The daily struggle...

[Gwenivere]

4 hours ago, KATPILOT said:

Sometimes I think there has to be a plan for why we have to live through this. Of course this is all blind faith but what else to do?  Keep in mind I was never this optimistic in the early years.

Steve, Thank you....early years is right.  I don't even count the first year now because while it was hard, it was spent in shock.  I've just spent a full year in the reality of it.  Much much different.  To those in that first year, I do not negate the pain you are in.  There is no time as we adjust that is remotely easy.  

Marsha, you are right, this was a human being.  It's not like coming home and finding your couch is missing.  This was life shared with that person perfect for us.  None of us are saints.  It is those messy emotions that I feel.  Emotions that came along now and then, but never so many so often, and yes, many don't want to hear about them.  It's hard 'protecting' them from who we are now.   Sad too.

[iPraiseHim]

7 hours ago, Gin said:

Gwen, So do I.  Don't know why it is so bad again.  Maybe the holidays?  Just feel so alone.  It is almost 4 p.m. And I have not spoken to a human today, except for the ATT guy when I tried to get my internet bill lowered. Was not successful.

That is one of the trials of this grief I find perplexing.  Just when I think I can cope and handle the day / emotions something will hit me and lay me flat out.  I had  several low, foreboding, gray days and then a few days that are tolerable. There does seem to be a cycle and its different for everyone (in my humble opinion).  Sometimes the grief is real intense and other times the loneliness is a real kick in the pants. 

For me I review if there is anything physical, health, systems I forgot to do like get enough sleep, take my vitamins and minerals, drink plenty of water, move.  Sometimes it is just down feelings that I just need to acknowledge and express.  You see I just want to be over al of these feelings and get back to normal.... But in reality, this is my new normal right now. For me it is just going to take time and grief work to get through this.  I'm okay today but I still miss my wife deeply.

I am working on setting up some simple personal goals for me to focus on and accomplish.  Keeping life simple, counting my blessings, and cleaning up the messier sides of my life.  Some days, all I can do is get up and face the day.  My expectations in life is what sets me up for disappointments.  I need to accept life as it is now.  Hoping you find your path as well. - Shalom   

[KATPILOT]

George maybe having some expectations isn't all that bad. While it may set us up for disappointments it also allows the possibility for achievement. There is a risk of failure in every attempt at success. Fear of flying sort of thing. Oh and by the way, getting up to face the day is a greater achievement than you may realize. Every one of us that does that deserves a pat on the back if just for the hell we are coming from.

 

[mittam99]

22 hours ago, Gwenivere said:

I truly don't get this at all.  I must be cut from a different cloth.  My existing in no way honors Steve.  Yes, he made me a better person when he was here.

Gwen, we all speak from our heart. We also are all different. Before you lost your Steve and I lost my beloved Tammy we were a product of our upbringing and our innate personality. In other words, even before our beloved died we all had a different emotional mindset and viewpoint.

I'm sorry you don't see how your being here and carrying on honors him. But, of course, I'm seeing that through my own perceptions. In my mind, Tammy made me into the person I am today. I'm a product of her love and I became a different person being with her. Today, I may be physically alone but I am truly walking and breathing with Tammy inside me. Her essence survives because I live. I derive much solace from this.

I know to you this may sound "unbelievable" and it's certainly your prerogative from your point of view. The thing is, this is what I believe and what helps me function in a way that means that my life isn't 100% misery moving forward.

As always, my heart goes out to you and I hope that someday you will see light in your sea of darkness and pain.

Mitch

[Patty65]

4 hours ago, mittam99 said:

Her essence survives because I live. I derive much solace from this.

Make so much sense Mitch --

You do/create/plant things in her honor to create a physical embodiment of her essence -- Her essence survives because you live -- and you derive solace from that.  I think the key is the last part. It gives you solace.  Any way we can get that, that is a good, often rare thing.

[scba]

I am so a different person from the one I used to be when he was here that I don't see how or what from his essence lives with me. It is an issue of perception too, or too much pain and trauma, I wish someone could tell me "this X thing from him is now on you". 

 

[Patty65]

my struggle of today.. 

I've had to take on some chef shifts, cooking for take out orders because my chef quit and my new one doesn't start till next week. When I do that job, I use Ron's knife. Ron spent about 6 months picking out that knife.  It was over $100, and he waited and waited to buy it, a Wusthof knife, and was so excited to order it last year about this time.  It came in just a week or so before Christmas.  He used it a few times before going on the Christmas vacation that he never recovered from.  He used to hide it in his drawer, and didn't want anyone else to use or dull his special knife.  I bought him a diamond-dust knife sharpener last Christmas.

When he was in Hospice, he slightly recovered with steroids from the brain swelling, and regained some speech, although the tumors kept him from saying much.  One day I wanted to ask him a question to gauge his comprehension. I thought of the knife as a question. I asked, "honey, I was wondering if you would mind if I borrowed your wusthof knife today?"  He said, agitated, "you all are counting me as gone already!" 

The only "you all" there was in his life was me, and the Hospice nurses.  I was now lumped in with them.  Which meant it was no longer the two of us against whatever outside obstacles there were, which is how it was always.  He was frustrated with the nurses  - aware enough of their simple-baby-talk and the rest of the changing of him that went with it.  My proud man, and now I was one of them.  I was horrified at his own thought of his death, which I totally, totally didn't believe still, and told him I wouldn't use it, and I vowed not to push him to take my homeopathic treatments or push him in any way, and to make the hospice house experience for him a re-creation of our life at home, curled up together watching a show or listening to music.  I was devastated that I upset him.  And that he considered me like one of the nurses we were struggling so much with.

And now, as I use the knife, I feel the tear between using it because it was so special to him, and therefore me, and the bad flashes of those scenes, and so many more, of those final days.  So many flashes of it all as I approach the anniversary of it all as the anniversary of when it all started approaches.

Thanks for listening... and for a place for this to land outside of the circling hurt in my head about it...

Patty

 

[mittam99]

2 hours ago, scba said:

I am so a different person from the one I used to be when he was here that I don't see how or what from his essence lives with me. It is an issue of perception too, or too much pain and trauma, I wish someone could tell me "this X thing from him is now on you". 

 

Ana, I don't know if what I write will help but I certainly hope it does...

I'm in bed typing this on my phone and it's me, Mitch doing the typing. To my left is the empty side of the bed that my Tammy would lay on. But I'm not the Mitch I was back in say, 1998, before Tammy came into my life. I've been reshaped, "re-imagined" if you will, by my life experience with Tammy and by the love we shared. The way I think, the way I go about life etc., is different because of Tammy. The memories of our life are etched in my brain.

In a way, I'm the version of Mitch that's intertwined forever with Tammy. That's why I say her essence will always be a part of me. How, in a way, she still "lives on". I walk with her and she walks with me always.

In my world this makes sense and it's what I feel, deeply. To others, maybe this seems like "just words", but to me it's genuinely what I believe to my core.

I know many of you can't look at it this way. You feel empty, lost and trying to figure it all out. The memories aren't enough and hope is just a some distant dream.

The thing is, my life isn't a joyful one. It is lonely and filled with sadness and aching for what will never be. Yet, in my moments of deepest despair, I reach inside and Tammy somehow is there to rescue me and to lift me up. 

It's the feeling that although Tammy has died, I will always be a part of the Mitch and Tammy team and I draw strength from that amazing bond and the intense love we shared.

[MartyT]

Patty, my dear, I hope you will discuss with your therapist some ways you can use to deal with those bad flashes and disturbing memories of those final days. By practicing mindfulness, for example, you can acknowledge those bad memories as they occur, then consciously and deliberately decide to switch your focus to the present, thereby interrupting the negative thoughts. When you use Ron's Wusthof knife, for example, and find yourself remembering that scene in hospice when he was so upset, you can tell yourself that you don't have to think about that right now. Instead, you can choose to think about how special that knife was to him, and how proud of you your Ron would be to see you putting his knife to good use, in pursuit of the dream you both shared. It's all in how you choose to think about it.

Some recorded guided imagery may help as well, to release some of those painful memories.  See, for example, Self-Directed Brain Change

[Gwenivere]

There is a saying that everyone lives as long as they are remembered.  That's about as far as I can accept.  I am happy for all of you that your living on honors them.  Perhaps I am too logical in my thinking as I am just the one who nature spared....for now.

[mittam99]

Gwen, I also consider myself a very level-headed and logical person...

That connection I had with Tammy was so strong that even death cannot separate us, in the sense that, (while I've lost the everyday interaction) I still feel her presence in my life today.

My heart goes out to all of you that struggle with what Gwen is feeling (or not feeling). This grief journey isn't easy in any way. It's life, but it's life without the meaning it once had. That's what can be so hard to accept and to handle. I wish I had the right words to ease your pain.

[Margm]

Another word salad.

To have and to hold from this day forward, for better, for worse, for richer, for poorer, in sickness and in health, to love and to cherish, till death us do part, 

Well, it did.  And as many mistakes and failures as we had through those 54 years, it finally took death to part us.  Going into it as a teenager, and him just barely more than a teenager we entered into something we had no idea of the responsibilities and implications of those vows.  Till death us do part was only something we thought about when we were angry enough to smack the other into oblivion.  We didn't do it (although coming off the amphetamines, I took a swing at it with the business end of a fishing rod.)  He bled.  I could have killed him.  I did enter a hospital for that one.  No, he didn't leave me, he just begged me to come home.  There were times both of us wanted to leave, but spending a night or two away from each other was something we could not do.  We "separated" for six weeks once.  I saw him every day.  "For better, for worse."  We had a lot of those "for worse" times.  One time he worked two jobs for about five years and he was so tired that his proclamation that "no wife of mine is going to work" became "if you want to."  I had wanted to before but my kids were babies.  I could not leave my babies, so I held a grudge against him for now "letting" me work.  We worked out a way I could work nights at the hospital and someone would be with our kids all the time.  Amphetamines kept me awake to work.  They also made me very friendly.  Too friendly.  But, it took seven years and a lot of pressure on my mental health from those legal pills, to save my marriage I still needed to work, but I needed to work and be a wife and mother too..  I had become something I did not like.  

I'm sorry for you that are young and do not know what this life has to offer you now without your soulmate.  Yesterday, two boys were playing basketball and arguing about how far they could throw the ball.  I was standing on the porch, looking at my daughter leave.  I heard them say they could throw it as far as that "old woman" on the porch.  I looked around me.  Well, there it was, I was the only one standing on the porch.  I never was that "old woman" until Billy left.  

In March of 2014, I probably came as close to dying as I ever will until I do.  I could hear doctors talking, but I was so out of my head with fever and pain they were just insignificant gnats in that room.  He sat with me 14 days and nights.  The nurses started bringing him a plate each meal.  Ruptured colon and overall sepsis from the cure of my cancer 33 years before.  The questionable treatment, the pain, unable to take pain pills I would walk off the pain in front of the house.  Then the rupture had involved my GYN insides and something happened, we don't know what, but the GYN doc said they could do a D&C but if they found anything they could not fix it.  Miraculously the fever and pain went away.  I had prayer warriors around the clock.  And my poor Billy, the next March we buy a small RV because we are leaving, finally to finish our RVing years, come hell or high water.  Well, hell and high water came and washed away all hopes of ever having the life we had begun 18 years before.  We lived in an RV 5-6 years before we retired and we did some traveling.  

My strong caretaker, the one who took care of me in sickness and in health, well, "death did us part."  

I do not have the bitterness of unfinished business that so many have.  We finished everything but our RVing adventures.  Our song "A Time for Us" just was not to be, but we had so many years, so many mistakes, so much happiness, for richer and for poorer, in sickness and in health, and finally, death did us part.  I cry because it is over and I cry sometimes because I loved him so much that if some other woman could have made him give up the smokeless tobacco, if they could have kept that tall, lanky, Steve McQueen look-a-like alive, I would have gladly given him up, just so he could live.  

One of these days I will be able to substitute logically the word "grief" over the word "guilt."  His last minutes on this earth sometimes flash through my mind and my mind goes "no, no, no, no" until it is gone.  I am human, it does not always work.

I am thankful for all the milestones we had.  But, in 54 years together, it only seemed to start yesterday and is gone today.  No matter how many years you had, you want more.  And now, I can only be thankful for the fact he only had a few days to suffer when both of our father's had months.  

I do believe I will be with him one day.  I will have to believe he is waiting.  How could he do otherwise?  I am him, he is me.

[MartyT]

The word salad you've served to us today is one beautiful piece of writing, Marg. Blessings to you, and thank you  ♥

[Gin]

Marge,

I have always carried a bunch of guilt about Al's last weeks.  I stayed with him in the hospital his last 2 weeks and tried to comfort him the best I could.  He had many problems...congestive heart failure, COPD, diabetes, heart problems, circulation problems, blindness.  Then he had swallowing problems.  He was aspirating his food into the trachea.  They wanted me to talk to him to see if he wanted artificial feeding tubes or take the chance of getting pneumonia.  He chose not to have feeding tubes.  After a day or so, our primary decided that he was getting so few calories and he wanted to put in a nasal tube for feeding.  The idea was that the nutrition would get him stronger and then he could go to the rehab floor and go home.  That is the reason I allowed it.  After the tube was in, they put these big mittens on him so he could not pull it out.  He was so confused as to why he had these mittens on and tried to take them off.  I felt so bad, but stupidly I really thought he would pull through all this.  He pulled through so many other things.  He only had one feeding and the next day he died.  I so regret putting him thru that.  And of course the regular guilt of maybe changing doctors, hospital, etc..  Grief is bad enough and we should not have to carry guilt, also.  Maybe the guilt will lessen.  It has only been a year for both of us.

[Margm]

Gin, he was hyperventilating two hours before he passed.  I could calm his breathing down.  This was not the end.  The end could not happen.  It was impossible.  I was expecting mine and his miracle.  He reached out to me that he had to give up.  No words.  He knew, I would not accept it.  Not going to happen.  My anger would drive the truth he knew must happen away.  It didn't.  I let him die without holding him those last moments.  Guilt and grief are identical twins.

[KarenK]

I think the guilt and grief stay with us for a long time. I'm not really sure when Ron gave up. We trusted the doctors, not really realizing that he was but a piece of meat to them. The ER nurse that caused him to require urinary surgery is fortunate that I don't remember what he looks like. So many things were done to him that I can no longer remember the order in which they occurred. I remember the day the surgeon pulled 16 or 18 teeth, and put in a chemo port and a feeding tube and the days he would have radiation treatments with his catheter still intact, the ambulance trips to ER for a bleeding feeding tube, the replacement of the chemo port because it had been put in upside down, and numerous other torturous things. He so hated that feeding tube! I'm sure he felt completely dehumanized. I was there through it all, being compliant because I trusted the medical "professionals". I just know somewhere in there he gave up mentally and eventually his tired body did. No amount of wishing or prayer could stop it. Sometimes I think if I had gotten to the hospital just a little earlier on that Monday, maybe he wouldn't have aspirated into his lungs, but then I could not stop the failing of all his other bodily functions and the higher power chose not to do so.

Not a day goes by that I don't think of Ron and Debbie, the good memories and the bad.

[Margm]

Karen, I cannot even begin to imagine the grief of losing a child.  Billy's treatment at the teaching university hospital was horrendous.  They sent me a survey I never heard back from.  I told them I would not even recommend their hospital for an autopsy.  He went so fast we really did not have time to consider options.  I did not accept the outcome.  That was someone else.  It was not Billy's lifelong partner.  It was someone I live in the body of, but she is sure not my favorite person.  If I could find that Indian National psychiatrist that told me I had to learn to love myself, I would beat him to death with his $13 pamphlet I bought from him.

[KarenK]

See how my brain works! I had completely forgotten how the whole downhill slide started. Ron was diagnosed with cancer in Oct. 2012 by a racist ENT who commented to us during the exam that we needed to keep that "N....." out of office. What did that have to do with anything? On the first CT, contrast dye was ordered despite the fact that diabetics can't tolerate it. It shut his kidneys down, thus causing the ER visit with the nutty nurse. Perhaps if we had gone to MD Anderson in the first place...................  I'll never know. It's all water under the bridge now.

[Margm]

Karen, my brain stays in a fog.  I can watch something on TV and Bri will tell me "Mamol, we just watched this last week."  Okay, I get to enjoy things more often than people with wonderful memory.  I have no idea what endorphin's are,  It sounds like a good word though.  Maybe grief either alters our brain chemicals or obliterates them.  I don't really care which.  I have just gotten used to saying "I don't remember" and most times people go with it.  Now if Billy was here and I told him I did not know how something worked, he would go into detail telling me how it worked.  And, I would ignore him until he drew me a picture.  He was always determined I was going to understand something whether I wanted to or not.  

[scba]

Thank you Mitch. 

[Margm]

On 11/27/2016 at 9:46 PM, Gwenivere said:

Perhaps I am too logical in my thinking as I am just the one who nature spared....for now.

People talk about being cut from the same cloth, or not being cut from it.  I think we all suffer the same pain.  I cannot count my love any greater than anyone else on this forum.  We have all suffered immeasurable loss.  There is no graph showing the peaks and valleys of our pain.  Mine is no worse than yours, his is no worse than mine, their pain is no worse or better than any of the rest of our's.  My friend's husband was married again right after my friend's death.  I figure I was hurt by that more than my friend.  Her pain on this earth was over with.  I read of others seeking solace with others of the opposite sex, and how can I find that a failure?  The cloth does not matter, we approach our pain the best way we can.  There was no funeral pyre to throw myself on.  At the time, I would have probably done it.

 Up near the gate of the family cemetery is buried my great grandfather and next to him his wife, my great grandmother, and next to her is her first husband.  I think she had about seven kids with him.  I remember visiting all of my grandmothers half brothers and sisters when I was a child.  In our ancestors time they had a family of 10 kids or more and as soon as that wife died in childbirth they had to  find a babysitter fast.  Lots of "old maids" past the age of 20 and they found one to take care of the children fast, within days or months.  Then they had 10 children by that woman and being worn out, she died in childbirth.  My great grandfather then found one that was part Native American.  She outlived him, no children.  And, on the other side of that ancestry, the same thing was happening.  

Personally, I'm glad we are not made out of the same cloth.  I'm glad women were allowed to vote, and certainly glad we quit having 10 children and dying.  Heck, we were not even allowed to have property of our own.  And, the slaves were given a portion of a vote before we were even recognized as "human." But how we approach our grief is all different.  And, none of it is wrong.  Unless you take a rawhide whip and flog yourself to death.  I have guilt, you have guilt, they have guilt.  We are still living and the one that mattered most to us is not.  Every time I start to cry I think "well, this is not gonna bring you back."  I wonder and get angry at "why did you leave me?"  And, I know he would not have left if he had had a choice.  

"Time heals all wounds."  Well, I am not too sure of that.  And what other people say to us, it is in one ear and out the other.  "Keep busy."  Yeah, I can listen to music again, some of it.  I guess that is one step forward.  Faith? It has not returned, but I am kind of sideways in that thinking.  I have not turned my back on it.  Anger with God.  Yeah, I think I still have that.  Count my blessings.  I have a lot of them.  I was going to make a shadowbox with all Billy's tied flies with his picture as a backdrop, the one of him fly fishing, gonna make it for the kids Christmas.  Nope, gonna give a Walmart card.  The flies are in one of those 15 boxes I have not opened.  So are all the winter coats.  He had a lot of winter coats..  I got rid of a lot and still have a huge box filled with mine and his winter coats.  That is symbolism.  That is his essence and my essence mingled together.  I will buy a new winter coat.  Not opening the box.  Somehow, I doubt a ghost of him and me entwined is going to come from that box anymore than I have found him moving back to our old hometown.  He is still gone.  

Happiness?  I had it.  Laughter?  I can do this.  Socialize:  I'm attending some Christmas todo Saturday that I have been invited to for years.  I'm going, we will leave early, neither of us drive at night.  Don't want to go.  I remember those people from when I was 17.  I hate to embarrass them all by attending and them all being old, it will make them so depressed that I have not changed in 55 years.  I hate to see the envy in their faces.  But, I am going.  Gwen, see how logical I am in my thinking.  I think this cloth I am cut from will tear very easily, might fall apart from age.  Just wad me up, soak me in Xanax and throw me in the car seat.  I cannot remember those steps yet.  Two forward, one back, maybe three forward and two back.  I hate numbers.

[kayc]

On 11/27/2016 at 7:39 PM, MartyT said:

choose to think about how special that knife was to him, and how proud of you your Ron would be to see you putting his knife to good use, in pursuit of the dream you both shared.

Marty took the words right out of my mouth!  I think Ron would be proud of you for continuing to accomplish the two of your dream, and he'd be glad you're putting his knife to good use for it.

[kayc]

On 11/28/2016 at 9:28 AM, Marg M said:

 I never was that "old woman" until Billy left

I think it's all in perspective...when my daughter was 16 she referred to a guy in his 20s as "an old guy" (yes, she was serious at the time, he was hitting on her and she didn't appreciate it!).  You're only as old as you feel.

 

[kayc]

On 11/28/2016 at 1:56 PM, KarenK said:

by a racist ENT who commented to us during the exam that we needed to keep that "N....." out of office.

Wow!  Too bad you didn't report him, but you had your focus full as it is.

[Gwenivere]

Karen, I cannot imagine being assaulted with such a horrible word.  We are so far into the 21st century and it boggles my mind that such words are still used in our so called civilized and enlightened society.  Obviously not as evolved as we thought.