Jump to content
Grief Healing Discussion Groups

george p

Contributor
  • Posts

    9
  • Joined

  • Last visited

Everything posted by george p

  1. I keep trying to find the positive, but all I have done so far is dig up a lot of memories. I have a lot of great memories, but they just don't seem to mean much anymore. I just have not been able to turn the corner so far , I keep thinking that I have made some headway , but I really have not. The grief counselor that I saw right after my wife died told me the hard times would come after I had time to realize what life would be after loving someone for over 60 years. I have what I think is a pretty good support system, but they all have their life to live , so I do my best not to let it show to them just how much trouble I am in. I live in the house we shared for over 40 years and there isn't anything in here that doesn't remind me of her. I have gotten rid of most of her personal items , clothing and jewelry , but I cant go through all of the pictures , etc. I have tried to sort some of them out and I just can not handle it, maybe someday I will be able to. I am 81 years old and I want to get as much stuff done before I pass on as I can so that my sons wont have to do it for me. I have posted on this site a while back after my wife died and I think it helps to just write down some of the things I feel , but can't express to my sons . I can see from the posts here on this site that I am not alone in my situation , it seems to be pretty common. I feel fortunate that her death came quickly , I am in pretty good shape both physically and money wise so I have a lot to be thankful for. I just have to find a way to move on to a better place mentality . Thanks for listening George P
  2. I have been doing pretty well for some time, but yesterday was a bad day , but nothing really bad happened. I started out by finally getting all of the checks from my limited trust in order so I could get the check books right , two of the accounts were no problem , but the main account had been in Mary and my name for well over 50 years and I had just a few checks left in the book, I don't write very many checks so I had not opened the check book in over a month. When I pulled the few checks out and started to put them in the shredder it hit me like a ton of bricks that this was one of the last things that still had Mary's name on it and I was about to shred them, I had to make myself do it. I have her credit card that needs to be canceled but I have been putting it off because it was all hers , I am going to keep her drivers license along with some of her other personal things. She was just woven into my very being for over 60 years , I don't want to lose that , but the little things that come up are just very hard to deal with sometime. Then a few hours later a neighbor across the street had some sort of medical issue and called 911, the sight of the emergency vehicles brought back the vivid memories of the night Mary passed away. It made me aware of how fragile I really am, neither one of those things were very bad, but I had a hard time coping yesterday and most of last night. I don't know what was wrong with the neighbor , but he was sitting upright in the gurney and talking to the EMT so maybe it wasn't very bad. Today will be better ,one of my Grandsons is coming to visit me for a while this afternoon, it will be good to see him. Thank goodness for this site, it gives me a way to let my feelings out to people who have been there, done that. George P
  3. Mary & I didn't have a real celebration on most of our anniversaries , maybe a quiet dinner out, but we did plan a lot of great trips around our date. On our 50th we had a small gathering with some of our family , but we were on our way to one of our favorite places on the southern coast of Oregon , so it was just an afternoon at her brothers home . I have been trying to focus on the really great times we had over the years and all of the good trips we took. It seems to be working for the time being, I love the card that Marg M posted it says just the right thing, thanks for sending it. I live near some of the best outdoor camping areas in the western part of the country (the 4 corners area) ,but my idea of a great campout is at a bed & breakfast in Silverton, Colorado. A lot of people around really enjoy the outdoors , but I never was one that did much of it. I really enjoy driving in the mountains , but I want a bed at night. A phone call from one of my Grandsons and the card made my day a lot brighter. George P
  4. Thank you for the support. I am not sure where my head is at, I went to Mary's grave site to wish her a happy anniversary and discovered I had the date screwed up, it was the 27th not today. I had to make 3 trips to one bank to get my name right on the trust account I am setting up, you would think I would know my own name. The lady at the bank was very kind, I had okayed all of the papers but missed my name being misspelled. I was mildly sick on the 27th , maybe I was being scolded for not remembering correctly. It what all I have messed up so far is all of I will be in good shape. George P
  5. I am fairly new to this site, but have found it very helpful . Today would have been our 59th anniversary , it will be a real### , but I have been trying to follow the advice of my grief counselor and so many people on this site, one step at a time. I am like a yoyo and I expect it to be that way for a while. I try my best to focus on the good times we had (there were many) , but it is hard to do with tears in my eyes. I remind myself over and over that we were very fortunate in our life together , so many people are not. I have been trying to not focus too much on the future, past what am I going to fix for supper tonight . I joined a gym and do the AARP Silver Sneakers group , it has been helpful , it is a start. I am fortunate to be in pretty good health for 80 years old and I see that every time I have my INR checked ( I go today ). Physically I do pretty well , mentally is still a huge work in progress, this site helps because it is here 24/7 . Just putting my feelings on the page seems to help. A lot of my support group have a lot of problems and I do not want to add to them. They want to help , but they really don't know how. I do have a good friend who has lost his wife, but it was 15 years ago. I have been trying to get at least one thing done a day, I used to buy a lot when I went to the grocery store ( I have been doing that for some time because Mary had mobility issues) , but now I may go buy just a couple of things at a time just to give me something to focus on. Today is INR day, Walgreens has the coffee I love on sale , I hate to pay full price for coffee even if it means making a special trip ( it is only two blocks from me) . So I have two things to focus on , also it is exercise day , it will be a busy day. Just reading some of the post makes me realize how many people are in the same place and we will all survive . George P
  6. I have always heard that loved ones who have passed find a way to let you know they are alright, but I never knew what to believe. I was sitting on the couch in our living room a few days after Mary passed looking at the collage we had made on our 50th wedding anniversary ,it has a large picture in the middle and several small ones of us around the edges. All of a sudden a ray of light had filtered in from the front window and was shining on Mary's face on one of the small pictures ,it was her telling me she was alright. I had my cell phone near and I got a picture of it , it didn't last but a few seconds. The thought of what that could mean really caused my emotions to go into turmoil , just didn't know what to think. As I read some of the things that other people have experienced and some of the stories my Mother told me after one of my brothers passed has made me think my original feeling was right . Just to add to the story a few months before Mary had asked me to move the picture , she didn't like it anymore, so I put another one in its place. A day or so after she passed I put it back where it was, the timing of the sun ray on her face was just perfect and it would not have been at any other time. If that isn't fate I don't know what is. Our 59th wedding anniversary will be in a few days , she was a huge part of my life for over 60 years , I am now 80 years old wondering what is next. One day at a time is about all anyone can do, I will find direction. I try to find at least one thing to accomplish each day but some days are better than others, I guess that is the way it has always been and always will be . George P
  7. I am amazed at the response I have gotten and from different parts of my post. THANKS I went to the attorney to get the limited trust set up yesterday and the decision about the checks was made for me because all of the accounts have to be in the trust name. I knew that, but as with a lot of things lately it just didn't register with me. Some of the questions on the trust forms were a little hard to answer, it is a preview of when I pass . I had the same problem when we bought the grave plot and marker , when I saw our names on it reality came in loud and clear. We had decided that we were going to get as much done for our passing that we could, we didn't want our sons to have to do much. Maybe now that most of that type of things are behind me it will get somewhat easier. It is funny how I became known as George, my given name is George Paul and that was what I was to family , at school I was Red because of my hair color. In my employment world I was known as Red until a man I was working for told me to begin using my real name , so I chose to use Paul because my dads name was George. So for years all of my accounts ,etc was Paul, then the state I live in went to a new format for the drivers license that the name on the license had to be the name on your birth certificate . So after all the accounts were changed so I could prove who I was, I became known as George . In the process I happened to notice my birth certificate had a different spelling of my last name, it is a name that is spelled sometimes with an e on the end (along with several other variations), but all of my family had ignored the e. Somehow my certificate had two different last names on it ( don't know how many times I had looked at it and never noticed it) so I didn't know what to do . After a time I decided to just see if MVD would take it the way it was , they did so I became known as George official again. I will answer to anything people call me ( well almost anything). I am trying to eat healthy because I had a very mild stroke several years ago and I have to watch my INR very closely , so far so good. I have coffee with a friend most days at a local café we have been going to for many years , I see some people that I have known for years and enjoy the time with my friend although we are nothing alike , he is one of the most negative people I have ever known . We have had a strange relationship over many years , but it works for both of us . He lost his wife over 15 years ago so he understand the feelings I have , but he expresses his in a much different manner than I do. I wear my feelings on my sleeve and he hides his , but I know he understands what I am going through. I am also looking into joining a local health club that has a program for seniors , maybe if I pay the fee it will motivate me to get up and move some, I am fairly active but not enough. When I go to coffee I drive by the cemetery that we have the plot in and I usually send Mary a few thoughts, I also go by ,sit on a very nice bench close to her and have a good cry. Julie told me to talk to her as much as I could, but I am finding that hard, it is getting a little easier as time goes by. Thanks George p
  8. Thanks for the response to my post, it helps to know I can let my feelings out here. I have a great grief counselor , but she isn't here 24/7. I am mostly okay, but as someone else posted it is amazing how many things remind me of Mary that it is crazy. It is the unexpected things that throw me for a loop , one of the hardest things for me to do so far was to remove her toothbrush from the bathroom, my brush looks so lonely hanging there by itself. She was in the bathroom when she passed (we only have one) & it is hard to go in there without reliving those few moments , I try to cope by remembering that she passed peacefully and quickly. She told me a few weeks before that she felt she was just waiting to die, we discussed it just a bit and I didn't think a lot about that statement, but as I look back on it I think she knew her time was short. Julie (the grief counselor) told me to try not to look back at things that you can not do anything about, but that is very hard to do. Her name was on all of our accounts and I am getting a limited trust set up so putting all of the stuff in my name makes it simpler. I have every thing done except changing our primary checking account , I am struggling with taking her name off of the checks. We don't write very many checks per month , so I don't see the checks very often. Julie told me to think of the good things around me so I think I will keep the checks like they are. Mary was a RN for nearly 30 years and a lot of the assets we have are a result of her income. I have been learning to cook items that I have never tried before because we had a freezer full of stuff that I had never tried to cook. Mary would cook the steaks and salmon ,I would heat up the stuff from the frozen food isle , we bought a small air fryer several months back,I have fallen in love with the thing. I have been doing French fries and several things in it , but never big stuff, I have moved on to steaks , last night I cooked some salmon in it and was very pleased with the results. I am moving forward very slowly . Thanks for listening. Every one take care. George
  9. This is my first try at joining the web site, I have read several of the posts about the loss of a spouse. I really don't know where to begin so I may ramble a bit. I lost my wife of over 58 years on 3/3/2019 . She had been in failing health for about 3 years, but her passing was sudden. She had been a huge part of my life for over 60 years , now I feel lost . My grief counselor told me that it would take a bit of time for it all to become real to me and boy was she right. I was so busy trying to get all of the arrangements made after Mary passed I did not have time to face reality. We had planned a lot of our passing already so I knew her wishes , that was a great help . I had been buying most of the food and necessities for some time so I was okay in that way, I also had been doing most of the cooking and all of the housework for some time. Mary was able to take care of herself mostly , she struggled with some things but she got most of them done. I could ramble on forever about what has happened, but I wanted to find some positive. Over the weekend both of my sons called and we had good conversations , one of my nieces and her husband came to see me yesterday (Mothers Day) and my oldest grandson called. They knew it would help us all through the first special day, and it sure did. I do okay most of the time, but I am struggling to cope with my loss , reading other people's posts helps, I feel very fortunate that Mary didn't suffer in her passing , it all happened in just a matter of a few minutes, it was 3.40am and the 911 help was here within minutes after my call, but she had passed before they got here. They tried to revive her but could not , that was the way she wanted to go . We had several people in our lives that suffered for long periods, with no hope, before they passed , so we saw the grief that everyone endured. I will just take it day to day and see where I go to. George p
×
×
  • Create New...