We all have our beiiefs. My wife passed away on new years day of 2016, so I'm not too far ahead of you in my time alone. I still miss her every day. 2/3 of my life was spent with her being part of it (41 years), and I gotta say that being alone pretty much sucks. But that burning empty hole in my gut has eased significantly by now. Having 41 years worth of memories does help, but oh how I miss her physical presence. I'm not saying all that to "steal your thunder", but maybe it might help you to know that pretty much everyone here in this group has been and is where you are at. You have found a good place to be for this time in your life. This place where you wish you didn't have to be at! A whole bunch of people here that will give you their shoulder to cry on when you need it. And when you go through those times when you wonder if there is something wrong with you because you haven 't gotten over it yet, you will be able to see here that nobody here has really gotten over it. Not if you really, truly and strongly love the one you are now without. For what it's worth I welcome you to this place you really don't want to be at. And you have my condolences (sp?). One foot in front of the other... Darrel

Galveston Island and the Gulf of Mexico is only a 23 mile drive from my door!!!

Thank you Dee and CairnLady for the nice thoughts! And yes I do a better piece of mind already. Actually, solace is the appropriate word CairnLady. But I have already been re-introduced to the allergy problems here. But that's a small price to pay for being back home. One foot in front of the other... Darrel

I do hope everyone is doing well. I left Oklahoma on Easter Sunday. It is such a wonderful feeling to be back here. This is where we lived when Cookie passed, and our last few years of memories happened here. So all is well. I'm back where I need to be. The first chance I have to drive down to Galveston I take a selfie standing on the seawall with the ocean behind me and post it. Again, I hope everyone is well. One foot in front of the other... Darrel

Thank you dear for your kind words. I'm sorry that your moves didn't work out well for you. You are right...we can't run away from ourselves. Later this month I will actually be moving back "home" (as in "home is where the heart is"). After I retired to be my wife's caregiver we moved from Okla. City to the Houston area, to get her to a milder winter climate. And because she loved being near the ocean. While she was still with me she loved it when I drove her down to Galveston island. I would park at her favorite place on Seawall Blvd. She loved to sit there and just watch the waves coming in. I'm looking forward so very much to when I am back down there. One of the first things on my agenda after I get back down there is to drive down to the island. Just me, my little dog, and my wife's urn reconnecting with the water. As Lawrence Welk would say...A-Wunnerful---A-Wunnerful! One foot in front of the other... Darrel

Gil, I welcome you here but at the same time I know that here is not where you want to be. I'm so sorry that you lost your mate and now find yourself here. Congratulations to you for finding this forum. Like you I wandered around keeping everything bottled up during almost the entire first year without my wife. I took her off of life support on New Year's Day, 2016, and didn't find this group until Christmas Eve of that year. Looking back, I don't know how I made it through that first year without that proverbial shoulder to cry on. If you decide to become a regular here you will find that no one is judgmental here. We are all family here. Nobody understands this grief monster unless they have also experienced it. And everyone here has experienced it first hand. I am into my 4th year without my wife. I still have bad days of missing her terribly. We were married for 41+ years. Those years went by so terribly fast. Being involved in a good, wonderful relationship with someone is a beautiful gift that all of us here can brag about being a part of. But there is a price to pay for it, which brings each of us to this group. It's like a coin that has a beautiful side and an extremely ugly side. While our mates are with us we only see the pretty side of the coin. But eventually the day comes for us to turn the coin over and look at the ugly side. If you are so inclined, I encourage you to take advantage of this group. Bare your soul here as much as you feel comfortable with. You will find it to be therapeutic to get things "talked out". When you have time pick out some posts of members here. If you do, you will see that even though personal details will be different you also will see that the essential elements of this grief stuff are pretty much the same. You will see that 2 very commonly used descriptive words about grief is that it is a journey, or a process. Some here get over the grief at some point, while others don't expect they ever will. I feel like I am part of that 2nd category. My wife and I were together for 2/3 of my life. I just don't see it as being possible for me to ever get over her. But I can honestly say that by now I don't encounter as many speed bumps on this road my grief journey has me on. My condolences for your loss. One foot in front of the other... Darrel

I moved to this small town in northeastern Oklahoma from the Houston area shortly after hurricane Harvey wreaked its havoc there in Sept. 2017. My wife and I tried our luck with living there 2 different times. Both times we had to endure a hurricane. My wife wasn't here to "enjoy" Harvey. She had already passed, so I enjoyed Harvey by myself. I spent most of my life in Oklahoma and have never seen a tornado up close and personal. I now have an opportunity to transplant myself one last time in the Houston area. The same town I left after hurricane Harvey. League City, Texas, which is about halfway between Houston and Galveston island. I will be back down there on or before May 1st. I'm actually quite excited about it. I have something pleasant to look forward to. What a nice change of pace that is. One foot in front of the other... Darrel

Hi Johnny. I like your pup. The bandanna is cute. I counted up one time that my wife and I were owned by 15 dogs over our years together. 13 of them were rescues. One that we shared our home with was a corgi/german shepherd mix. Try to imagine a german shepherd without legs! hehe I'm very sorry for what brought you to this group. I'm sure you are already finding that you have an inner strength that you never realized you had---and of course wish you didn't have to dredge up. It sucks though, right?! All my best to you, my friend. One foot in front of the other... Darrel

I'm not real keen on that "PGD" label. I think most of us here were lucky enough to have a spouse that we were crazy about. And of course when we lost our anchor, it couldn't help but affect us the way it has. Grief is not a medical condition. There is no surgical procedure that will remove it. Nor is there a (legal) drug that can be taken 3 times a day until the disorder goes away. We aren't freaks of nature either. We are simply people who have lost our reason for being, and have been devastated by it. The fact that we get up each day and find a way to continue putting one foot in front of the other is a tribute to an inner strength that w maybe didn't even realize we had.

Thanks for the kind words. They always help. I think I can say that I don't get knocked off my feet by as many triggers these days, but the big ones still manage to broadside me. I see in your profile you are in central illinois. I was born in the metropolis of Centralia. Interesting bit of unimportant trivia---Illinois has a town named Metropolis. And yes I do have a pet. A rescue dog that we got in Dec. 2010. This wonderful little critter has kept me somewhat sane these past 3+ years. v One foot in front of the other... Darrel

I haven't been able to sleep tonight. I stretched out on the bed about 10:30 and dozed for about 45 minutes or so and then gave up on sleeping. Too many sad thoughts on my mind I reckon. A tough trigger day to get through today. Cookie and I started our life together 44 years ago today. March 7, 1975 was the best and happiest day of my life. We were each other's soul mate in every sense of the word. Our love for each other only got better and stronger as the years went by. We never expected perfection out of each other, but we both were perfect in each other's eyes. I always felt so proud and honored and grateful that she shared her life with me. Cookie completed me in so many wonderful ways. I wasn't Cookie's first husband. Her first marriage only lasted a couple of years. He died in a car accident. He was emotionally and verbally abusive to her, and the first year or so of our marriage was a little rocky. She was afraid that if she dropped her guard that I would also be abusive. But I was willing to be patient with her. And it paid off, just like I knew that it would. And the good life began for us. We enjoyed each other's company and companionship so very much. For the first half of our time together we ran businesses or looked for jobs that we could do together so that we could be together even while at work. Being around each other like that never created a problem for us. We fed off of it. But eventually that had to end when Cookie's health started going downhill, and she wasn't able to work anymore. And because those awful things called "bills" that still had to be paid I left the nest and became a truck driver. Cookie died 66 days before our 41st anniversary. Today would've been our 44th. I'm into my 4th year without her. By now I have accepted the fact that I will most likely never get over her not being with me anymore. This solitude and loneliness reminds me of it a thousand times every day. This is the ugly side of love. Does the wonderful life we had together make all this hardship and loneliness I now experience a little easier to cope with? Oh hell yes! Knowing what I know now is there anything I would do any differently if I could go back in time? Oh hell no! I live my life in the past now where all the good times are. One foot in front of the other... Darrel

Cookie and I used to enjoy watching the oscars but I haven't watched it in several years. They all lost me when they started turning it into their obnoxious political sideshow. All of those sorts of expositions are really only for themselves and their over inflated egos anyway. But I do wish I had me one of those tuxedo dresses to wear tomorrow when I go to McDonalds for breakfast. Man would that be a head-turner!

All is as good as can be expected here. My days and routines don't deviate much. I just look for ways to keep myself occupied. My "triggers" have even fallen into a routine. They now seem to revolve around dates or events that were important to Cookie and I. The date of her death-my birthday-our anniversary-and her birthday. Our anniversary will hit soon (March 7th) and then I'll get a lull in it all until her birthday in August. We can all start thawing out soon. March will soon be here and winter will soon start to fade away. I was stationed at an air force base in North Dakota for 2 years in the early 70's. I've never been a fan of cold weather since that experience. The worst I saw there was a balmy and tropical 70 degrees BELOW zero. It's impossible to put on enough layers for that. (I was told the only way I could get an assignment somewhere else was to volunteer to go back to Southeast Asia. So...back to the monsoons I went!) Hope everyone is well. One foot in front of the other... Darrel

Thank you everyone for your kind thoughts. My next trigger is coming up on March 7th. Our 44th wedding anniv. I still look upon it as an ongoing thing. I still wear my wedding band. It hasn't been off my finger since she put it there in 1975. I will be cremated with it on if that is possible. She still owns my heart and always will. My love to everyone here. One foot in front of the other... Darrel

70 years old today. It doesn't seem possible. When we were kids our grandfather used to tell me and my sisters how much faster life leaves you behind as you get older. Being kids, we didn't really understand it. But it is so very true. I woke up this morning feeling sad. And for a silly reason. Cookie used to make me a scratch German chocolate cake each year as my birthday cake. Everything from scratch, even the icing. She would get an early start and spend an entire morning making that little piece of heaven. She only had one reason for doing it. She knew I would enjoy it. And did I ever! I am missing that today. I'm into my 4th year now without her, but every day I still miss her being here. I miss her companionship. I miss hearing her laugh. I even miss hearing her cry. I miss being able to kiss her and tell her I love her. "Grief is a bad moon, a sleeper wave. It's like having an inner combatant, a saboteur who, at the slightest change in the sunlight, or at the first notes of a jingle for a dog food commercial, will flick the memory switch, bringing tears to your eyes." Meghan O'Rourke Oh well, One foot in front of the other... Darrel

Shirley, it sounds like you and Stephen had a fun super bowl that year. I find that the smaller experiences we shared are where I get some of my best memories. I pretty well kept up with the football I'm interested in, but it definitely isn't the same without Cookie's excitement. Once I got her hooked in 2003 she looked forward to each season as much as I did. Even after she became pretty much bedridden we would watch the games in the bedroom, and she would still manage to dredge up her weaker level of excitement. She will be here with me in spirit this evening when it's game time. Thinking about all this has me really missing her today. But that's okay. If I'm missing her that means I'm thinking about her, and us together. And there is nothing else I would rather think about than her! One foot ion front of the other... Darrel

With today being the day for the super bowl, it triggered me into remembering how much fun it was for Cookie and I to share a game together. Because I grew up in Norman Okla. I have always been a die-hard Okla Sooners fan. All sooners fanatics bleed crimson & cream. Everybody in Oklahoma knows not to plan a wedding or a funeral on a Saturday during football season because nobody will come. Everybody will be at the football game or glued to the TV set. But I digress. Cookie spent most of her life being the complete opposite of a football fan. She never understood the game so she thought it was silly. While I was a trucker, I was rarely home to watch a football game. But in 2003 I decided to try something different. By then we both had cellphones on an unlimited minutes plan. So on a Saturday when OU was going to play Alabama I talked her into narrating the game play by play via our phones. So on a Saturday while I drove from Albuquerque to Kingman Arizona we spent that entire time connected to each other with our phones. And by the time the 4th quarter OU football owned Cookie. And that started a tradition for us during football season. This silliness may be hard to understand but all those hours on the phones kept us connected. There is a very high divorce rate with truckdrivers, and Cookie and I both totally refused to become part of that statistic. So, if Cookie was still here with me we would both be glued to the TV this evening, and she would be whooping and hollering with the me. I miss those little things that we shared. Oh, well---- One foot ion front of the other... Darrel

Good morning. And no problems on my end with you including my wife's and the other member's name as you did. And the answer is no to your question about children. It wasn't for lack of trying but in our case it just wasn't meant to be. So we just surrounded ourselves with fur babies over the years. I'm allergic to cats, so it was always dogs. My best count is 16 of them that graced our lives and all were rescue cases except for the first 2 we had. "My" Cookie and I had both outlived both of our families so I am all alone now. The Lord blessed me in so many ways, the best of which was giving me 41 years of bliss with my Cookie. But unto each life a little rain must fall. My life now isn't so blissful, but the life Cookie and I shared makes it all worth it. I noticed on your profile that you and I almost share the same birthday. Mine is Feb. 20th. So-Happy (early) Birthday. One foot in front of the other... Darrel

I woke up this morning with this song from better days on my mind. I'm not smart enough to know whether it's mentally healthy or not, but my lifeline now seems to be living in the past and remembering the better happier times. I hope everyone is having some better days. One foot in front of the other... Darrel

So very true Kieron. Cookie and I both l loved to do things for each other. She didn't have a selfish bone in her body. For at least 20 years she would make the german choc. cake as my birthday cake. It took a lot of work and time to make one entirely from scratch. That sucker would be as heavy as an anvil because of all the ingredient but geez were they ever good. I never was any good in a kitchen. I eventually figured out why. I just wasn't interested in indoor cooking. I'm okay with a bbq grill, but indoors I couldn't boil water without burning it. I would try anything on a grill. Give me some thick sliced bologna and some bbq sauce and I'm totally happy. Since Cookie passed I've learned how to cook indoors. But nothing I throw together can hold a candle to Cookie's version. But then I no longer eat for enjoyment anymore. I hope this finds you well, my friend.

Kay, I hope this finds you well...and warm. The older I get the more I dislike cold weather. I got terribly spoiled by the mild winters down yonder in the Houston area (I never have been able to find where "yonder" is on my atlas!). Winters down there just called for a light jacket. We were supposed to get about 4 inches of snow here last Saturday, but we woke up to a VERY light dusting. That disn't disappoint me one bit. I check the forum here most days, but I find that I'm just a bit hesitant to make comments as freely as I used to. It's my own fault. I made a terrible (expletive deleted) out of myself a time or two here. I still regret it, but sometimes it's hard to mop up all that spilled milk. I keep myself occupied most days trying to get a book written. Hemingway I'm not! I've never done anything like it before, and it's a bit daunting. I'm wanting it to be a self-help sort of thing. How to deal with adversity and look for ways and reasons to get up each day and put one foot in front of the other. That sort of subject matter. I may never get it done. But even if I don't it's giving me a way to deal with my moods better. My 70th birthday is coming up next month. I sure wish Cookie was here to make me one of her homemade German choc. cakes. Everything was made from scratch. Even the icing. My mouth still waters just thinking about her cooking. The best ingredient was her love that she put into everything she touched. BE WELL EVERYONE! Try to find something to smile about today. One foot in front of the other... Darrel

Karen, I'm sitting here today just going back through some old threads, and just read this post of yours. My wife and I lived in Holbrook operating a Comfort Inn for several years. Cookie started collecting kachinas while we lived there. They are so uniquely beautiful. And there is no such thing as 2 of a kind. Be well. Wish I had your sunshine and warm temps these days. One foot in front of the other... Darrel

Thank you for sharing that CairnLady. I've never seen it before. Things like that do seem to lighten the load, even if only temporarily. Thanks very much! One foot in front of the other... Darrel Cookie left this for me in one of here journals. I like it also...

Thanks for the kind words Shirley. I aim to please! lol I pray you started this new year with a good day today. Have you smiled today? It isn't to late-the day ain't over yet. I did manage to smile today---and my face didn't even crack. How bout them apples! Something to maybe brighten your day !

Well folks, I hope and pray that 2019 is a better year for all of us. Lord knows, we deserve it! So today begins year #4 for me. The day that is supposed to be full of hope and promise for us turned into a day of sadness for me 3 years ago. I spent a big part of yesterday trying to think of ways to make 2019 a better year for myself. I am tired of these constant carpet burns on my chin. I don't like constantly being depressed and unhappy any more than anyone else does. It's not a fun place to be. There will always be those trigger events that will cause me to backslide, but my objective for this new year is to try harder to find something each day to smile about. I flipped through our picture album a while ago, and I got through it without my eyes leaking any. If I didn't have my memories I really would be out there wandering around in the proverbial ugly wilderness. I have no concrete way of knowing that Cookie and I actually will have our reunion in heaven. Heck, it could just be a pipe dream I have. But I choose to believe it will happen. Thank goodness that faith and hope are free. So long as it's free, I will always keep my bucket full of them both. HAPPY NEW YEAR, ONE AND ALL! One foot in front of the other... Darrel