Anticipatory Grief ~ Life with Lupus and Diabetes

[kayc]

Anne,

I love this new profile picture of you, and envy your lack of wrinkles, although I don't have many myself, your skin looks so flawless!  I know you've worked hard at your well being and it's showing!  

[sunstreet]

Dear Anne

Thank you for your empathy and understanding.  I am sorry that you had to recover from congestive heart failure.  Good for you though to accomplish that!  And that speaks to your resilience, determination, strength and courage. And I know it's hard work to do what's necessary to keep your heart failure in check.  I agree ill health is one of the challenges we deal with after we have lost someone so dear to us.

It was so hard in the first five years for certain after Melissa died to focus on self care or even to have the desire to do so.  It really is like a fish swimming upstream initially isn't it?  Yes self-care is what we must do and is so vital to navigate life in general; never mind that it's essential when grieving. Thanks yes my health issues are many.  I am feeling so much better than I was a few weeks ago in so far as I am not feeling so overwhelmed with it all.  And the feelings of anger that my Melissa is not here now and fiercely missing her have become much less intense and once again feel nothing but warmth and loved when I think on my Melissa.  That's it isn't it when we are actively in a torrent emotional wave it is truly hard to see an end to it or remember all waves eventually dissipate.

My heart aches also for the new grievers for I remember so well what it's like in the beginning.  I agree too they couldn't be in a better forum than this one.  This is a place of healing, support, acceptance, understanding and safety.  And yes no matter what loss they are going through.  And for sure we heal together and for me who has no family it's a wonderful environment to feel that I get some of what I would get from a family if I had one.

I am not surprised you love Mary Oliver too  I actually have not read any of her books but I will seek the ones you mentioned most definitely.  I am so sorry for the pain of loosing your sweet Benji. I know how hard that was and also loosing him so soon.  I came onto these forums after my cats Street, Sunshine and my Melissa all died within a short time of each other.  I know I read a lot of the posts and came onto the site daily for about 3 months before I actually posted anything.  Wow! Just thinking on that how very far I have come in my journey of healing.  I have a lot of Mary Oliver's poetry and I agree hard to pick a favourite but one does speak quite loudly to me and that is  "The Journey"  If your interested after I get through cataract surgery for my left eye and had time to heal...etc and reading becomes easy again I'd love to discuss Mary Oliver's books you mentioned after I've read them.  My right eye is still experiencing blurriness from the cataract surgery I went through a short time ago and I have quite a bad stigmatism and see diagonal streaks of light and can't get a corrective lens for it for another week or so apparently so till then very hard to read easily.

Thank you so much Anne. Healing and courage to you.

Blessings, Carol Ann 

[kayc]

Jumping in to the middle of your conversation...

I don't think I began learning self-care until I retired nearly four years ago.  It seems when I was working and commuting long distance I didn't have time for "me" and most of my life I was busy taking care of others.  With George gone it's been especially important to learn to take care of myself, no one else will!