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My husband of 6 years just died of cancer and sometimes when I think back at those last days . I am so heartbroken that I could have done more. Even though I took him to every doctor appointment and loved him . I feel like I failed and miss him so much .He was my best friend and would light up a room when he stepped in. I carry his ashes around if I go away I can’t bare to leave him alone . I know it’s crazy but I do it anyway . I talk to him when I walk into my empty apartment and before I go to bed . In the hopes that if there is another side after death he will hear me tell him I love and miss him 

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Tony, I totally relate. My other half Susan (3/31/17) and I had a great love but I torture myself about how I could have been even more loving. I talk to Susan all the time and the first thing I do when I come home is kiss the Urn holding her ashes. I don't carry them around but when I travel I take something special like the heart she knitted me for Valemtine's day.  I meditate on her before going to bed. I keep hoping I'll see the candle flame flicker in a way that indicates she hears me but so far no. This is very, very hard but sharing helps. Welcome.

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5 hours ago, TONY said:

My husband of 6 years just died of cancer and sometimes when I think back at those last days . I am so heartbroken that I could have done more. Even though I took him to every doctor appointment and loved him . I feel like I failed and miss him so much .He was my best friend and would light up a room when he stepped in. I carry his ashes around if I go away I can’t bare to leave him alone . I know it’s crazy but I do it anyway . I talk to him when I walk into my empty apartment and before I go to bed . In the hopes that if there is another side after death he will hear me tell him I love and miss him 

Dear Tony!

My heart aches for your loss as everytime when I hear about such great love again.I hope to give a little comfort with telling you about many signs I´ve got from my beloved man who died too.You can find them on this site,especially on my thread "The loss of my beloved man" that all of them come from.After I got to know about his death,he was still here and gave me the most beautiful proof of his eternal love "engraved heart" on the sheet of the bed we two had slept 3 days before.

You´re in my prayers.

With love Janka

 59ed1f672f200_Angel6.gif.e367ef28fd5a0a94b05d2dc3e17003f7.gif

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I haven't seen any signs from the candle flame but I don't mean to say I haven't seen anything. In one of my first (maybe the first?) sailing trips this summer, which was very hard because Susan was my perfect sailing partner, a falcon landed on the spreader as we were motoring to pick up the mooring, and was in no hurry to leave. In almost 30 years of sailing in Boston that is the first time any bird has done that while we were motoring. I posted the picture earlier but here it is again.  It really looks like she is watching over me. 

Had an earlier incident with a butterfly landing and staying on her sister.

Then just last week as I was throwing out old papers I found, buried with an old insurance policy, a beautiful loving note dated 3/25/87. I could have easily missed it and thrown it out, so you might say I was guided. Susan wrote that she was sending the note early so I would get it next week and not be lonely. I suppose we were going to be apart - don't remember. But next week from 3/25 is 4/1, the day after she died, 3/31! So 30 years ago, she was sending me a note to comfort me after her death, and last week she guided me to find it! 

Wishful thinking? Maybe, but I'll take it.

20170723_164115_zoom.jpg

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19 hours ago, TONY said:

My husband of 6 years just died of cancer and sometimes when I think back at those last days . I am so heartbroken that I could have done more. Even though I took him to every doctor appointment and loved him . I feel like I failed and miss him so much .He was my best friend and would light up a room when he stepped in. I carry his ashes around if I go away I can’t bare to leave him alone . I know it’s crazy but I do it anyway . I talk to him when I walk into my empty apartment and before I go to bed . In the hopes that if there is another side after death he will hear me tell him I love and miss him 

Tony,

I am sorry for your loss...I sincerely doubt you failed him, you did what you could at the time, what you knew to do, as we all did.  I talk to my husband too and it's been 12 years for me.  I believe with all my heart in afterlife and that we will be together again.  I tell my husband all the time that I love him and miss him, he can't help but know that, even as yours does.

 

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I'm sorry for your loss...my husband passed a little over 2 years ago - throughout most of our nearly 8 year marriage, he had complications from diabetes...i was his caregiver for the last few years of his life...I too sometimes feel like i failed him - that maybe he would still be alive but he was ready...the disease was taking too much from him.  what helped me was a support group like griefshare...contact your local hospital or hospice group for a support group.  As for the ashes, you can get a necklace made of them so he'll always be close...anyway, praying for you.

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amstcole,

I'm glad your griefshare group has helped you,I've heard nothing but good about it.  I, too, think the right grief support group can be very helpful.  I've watched those in mine begin to blossum and do better in the months we've had together, they're not in the place they were when they started, and we've forged some friendships besides.

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On 10/22/2017 at 3:30 PM, TONY said:

I carry his ashes around if I go away I can’t bare to leave him alone .

I did this also for many months.  I moved to an apartment so I could hear life.  If I could not be with Billy, I wanted to hear people living their life.  I did not want to live it with them, I wanted to die and I truly believe if my mustard seed faith had not interfered, I would not be here.  I don't know if I would have been with him either though.  And, he said the one that was left must stay.  It has been two years now.  I look to the sky and I say "I cannot believe you would leave me."  I think the hardest thing was realizing, he was not coming back and no amount of crying I did would bring him back.  The doc gave me an antidepressant that nearly killed me as I already had an existing condition.  After two years, I have found my clinician.  I shopped around but could not find one like I had in Arkansas.  Too far to go for routine checkups.  But, I found a clinician that lets me choose.  She won't give me the short acting Xanax, but she will give me the long acting Xanax, and I use it more for my shaking (more like Parkinson's disease), but it is a congenital tremor.  My anxiety attacks are not as many anymore.  She mentioned routine exams for me and I, of course, will take the flu  shot and pneumonia shot.  But, she is willing to go along with me with no more medicine than I take (to protect my long ago cancer radiated abdomen and colon rupture with sepsis.)  I did promise if I had blood anywhere I would come back fast.  But, this is mainly for colds, infections, etc., the joys of being old.  

Like I said, it has been two years.  I know there will never be anyone else, and I know you young married, engaged, or otherwise long time partners, I know you all wish for and miss the things that Billy and I took for granted.  One thing that helped me more than anything was to see/hear the words of Rose Kennedy.  Losing a child, to me, has to be the most horrible grief anyone has to overcome and I do so hope I go before my children and grandchildren, but I do believe (for me) that grief as a wound will never heal.  You do develop mental scar tissue that helps protect the sanity of your brain.  I truly believe that (for me). 

One thing I have really come to thank God for, (and I could not even do that at first)  was that Billy and I had 54 years together.  So hard not to say 56, because he is still with me.  And, I am selfish enough and unreasonable enough to wish for 54 more years.  The last things I saw about him, the frightening, guilty, horrible things I saw for so long in my mind, I am able to soften it and move it away from my thinking.  And, I do cry still.  For myself, moving away that first few months was the thing for me to do.  Women and men who built their house together, they cannot leave.  I had to leave, I had to go back to where we began.  He was not here either.  

Tomorrow's "Grief, One Day at a Time" talks about how I feel.  This man, Alan D.. Wolfelt, Ph.D, I wish I could meet him.  He talks to me so much.  He says "The French say, "Tu me manques," which means "You are missing from me."  "The people we love are part of us, and when they die, they go missing from us.  That's why we often say that whenever someone special dies, a part of us dies, too."  

The sensation of something essential now being missing in our lives is the hardest part of our grief to learn to bear.  It will never go away.  We cannot fill the hole with other people, activities, or belongings.  It's unfillable.  

Yet maybe we can come to an understanding about the hole; it is now a container for our memories and the love for the person who died. And while the memories and the love are not a substitute for the person's presence, they too are priceless beyond measure.

You are missing from me.  I am learning to live with the hole.

And, that is my word salad for today.  Tony, time will not heal this.  That is not good to hear.  Keep reading these wonderful people's feelings and personalities and hopefully you will one day find a small amount of peace in your life.  It is the hardest thing I have ever experienced..

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7 hours ago, Marg M said:

 

The sensation of something essential now being missing in our lives is the hardest part of our grief to learn to bear.  It will never go away.  We cannot fill the hole with other people, activities, or belongings.  It's unfillable.  

Yet maybe we can come to an understanding about the hole; it is now a container for our memories and the love for the person who died. And while the memories and the love are not a substitute for the person's presence, they too are priceless beyond measure.

You are missing from me.  I am learning to live with the hole.

 

I agree.

Thank you Marg.

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On 10/22/2017 at 1:30 PM, TONY said:

My husband of 6 years just died of cancer and sometimes when I think back at those last days . I am so heartbroken that I could have done more. Even though I took him to every doctor appointment and loved him . I feel like I failed and miss him so much .l

Tony, 

I am so very sorry you have reason to be here. 

I don’t know if this will help but my first support group counselor always stressed that when we feel as if we failed our loved ones to remember everything you did was motivated by your love for your spouse and based on the best information you had. 

I lost my wife twenty-seven months ago, just got past her birthday a week ago; many tears, but I am finding joy again. I have a dear friend now whose husband is late stage Lewy Bodies Disease. We can talk and that’s something I haven’t found with others. So that’s good. 

Be kind to yourself. 

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8 hours ago, Brad said:

remember everything you did was motivated by your love for your spouse and based on the best information you had. 

George always knew I was coming from a place of love, even when I said something hard to him and he always took it as such.  I think back to these things and I am gripped with what a wonderful loving relationship we really did have, we were so lucky and it was a miracle to have had it once in my life.  I just wish he was still here.

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