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I dread the hoildays


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I LOVED hibernating with Susan during a storm. Now being home alone on a cold dark day is the worst.

Susan was the Christmas decorator. I never fully appreciated how beautiful and warm she made things. I want to do something, so today I explored and found where she kept the decorations. They are packed away amazingly neatly. I won't do nearly as much as she did but will do some, in her memory. Can't do it without crying but I'm used to that. 

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19 minutes ago, TomPB said:

Susan was the Christmas decorator. I never fully appreciated how beautiful and warm she made things. I want to do something, so today I explored and found where she kept the decorations. They are packed away amazingly neatly. I won't do nearly as much as she did but will do some, in her memory. Can't do it without crying but I'm used to that. 

Dear Tom!

Lately I´ve found out CD with pics of me and my beloved Jan.It was fallen down behind the furniture in the bedroom.You can imagine what joy and pain at the same time it caused me at that moment.I was crying like 6 years ago.

Hugs from Janka

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14 minutes ago, TomPB said:

Can't do it without crying but I'm used to that. 

Even after 6 years I still cry.The bigger is the love,the bigger is the pain.I still can´t watch the CD of me and him.I only hope that one day I´ll be able to do it.

Janka

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Glad Tidings, Everyone...In a weird sort of way it seems to be helpful to know that there are others "out there" going thru the same kinds of things and feeling pretty much the way I do. I don't think it's a case of misery loving company so much as just the knowledge that I don't need to check myself into the Cuckoo's Nest. I'm not sure I have the right temperament for Nurse Ratchett!  When I first joined this group some of my ramblings talked about how listless and lost I was. In a number of ways that is where I'm still at. My wife & I used to do even the little, inconsequental things together. We both loved to read. We would grab our books, take them to bed, and lay in the bed reading and holding hands. That made it sorta hard to turn the pages, but otherwise it was wonderful. And ditto with just watching our TV shows together. And the list could go on and on. I still have a hard time getting interested in TV shows now. I'll start a show and turn it off after being bored with it even before the first commercial break. And I have a hard time getting interested in books also. I used to think that head banging was a certain kind of rock music. Maybe it is, but isn't it also what grievers do while they pace listlessly around their empty house. My wife passed on New Year's Day last year after spending the previous 16 days in "her" hospital's critical care unit. I feel absolutely no joy at this holiday time of year. These are just days on the calendar now. 

One foot in front of the other, dragging this dern chain...

Ebeneezer Scrooge

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5 hours ago, Janka said:

Even after 6 years I still cry.The bigger is the love,the bigger is the pain.I still can´t watch the CD of me and him.I only hope that one day I´ll be able to do it.

Janka

Janka thanks & totally relate. I have the CD of Susan's memorial service and have not even come close to thinking I could watch it. Yes, the bigger the love, the bigger the grief. CS Lewis says that too. I know it's true ❤️🐼

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1 hour ago, olemisfit said:

Glad Tidings, Everyone...In a weird sort of way it seems to be helpful to know that there are others "out there" going thru the same kinds of things and feeling pretty much the way I do. I don't think it's a case of misery loving company so much as just the knowledge that I don't need to check myself into the Cuckoo's Nest. I'm not sure I have the right temperament for Nurse Ratchett!  When I first joined this group some of my ramblings talked about how listless and lost I was. In a number of ways that is where I'm still at. My wife & I used to do even the little, inconsequental things together. We both loved to read. We would grab our books, take them to bed, and lay in the bed reading and holding hands. That made it sorta hard to turn the pages, but otherwise it was wonderful. And ditto with just watching our TV shows together. And the list could go on and on. I still have a hard time getting interested in TV shows now. I'll start a show and turn it off after being bored with it even before the first commercial break. And I have a hard time getting interested in books also. I used to think that head banging was a certain kind of rock music. Maybe it is, but isn't it also what grievers do while they pace listlessly around their empty house. My wife passed on New Year's Day last year after spending the previous 16 days in "her" hospital's critical care unit. I feel absolutely no joy at this holiday time of year. These are just days on the calendar now. 

One foot in front of the other, dragging this dern chain...

Ebeneezer Scrooge

Yeah, me too. Susan and I used to read together and if we found a book we really liked I would read it to her. I also have a hard time with the TV shows we liked. She really liked "Bosch" we watched on Amazon & I did too & now I can't. Partly because it's set in LA which is where we met and we liked seeing places we remembered as newlyweds madly in love - like we were on 3/31. We did all the little thiings together, and every day I realize something I took for granted. I'd complain about her overdoing Christmas decorating and she'd call me the 🐼Scrooge. Only today did I realize what a beautiful thing her decorating was for us. I won't say "happy", but best wishes Tom🐼

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Billy used to say (over and over through the years) "I am you and you are me" and sometimes I feel that is true.  In looking at your Tom and Susan stocking, in hanging it up, you are hanging up "i am you and you are me."  Simple.  

My young Billy, my very young Billy, when we were first married, first weeks, not months,  would repeat a little silly ditty.  I will never forget it.  "If you love me like I love you, no knife can cut our love in to"  (I always wonder if that is "in to or in two) since it would possibly be two parts.  I loved his silly ditty.  

I was taking shorthand in business school.  I showed him how to put "I love you" in shorthand.  He never forgot and did it often in 54 years into the middle of my open palm.

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2 hours ago, Marg M said:

Billy used to say (over and over through the years) "I am you and you are me" and sometimes I feel that is true.  In looking at your Tom and Susan stocking, in hanging it up, you are hanging up "i am you and you are me."  Simple.  

My young Billy, my very young Billy, when we were first married, first weeks, not months,  would repeat a little silly ditty.  I will never forget it.  "If you love me like I love you, no knife can cut our love in to"  (I always wonder if that is "in to or in two) since it would possibly be two parts.  I loved his silly ditty.  

I was taking shorthand in business school.  I showed him how to put "I love you" in shorthand.  He never forgot and did it often in 54 years into the middle of my open palm.

Good thoughts, Marg, but it hurts SO much I have been like a zombie this afternoon.

Susan liked to draw little 🐼 cartoons on me. 

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1 hour ago, TomPB said:

Good thoughts, Marg, but it hurts SO much

I know it does Tom.  I think about my friend who passed away yesterday, she was having a simple gallbladder procedure and had a heart attack on the table.  She traveled so far from her home country after the war, I guess it was called Croatia, Yugoslavia when she was a child.  She was three years older than me and I loved her accent.  Beautiful blond and so sweet.  I feel so sorry for her husband..............and you........and all of us.  I remember when it got to where the technical side of the computers could be checked from the hospital and ghosted on our home computer.  Well, that was too much for her, she decided to retire rather than the possibility they could see her in her home.  I loved this sweet woman friend.

Tom, this pain is going to stay with us.  I see people on here trying to do things to "put one foot in front of the other" and that is about as good as we can hope for right now.  The shock you have had, (we all have had), my crazy temper because he was leaving me and I was not going to let him.  Surely he could see if I was angry, then surely he wouldn't leave.  And, I should have been holding him instead of being angry.  But, you see, I was not going to let him leave.  I quit playing God that day.  

I have strange sensations that he is standing beside me sometimes and then I reason, well, he did stand beside me over 54 years, so it is natural I would feel his presence.  Of course I turn around and he is not there.  I have always had a mystical, magical, imaginative mind that sometimes got me in trouble.  He left and it was gone.  He has been gone almost 26 months now (but who is counting?)  I felt since he did not believe in the supernatural way of things sometimes that he had taken mine with him.  He didn't.  He gave it back to me just so I could feel him close to me, even though I cannot see him.  Sometimes now I can conjure up his presence.  Maybe I will be able to look at pictures next.  I can listen to some music now.  Little tiny things come with time.  We understand.

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2 hours ago, Marg M said:

I know it does Tom.  I think about my friend who passed away yesterday, she was having a simple gallbladder procedure and had a heart attack on the table.  She traveled so far from her home country after the war, I guess it was called Croatia, Yugoslavia when she was a child.  She was three years older than me and I loved her accent.  Beautiful blond and so sweet.  I feel so sorry for her husband..............and you........and all of us.  I remember when it got to where the technical side of the computers could be checked from the hospital and ghosted on our home computer.  Well, that was too much for her, she decided to retire rather than the possibility they could see her in her home.  I loved this sweet woman friend.

Tom, this pain is going to stay with us.  I see people on here trying to do things to "put one foot in front of the other" and that is about as good as we can hope for right now.  The shock you have had, (we all have had), my crazy temper because he was leaving me and I was not going to let him.  Surely he could see if I was angry, then surely he wouldn't leave.  And, I should have been holding him instead of being angry.  But, you see, I was not going to let him leave.  I quit playing God that day.  

I have strange sensations that he is standing beside me sometimes and then I reason, well, he did stand beside me over 54 years, so it is natural I would feel his presence.  Of course I turn around and he is not there.  I have always had a mystical, magical, imaginative mind that sometimes got me in trouble.  He left and it was gone.  He has been gone almost 26 months now (but who is counting?)  I felt since he did not believe in the supernatural way of things sometimes that he had taken mine with him.  He didn't.  He gave it back to me just so I could feel him close to me, even though I cannot see him.  Sometimes now I can conjure up his presence.  Maybe I will be able to look at pictures next.  I can listen to some music now.  Little tiny things come with time.  We understand.

Marg, I talk to Susan all the time. I scream at her "How could you leave your 🐼" and she says she didn't want to but had no choice. I tell her that we were so close for 48 years that I should feel her presence now so why can't I? She says it's not easy for a spirit to communicate with a mortal, and I should be satisfied with the falcon and the note she sent me. I posted the falcon here. The note I found was dated 3/25/87 and Susan said she was writing it early so I would get it next week and not be lonely while she was away. One week from that day is 4/1, the day after she died. Then I hope for a dream but when I see Susan in my dreams she ignores me. I'm told that's my feeling of abandonment, makes sense.

I hope I and you and everyone can get to the point of feeling the warm memories instead of just the pain of loss. I'm staying in our home where every square foot is a memory and I want that to surround me with warmth and not ghosts.

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Tom, I have Martin Short's autobiography.  I was into reading about people who had lost their spouse.  They were married 30 years when she passed.  He and she have cocktails together in the evening and talk.  He says the conversation ends when he asks her where she is now.  This was my first book to read after Billy left about widows/widowers.  I could not concentrate on fiction, but widows and widowers books, I read them.  And, I have always talked to Billy.  I did what a friend of mine told me to do.  She sat down in front of her deceased husband's regular chair and she went over their whole marriage.  It was stormy.  Billy's and mine was not a smooth sea all the time either.  So, I took all of his "do you like my hat" hats and sat them all on the passenger side of the truck.  I talked to him for 40 miles to town and 40 miles home.  I cried.  I told him exactly what he and I both had done wrong, and we did a lot wrong, but the last 30 years or so the sea was totally calm.  I fussed at him and I took my blame too..........and always, always, if Billy and I had a fuss, my daddy, my very own daddy said "what did you do"" to me.  He knew his daughter. It was such a  cleansing journey, I thought I would talk to his hats again the next time.  I cried all the way to town, I cried all the way home.  I did not talk.  Then I put his hats next to  his urn and that is where they have stayed.  I said all I had to say, and I apologized a whole lot too.  

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11 hours ago, TomPB said:

I should be satisfied with the falcon and the note she sent me. I posted the falcon here. The note I found was dated 3/25/87 and Susan said she was writing it early so I would get it next week and not be lonely while she was away. One week from that day is 4/1, the day after she died.

That is very special. 

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Susan loved 🐢, so our home is full of 🐢 knicknacks, I gave her a lot of 🐢 clothing and jewelery, she had a 🐢 logo for her knitting, she always signed her texts with 🐢, etc. Last night I dreamed I was walking in a salt marsh, like where I grew up in CT. The grass was winter grey and I was walking along a drainage canal. I heard a splash and turned around and it was a big turtle behind me. It swam up to me and then to the bank where I was standing and stopped, and we looked at one another till the dream faded. 

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Thank you for sharing that, Gwen.  My husband was Native American, I loved hearing their stories and lore.

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13 hours ago, Gwenivere said:

Tom, I found this on a quick google search.

http://www.spiritanimal.info/turtle-spirit-animal/

 

Thar's beautiful Gwen thanks so much ❤️🐼

Yes The turtle represents the way of peace – whether it’s external or internal Susan was peaceful. Things didn't bother her and it took very little to make her happy with that beautiful smile. She gave unconditional love to a somewhat grouchy 🐼. She was always telling me "Don't worry about it" and "It's not the end of the world" and I would argue with her! But she was right - there was nothing to worry about while we were together.

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Alina,

I"m so sorry that this happened to you , but don't apologize. This is our safe place.

My first loss was in 2009, and on Oct 11, 2017 I lost my second spouse. The emptiness around the Christmas season has never gone away, it lessened for a period and now once again, it's back just as strong.

I'm hoping you can a little joy in your heart, maybe the memories will help or is it too soon? 

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I can relate to all of you.  Dread these darn holidays.  Trying to get by.  It's been 2 and 1/2 years, but still so sad to be without John.  I also had knee surgery and on the third day.  It was a arthroscopic meniscectomy but it hurts and, of course, I can't seem to make myself just sit and rest.  I'm trying, but when I do that I can't get away from the horrible sorrow.  At least walking and doing something physical allows some peace for a while.  Although you wouldn't wish this on anyone, it is a comfort to know you're not alone in how you feel.  I know you are all hurting too.  Hugs to everyone....Cookie

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