Kieron

😥

I think that's very much allowed and permissible and understandable at this stage, don't you? 🙂

Telltale tracks of the green monster, I'd say!

Beautiful garden taking shape! Love the two poems, as well. I think you did just fine. 😃 Mark loved fern-leaf peonies, sometimes called the Memorial Day peony because it blooms right about now, but he used to say "My thumb is black and blue," meaning he couldn't grow anything if he tried. However my thumb is green and so I planted a couple of these peonies some years ago for him to enjoy. The weather has been very cool lately so everything is a bit behind, but the peonies I planted will bloom in about 2, maybe 3 days. And I will think of him when they do.

I know just what you mean. I have wondered many of the same things you mention. it's totally fine to add to your own first post. I do it a lot with my own first-time post! 😏

What a sweet story! 💖

Beautiful wild creature! Speaking of this and other signs, I told this story elsewhere here... Last fall, when I was standing by the tree that was planted in Mark's memory, getting ready to spread his ashes around the base of the tree, a little butterfly alighted, ever so briefly, on the mound of bark mulch, dipped its wings, and then flitted away. I found out later this small butterfly is called Question Mark, for the little markings on it that resemble the ? symbol. It definitely felt like a sync wink, as a friend calls them.

I'll add my welcome, JTP, and essentially echo what has already been said, and to note that, oh my gosh, it's been 5 months or so for you since Bob died. The grief must be so fresh and raw, and running hot, as it does now. I "get" the feeling about waiting for him. For weeks I felt like I was waiting for him to come back from somewhere, or I would come home from work and then think, "Oh yeah, he's not here..." For me, it's been just about 26 months. Even yesterday, I came home from a day-long class I am taking as a way to make a step in a new direction in life, and felt the sadness welling up again because he isn't here to ask how it went or offer encouragement. Ana's quote, and KarenK's about the choice being made for you, are both so on-point. Wiped out in an instant, and for no apparent reason, no signs or hints of what was to come, no way to say goodbye. 😔 My heart goes out to you, for that alone.

Mine is, too. i avoid reading the Pet Loss section of this forum, because she's about all I have left alive from my life with Mark.

I'm glad you have been able to come to this valuable realization! Yes, the whole idea of a grief timetable is a complete fiction that does a lot of harm to ordinary people struggling to cope in a society that would rather not look too closely at death, loss and grief.

Johnny, it will do that, and often, for awhile longer. Let it, whenever you can, even though you'll feel like you're about to throw up from the pain, and your knees get sore. Those waters you mention have got to go somewhere, so let it do its thing. I'm so sorry that lost everything so soon and so cruelly. I can only shake my head at the unfairness of it. 😖

Ana, I understand exactly this sentiment. Yesterday I kept thinking about how it feels as though my self-confidence took a "body blow" and now things that never rattled or unnerved me, do exactly that. And it's not something I just casually admit in daily life because guys aren't supposed to be that way, but this is how it is. And in another conversation, I accidentally made a profound remark. The person (who is over age 65 I believe), and I were discussing resilience, and I said something like "I think that in life, if we live long enough, our resilience can lose some of its resilience, making it harder to bounce back the way we once did." Then I had to pause and think, "Wow, where did THAT come from?" 😄 Even the person I was chatting with admitted "That's about right, isn't it?"

Wow, Marg, all of this sounds like such a stressful experience. 😮 Having worked in mental health for many years, I will say this: medications like these, when tested on humans, are tested on volunteers. According to my understanding, most volunteers of medication trials are men, and/or people of white/European descent. Medications often (but not always) behave differently in the physiology or physical makeup of women and children (being physically smaller in size), and that of people of other ethnic/racial groups. I believe that may account for the wide range of possible side effects (or no effects!), some of them being quite unpleasant. I wouldn't wish mental illness on anyone, but many of the folks who have crossed my path amaze me with their resilience. They have shown me what is really important in life, as well as "walk a mile in my shoes" and realizing how many advantages I have had in life. Humbling, to say the least. 😕

Mitch, the term I use often is "my half-life." During the bad moments and days, I feel like I'm half-shadow

Good comments, all. I wanted to add that time is starting to play tricks on me. I had to count back and and realize, this is indeed the beginning of Year Three but it's still only been 2 years and one month. I suppose those of you who have "been at this awhile" do something similar.

I lost Mark on March 22, 2017, so I'm right there in the thick of it with Year Three. The "whole other level of sadness" is also one of my observations. It doesn't hurt like hell the way it did in Year Two, especially around 18 months, but it's now a softer, long-lasting "blue" feeling that rises and falls in intensity. It feels like a tide that comes in and then recedes. I notice it more when it comes to figuring out what I am going to do with my life now. For example, we were going to re-do the kitchen but that was his domain, and the very thought of dong more than painting the walls sends me into anxiety mode. I do not want to deal with contractors coming in and out of my house, or take their calls about this doohickey whatsit, or that thingamajig doodad., or be forced to make choices about colors, styles, models, appliances, etc. I need to think about it and talk it over with someone I trust. I'll sell the place, first, before I put myself through this. The dwindling of support is a real thing. Everyone has moved on with their lives and they think you should, also. i was in a restaurant recently observing who came in alone, or in an odd-numbered group, and wondering which of them were widow/ers. We seem to don invisibility cloaks, I've noticed... 🙄

Gwen, I have 2 things I do when something is missing. They're maybe a bit silly but I feel like they work because it focuses my attention on finding the object. The first is an old rhyme that I don't know the origins of, but I believe it's English, or perhaps Irish, or else American. it's said aloud to St Anthony, the patron saint of lost objects. "Tony, Tony, please come 'round/Something's lost and must be found." 😄 The other one is, "I request a most benevolent outcome for _________________" Insert your request here. Then say, "And may the outcome be better than I could hope for or expect. Thank you!" See what happens. Be sure to say "thank you." 😄

Like others, I am sorry you had reason to join the club no one wants to join. "One step forward, three steps back" is so very common. I think someone here called them switchbacks, so that is what I have come to call them, too. You'll find yourself reviewing and re-covering territory you thought you were done with. It's just how it is. I've had a good couple of days due to Spring finally arriving here, but every so often something will remind me, "Oh. Yeah. He's not here anymore." For example, starting up the little waterfall/pond in the backyard that I had professionally started in 2016, and then finished myself with rocks and plants and flowers... I did it for him so he could sit outside and enjoy the sounds, maybe watch the birds bathing, etc. I had a flashback to the autumn of 2016 when I was taking out the water pump and getting it all ready for winter and how cold the water inside the pump housing/tank was, and remembered how, by then, he was spending most of his time in his bathrobe or in bed, trying to ease his back, neck and knee pain. But he still made dinner for me that evening. Three months later he was laid flat by sepsis and in intensive care. In those moments, all you can do is just remember, re-experience or relive it, and feel whatever you feel (be it anger, sadness, tears, rage, regret, etc.) and the emotional waves will pass, in time. And then some time later you'll do it again, over something else, or this other thing that happened, or that one time you two did whatever it was, or some such event. It just goes on, but with time it gets less intense, softer. But every so often you'll have a huge wave come along, like an aftershock from an earthquake when the ocean heaves and sends water inland. Fortunately, we all "get it" here. We're listening.

Gwen, that is so poetic. The writer in me loves this. There was something else you said in some other thread that caught my writer's eye. I'll have to go look for it. So well said! 👍

haha, I just meant there were things about Gwen's post that I could cheer on, hence "Upvote", and things I could relate to or empathized with, hence the "heart." Maybe this 😍 would suffice for both.

I wish I could simultaneously "heart" this and "upvote" this, Gwen.

Gwen, it was during this time that I came to realize that the sayings "Only the good die young" and "No rest for the wicked" are two ways of expressing the very same concept.

Mark, welcome to the club no one wants to join. I recognize the feeling of "nothing left" after the caregiving years, having filled that role. It's messy, and it's complicated, and by now almost everyone around you probably expects you to have moved on, or at least they have moved on with their own lives. I hope you find some measure of solace in responses from those who have been through this already.

Welcome to the club no one wants to join. After 25 months into the journey I never signed up for, I still have bad days, hours and minutes. Right now I am awake at 2:30 in the morning because I can't sleep for having had too much caffeine too close to bedtime. This has given me time to dwell on his last days, and various what-ifs, the ol' woulda/shoulda/coulda.song and dance you're no doubt going through. You're solidly in Year 2 of your journey, and it's very normal to have these bad days, "switchbacks" as I think it was Darrell that called them, where you return to ground you thought you'd already covered.. I'm always surprised by these pockets of sadness and tears I encounter every day or so. But it will gradually grow softer in its intensity, even though you will never stop missing your partner. ❤️