razorclam

That is a great graphic. It really nails it. Thank you for sharing this.

Ah AnnJ, that is very thoughtful of you.

For anyone not following my "Brief Connection" thread in the "Behaviors in Bereavement" section, my late friend's brother contacted me last April after ghosting me in May 2020, to apologize and asked to reconnect. In a series of preternatural developments, within days of resuming our correspondence I was invited to a conference in his city (overseas). The venue, a research institute outside the city limits,  turned out to be practically in the backyard of their childhood home, where the two of them as boys had ridden their dirt bikes on the (unbuilt) campus.

Our in-person meeting was a complete success, and left us both in a much more healed state. His brother shared family stories and photos, and was grateful to have the perspective I provided on my friend's last year. Most importantly, I learned that he died much earlier on his last day that I had thought. His wife's messages conveyed the impression that the death occurred in the evening, but in fact it happened in the very early morning. The timing is significant, because I was tormented for 3 years by the assumption that my friend had been alive but uncommunicative by choice for the entirety of his last day. Many of my previous posts on this thread have agonized over this...why did he shut me out on his last day, etc...so it was a relief to shed all that angst.

We parted warmly, and have not been in contact since I returned home. But I think I am on a healing path, finally, because I am not alone anymore.

Dear Sad,

    I read your message with a heavy heart, and sad memories, as it is very similar to the one I got from my soul mate 4.5 years ago. I am so very happy that you reunited with your family, and that the connection to your loved ones will provide you with a life force.

Razorclam

James, Beatles and Rolling Stones are not lowbrow. Neither is rock as a genre. Some of the works of Pink Floyd and Led Zeppelin are symphonic quality. I am sure you know there is a wide continuum of classical music. If you are not into Baroque (Bach), Classical (Mozart), or Romantic (Beethoven), perhaps you might find some of the post-Romantic composers (e. g, Prokofiev) more appealing, with their edgier sounds. Also, the Impressionistic composers (Debussy, Satie) are wonderfully ethereal and discordant.

Dear Sad,

  Could it be that your loved ones care about you very much, but don't know what to say? Or are afraid of saying the wrong thing, so they just keep quiet, and wait for you to reach out to them? And assume that if they don't hear from you, then you're doing fine?  There are lots of ways to rationalize avoidance.

1 hour ago, Sad_Widower said:

 
Do you mind if I ask what country you are from (I have traveled many places so am curious).  

Israel.

Maybe offer to walk the next door neighbor's dogs? Sound like they could use it.

16 hours ago, Sad_Widower said:

Part of me is INCREDIBLY scared about doing this (seeing as I am only 52).  It is the absolute last thing I ever thought would do.  I mean it was never even a thought during my entire life.   But in reality my only other alternative is to stay here, continue ignored by my family, absolutely miserable and just work until I die.  Not going out like that.  

Dear Sad_Widower,

    You are doing exactly what the complicated grief experts advise (bold lettering mine):

"Robert Neimeyer, professor emeritus of psychology at the University of Memphis, director of the Portland Institute for Loss and Transition and co-editor of “Grief and Bereavement in Contemporary Society,” finds that the most important goals of complicated grief therapy are to develop a narrative of what happened, to revise and re-create one’s relationship with the loved one, and to reinvent oneself. “After loss, we need to reconstruct life meaning and find a way to reinvest in living,” he said."

   I envy you your adventure. I want to return to the country where I was raised (not born there, but have always identified with that culture). It will have to wait a couple of more years, and probably my husband will not follow me there full time, but I will get back there even if I have to swim the distance.

"Do one thing every day that scares you".

Well...I recently had a string of occurrences that were impossibly coincidental. My soul mate was European. Days after his third deathaversary, I received a message from his brother, who had ghosted me two years ago after a brief period of correspondence. We resumed our electronic contact, articulating the hope of meeting in person someday. Days later, I received, and accepted, an invitation to speak at a conference in his city. The venue turned out to be literally in the back yard of their childhood home (open space in their youth, that was built up in their young adult years). So,  alot going on there...we joked that my soul mate, his brother, was keeping busy in the otherworld.

I find your posts to be very articulate, thoughtful and heartfelt. You have made a difference in my life.

Thanks to everybody for sending caring thoughts my way. 

I never imagined I would be writing the sequel. Three days ago I received a message my friend's brother, apologizing for checking out so abruptly two years ago. Said he appreciated the contact,  but was overwhelmed and backed away, and is now readier to engage. I don't think it will be easy, some minefields have already reared their heads, but he clearly understood that we have the ability to help each other grieve. It was nice getting confirmation that I did not do or say anything wrong in my messaging two years ago- as the saying goes, it wasn't me, it was him. 

Three years since I lost him. This spring the cherry blossoms came early, because of the warm winter. Apparently they looked nice in the Tidal Basin, but the weather for the most part has been rainy, cloudy and windy. In our neighborhood, the cherry blossoms did not make much of a showing. That is fine with me.  I am crying only once or twice a week these days, down from every day, so I guess that is progress. I am also down to no listeners, and am completely isolated with my residual grief. I do not feel comfortable talking about him with my friends, and my therapist does not respond to anything I say about him. She just gives me a blank, hangdog look, and remains silent, as if to discourage me from going there. Clearly she thinks I should just move on, and in fact I do have plenty of other issues I am grappling with. But I don't like the fact that she is not being responsive to me. I have one friend  who I do not see often with whom I still share my grief. He said that he actively mourned his divorce for five years, and predicted the same timeline for me. I feel like I am very much on track to that.  

Read a perfect phrase the other day in a book review, that describes my predicament: "The project of grieving a friend is one of flinging pleas and promises and imprecations into the abyss, hoping against hope to hear something other than the echo of your own voice".

 You did the right thing by making Annette happy, whether with CDs or chocolate eggs.

 Less than a week before my friend died he sent me a long middle of the night text cataloging his favorite (non-alcoholic) drinks (e. g., fruit and rice-milk based smoothies). He barely ate anything for the last month of his life, and I am sure he was suffering to some extent from malnutrition. His last weekend he sent out for a horchata (over his wife's objections, who thought water would be safer) and told me in a rapturous text how much he enjoyed it. I thought, good for him! 

There is a character In one of John Steinbeck's books who advises somebody mourning a lost relationship to go through the motions, to act out being alive, like in a play, because eventually it stops being playacting, and becomes true. Sometimes it takes a long while. Can you see yourself start on this path? Perhaps by identifying a single action that you can commit to every day, however small or symbolic? Water a plant, feed the birds? I am solution-oriented person, and I want so much to help you...

James, it's good that you have the device and the pictures and the text on it. I just upgraded to an iPhone (from an Android), and am having trouble migrating all my WhatsApp chats. Most of my communication with my friend was on WhatsApp. I did back up my chat histories with him and his family.. But moving to the new phone does seems like another separation, and I have not disabled the old one. 

Quote

you're here to help me, and I'm here to help you and maybe we're all here to help each other and that's our purpose. 

James that is a beautiful sentiment, and I can't think of anything more inspirational as we head into this new year.

“Though lovers be lost love shall not; 

And death shall have no dominion”.

(Dylan Thomas)

He knows your situation, right? And he still wants to get together with you, right? You are giving him the benefit of the doubt -that is a good thing.

Sending good thoughts your way.

I suggest that you give it a chance. Maybe being with someone who wants to keep things light will be contagious, could lighten your burden, if only for an hour or two.

1 hour ago, kayc said:

It will be different for everyone but whatever brings YOU comfort, do that (except drinking which is a depressant...we don't need anything further depressing us).  Our bed was a huge reminder of his absence so I started sleeping in our loveseat/recliner.  Still do 16+ years later!  It makes no sense because we always cuddled there so you'd think IT would be a huge reminder of his absence too but for some reason it makes me feel like I'm cuddled up with him, strange huh!

I threw all of his work stuff away, clothes, everything, I didn't want anything to remind me of that place as THEY were responsible for his death, imo.  They pushed him to work harder/faster/harder/faster!  They even got him on meth to get more work out of him, he was already working harder than he should have!  They broke his weight restrictions, continually.  Yet not one company rep bothered sending a card or flowers when he died, not one of them attended his funeral although coworkers did.  They stole all of his tools, worth thousands of dollars, my son drive 1 1/2 to 2 hours to his job to get them and all they gave him was a broken pencil and piece of chalk.  REALLY!  I didn't want the thermos or mug they'd "awarded" him, nothing, in the garbage!

I also put his pictures up, down, up, down, depending on whether they made me cry or brought me comfort, do what you feel in the moment, finally they were up to stay, but it took a while.

I listened to his CDs, all of them, even the ones not my taste, in an effort to ascertain what he saw in them, feel closer to him.  Then I was okay with letting them go...eventually.

I still have his bathrobe hanging on a hook, sometimes I wrap myself in it.

And the old t-shirt I wanted him to throw away?  It was full of holes and shrunk/stretched misshapened, I didn't want to part with it.

1 hour ago, kayc said:

What is the name of it?  Wow, that's...a lot.

Escape in Time, written by my late cousin Ronit Lowenstein-Malz. 

https://www.kirkusreviews.com/book-reviews/ronit-lowenstein-malz/escape-in-time/

I am sorry for your loss. Many sources suggest creating a narrative of your loved one, and your loss. In a sense you are doing that here, by sharing your story with us. After my friend's death 2.5 years ago, I sorted and collected all of the correspondence I had with our mutual friends and colleagues and created a memorial book. After my mother died, my sisters created a cookbook that interleaved her recipes with family remembrances. My mother and her parents and sibs had a very compelling WW II story - a dramatic escape from the Nazis - that was written up as a young adult novel in Israel. I got the book translated into English and found an American publisher for it - a very healing experience. Take care of yourself. 

I am deeply sorry for your loss. I started counseling the week after my loved one died, with a therapist who initially seemed like a good match. But she turned out to be too unprofessional, and I left her after 4 months. Nothing catastrophic -she was just too casual about privacy (conducting therapy sessions on her front porch with other patients coming and going), had terrible hours, and exorbitant cancellation fees that kicked in a week in advance (as opposed to 24 or 48 hours). What irked me the most was when, in those pre-Zoom days, we had several phone sessions while I was recovering from a broken leg, and it was clear that she was driving, washing dishes, and even grocery shopping while she was conducting them. Getting rid of her felt empowering for a few days, but I was not in good shape (at the 4-month mark), and felt like I was backsliding during the 3 months it took to find a new therapist. The new person thought that at 7 months, I was still in the early stages of grief.

I can't answer that Kieron, but it's good to have you here, I always appreciate your articulate posts.