The daily struggle...

[Patty65]

10 years ago today ... ahhhhh how to survive this day, the dreams we wished for that day, the wonder we had at what we would be doing 10 years from then.  Anything but this. :'(

 

[brat#2]

I know how hard today is for you, these special occasion days are so difficult.  Just remember the love you felt that day and remember that love is still here today.  Beautiful picture.  Sending you hugs.

Joyce

 

[iPraiseHim]

This beautiful picture tells a story that mere words cannot fully express.  My heart and prayers are with you.  Shalom 

[Margm]

Beautiful picture.  We have so many traumatic things to go through.  Billy let me pick out my cars, but I always had him with me.  No, buying this car was more traumatic than excitement.  There are so many reminders that we are alone.  And, it does not matter if we are in the middle of 1000 people celebrating something, their celebrations do not lend themselves to anything but the fact that we are alone.  But, don't get me wrong, I do not begrudge those people their excitement.  There were so many memes going around of Obama and Biden.  They were so funny.  Biden found love again, but he just lost his son and he lost his daughter and first wife.  We do not know what pain the people standing next to us have gone through.  Patty, you have my hugs today too, and my heart.  Does not help you, I know, but somehow we all share each other's shoes at one time or the other.  

[Gin]

Beautiful picture, Patty.  Wishing  you some peace.

Gin

[Gwenivere]

I thought I might get by without crying to begin my day.  I look at your gorgeous picture, Patty, and it speaks of the love we have all lost.  

[scba]

4 hours ago, Gwenivere said:

It speaks of the love we have all lost.  

Hugs Patty

[kayc]

Patty,

Your picture says it all about your relationship.  You can FEEL what is between you, from this picture.  It's amazing. I think we're all wondering how/what the?!  (((hugs)))

[Patty65]

kay, yes-- i could not help but look at the wedding photos saturday and i must have seen that one a million times, but not since february and i saw this one in such a new way, it said it all about what was.

[Patty65]

just need to post to hold on thru today.  tomorrow makes 9 mos.  therapist on east coast for the holiday.  grateful she is available to text. i just texted her - "... just reaching out for a connection. almost photographic recall of these crazy pre thanksgiving days at the shop last year is tearing at my heart, chef is sick i will have to do it, mauinow interview article just came out (not ready to watch it), 18 catering thanksgiving trays to make, sleepless night - couldnt make the sleep plan work and could only sleep and calm down emotionally after writing a poem at 3am. sigh. omg holidays + grief = torture is such an understatement"

i honestly dont know how anyone makes it through the holidays, seems so impossible.

i couldn't sleep last night - i had to go outside, and the intensity and beauty of the night sky was nearly violently heart breaking, it is what we would do. this was the poem that emerged. its what we did, watch the night sky, talk about the universe and life and death and everything intimate.  i just dont know how to live without that connection, I know so many "single" people do. I feel so weak in my pain, I know I shouldn't, I try to let go of it.  sometimes when i try to connect with ron before i sleep, our bedroom slips away and i see the night sky instead of the room.

 

Ours, This Night

 

It was ours, this night

The universe calling

An utterly moonless pitch black night

Exposing a feast of stars

Depths of clusters

Reaching from infinite horizons

To dance with Orion

 

I recall the like vision

Behind closed eyes

You give me -

It was ours, this night

Ours to laugh, to cry, to listen, to play

To Love

From this our spot under dancing stars

 

But  wrenching, destroying pain

Of Without-You

Of Alone.

Echoes of our love

Sear my soul.

We still share it -

It still ours, this night.

 

[MartyT]

Poignant. Heart-wrenching. Breathtaking. Painfully honest. Touching. Beautiful.  ♥

[brat#2]

Patty, beautiful.  The night will always be yours and his.  Wishing you strength to get through all you have to do and wishing you can find some peace.  Hugs

Joyce

 

[Gin]

I went to the health club today and everyone was wishing others a Happy Thanksgiving.  I tried to hold my feelings in.  There will be no more of the big deals we always had at our house.  I will be with a friend who just completed her chemo.  Quite a contrast.  While there, a woman  started talking about her dead husband.  She was HAPPY he was gone.  What a contrast to all of our feelings. Hard to even imagine.  She preferred to be alone and I am hoping to make it thru the day.

[Patty65]

OMG! What an unimaginable thought!

[Gwenivere]

4 hours ago, Patty65 said:

jomg holidays + grief = torture is such an understatement"

i honestly dont know how anyone makes it through the holidays, seems so impossible.

i just dont know how to live without that connection, I know so many "single" people do. I feel so weak in my pain, I know I shouldn't, I try to let go of it.

Patty, your poem is awesome.  I wish I had that kind of talent.  I thank you for sharing it with those of us that don't have that.

i agree it is torture during the holidays hearing of people's plans and being barraged by commercial reminders.  Our own memories are hard enough of what has changed.

Single people live without that connection because they haven't had it.  I was there once too.  My connections were with parents and friends now long gone.  It was fulfilling because I was just discovering the world and everything was an adventure.  When we commit to another and entwine our lives, everything changes.  To have that ripped from us creates a void we never knew.  Outsiders don't get how deep this is.  How life altering because they think we 'heal' like a breakup, but the other person still lives. Sure, those hurt, but there is usually good reason they ended.  How does one describe an ending that served no purpose but pain of losing what we took so long to find?  An ending we didn't want in any way?  We can't.  

Younare not alone in feeling weak.  I think of how strong Steve saw me and wonder what he would think now.  I can barely drag myself out of bed.  I miss every aspect of his presence, even the annoying ones.  I feel timid and I have never felt that way before.  We have to become new people and that was never in the plan.  The person I am now is not simeone I even recognize.  I never knew we could become alien to ourselves.  That world out there?  It looks the same, but it's feeling is being in some dream world, and not a good one.  I navigate it by habit only.  

 

[brat#2]

Patty and Gwen, I know how you feel when you say you feel weak.  I too was once a strong person but that was with Dale by my side.  I know he did everything he could to help become that strong, independent person, but I don't feel that way anymore.  I have to talk myself into going out of the house to do the things that need to be done, I just want to stay inside and not deal with anything.  I know that I can't and like you said Gwen, I navigate it by habit only right now.  It is so difficult to figure out who we are now.

Joyce

 

[kayc]

Patty, what a beautiful poem!  You express for us what we are incapable of putting into words but feel with our hearts.

[Gwenivere]

As luck would have it, my grief counselor is ill today.  It was the thing I had planned for the day to help before the holiday and my birthday alone on Friday.  I know this happened to you, Patty, with your counselor out of town.  We are going to talk on the phone a bit, but I sure depend on that face to face contact.  About the worst week it could happen.  There are no controlling these things, but it sure adds to the pile we have come to face since our losses.  Back in the 'old' days, this wouldn't be a big deal.  There was always something to do when Steve was here.  Or at least I felt better not looking at an afternoon with no plans.  I do have to vacuum (ugh, dogs) but that was when I got home.  So I sit here not being able to think of a single place to go yet another day.  You know all those overbooked people that say they'd give anything for nothing to do?  They gave no idea!oh yeah, except they are usually happy and have people in thier lives.  

Still feels odd not prepping for tomorrow.  Instead of hanging out with my love, I'll be volunteering and come home to whatever I can put together as dinner.  No fancy glasses or candles.  Outsiders would say do that!  Um, no.  Why they think this would help as opposed to drive home the point we are not together I'll never know.  Maybe it's that 'honor' thing that eludes me.  It was a shared experience.  Doing that alone honors nothing but stir painful memories.

[Gin]

Gwen,

Al and I always had everyone over for Thanksgiving.   Now, no one is coming.  I do not want to do anything that WE used to do.  Those things were OURS, not mine.  No more plays, concerts, music.  I do not think most people understand in the least.  Tomorrow I am going to a friend's house.  She ordered some meals from Olive Garden and we will warm them up.  It is still so hard to believe he won't be here...ever.

Gin

[Patty65]

54 minutes ago, Gwenivere said:

So I sit here not being able to think of a single place to go yet another day.

Gwen, Sorry you don't even have your F2F time with your counsellor   Just another week to dangle and hold on precariously and wait for more time to pass.  The "not being able to think of a single..." fills in for me as "a single thing I can stand doing" once I get to the house.  Not a show I can or want to watch (especially this week and this next holiday month, all the shows I can tolerate - political comedy news - are off for the season), not an artwork I can muster to do, it's just like -- "Oh no, now what??" with the panic of being left alone with my own thoughts and memories.  I hear there's a thing called "alone but not lonely" but that is just an elusive fantasy for me.  I totally agree that doing things that we did together in the name of the honor thing -- if it only hurts, then it is not honoring anything.  Certainly not ourselves.  

[KarenK]

Last Thanksgiving, after cleaning up, I found myself going early Black Friday shopping. It was a true zoo out there, but gave me no time to think. May do that again tomorrow as we aren't eating turkey until Friday.

[kayc]

Gwen, I'll be gone the next couple of days, so let me wish you a HAPPY BIRTHDAY now!  I'm sorry your grief counselor is sick, I hope the volunteering turns out to be a real blessing to you tomorrow.

You don't understand someone "honoring" by doing something they used to do together, but everyone deals with their grief differently.  What leaves you distaste brings another comfort.  What's weird is it can change from year to year as to how it affects us.

[Gwenivere]

Thank you, Kay.  Hope your being gone is for a good reason like time with your kid/s.  ?

[Finch]

This is the first Thanksgiving since I lost Crystal. I would love celebrating it with her (from afar). Every single year it was such a fun time for us. I feel so incredibly sad and angry thinking of her family going through their first without her at the table. I wish I could share with them the joy she expressed to me at this time of year and how excited she always was to prepare for it.

I want to comfort them. And be comforted by them. Sigh.

This is also the time of year we would both be preparing to send big holiday boxes of gifts to each other. I still have unopened gifts left from last Christmas. Unopened, unmoved.

Even though this time of year is painful for most of us on here, I send my best wishes to my American friends at this time. 

[kayc]

Gwen, yes I'm at my son's, last minute as snow was predicted, but it'll snow tomorrow on. Kindle barely working.