I hate dreading EVERYTHING!

[kayc]

Cookie, they usually make you have someone pick you up, in fact they want someone to be there during surgery.  I didn't have anyone with me, but did get a ride home. Are you going to a rehab place afterwards while you recover or are you trying to do it at home?  I hope you can find a friend or neighbor to check in on you.  Maybe a church to bring you meals?  Or put meals in the freezer ahead of time.  So is it the 21st as in tomorrow or next month?  Keeping you in my thoughts and prayers, Hon.  I know how hard it is to be alone when you're going through stuff like this, it really accentuates it.

Gwen, let us know the outcome of the tests when you get the results.  It has to be hard to go through so much physical issues while dealing with grief.  As if one isn't enough! 

I'm getting the snow right now, I have six inches and it just keeps on coming.  It's predicted down to 12 degrees tonight, which is way colder than we usually get, not looking forward to it.  Haven't heard back from the &%#!@ woodstove place about the crack in the glass yet.    It seems it's always something.

[kayc]

2 hours ago, mittam99 said:

I wish all of you "happy" holidays and hope that all of us can find some meaning (and make some sense of all of this) in the new year.

I don't know about the making sense part but I wish you happy holidays also.  Mine won't be as I'd hoped, I'd wanted to go to my son's and see my grandchildren, maybe even my daughter, but alas we have snow, getting down to 12 degrees tonight, snow through Christmas with freezing rain on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day.  Not likely to go anywhere.  Shoveling snow off and on all day today.

[scba]

3 hours ago, mittam99 said:

Tammy elevated my world

I think we all share the same feeling about our spouses. 

 

[Gin]

I agree, Ana.  100%.

[Margm]

Mitch, you are one I've been missing.  I know Brad is teaching and hiking.  I hope all the rest of you can have as peaceful a time as you can.  Surgery is not peaceful.  Rehab is not peaceful.  Doctor's visits a pain literally in my behind, shoveling 12 inches of snow is very hurtful.  Lets see.......I'm trying to think of the rest of you.  Karen, hope you have found a place, and you are with your boys.  I know there are so many hurting, George, pile on those plates and slip them out to the car for you and your dad to not have to fix a few meals.  Bill, I do not know where you are located.  The one who relocated to Oklahoma, and those with long names, my mind is only 4-5 letters long, but my heart is with you even though my wax laden brain is not.  Fixing to go to some musical about Barnam  and Bailey, I think, "The Greatest Showman."  My granddaughter keeps me up on ............lI don't know what to call it.  Culture?????

[Gwenivere]

9 hours ago, mittam99 said:

 Now alone, this time of year feels cold and empty. There's no joy to be found.

I wish all of you "happy" holidays and hope that all of us can find some meaning (and make some sense of all of this) in the new year.  

what is there to make sense of anymore?  It never will beyond biology.  Yet I kept getting caught in the trap of 'whys'.  

Definitely no joy here.  I don’t know how I will get thru this 4th Christmas alone.  The eve, the day and my counseling is canceled the day after.  I don’t have the reasons like snow for being trapped.  It’s simple, I am alone, totally.  Of course all the holiday hype emphasizes it.  Monday every place will be closed.  A ghost town.  I’ve had one offer to go to the movies, but I am not really fond of the couple offering.

The more I try and write the more self pitying this sounds.   My counselors tell me this is the biggest time of year for clients in distress.  I’ve tried to make the coming days feel like the usual emptiness but it isn’t working.  I know I am not alone in these feelings, yet I don’t know anyone in the real world but one who could understand and we live too far apart to see each other.  Calling anyone else is pointless.  All have someone they can be with or talk to that has a connection to them, mostly family.  Children, siblings, whatever.  I was such an extrovert years ago.  Never ever in my wildest dreams could I have imagined such solitary anguish.  Suggestions make it worse.  I’ve heard so many I could scream.

 

[kayc]

After shoveling off and on all day yesterday, my carpal tunnel major rebelled last night, I had to resort to going to sleep with my braces on.  Hopefully we won't get such amounts at once for some time.  

Gwen, I hear ya, it seems everyone has someone with them, they can't imagine what it's like to be solitary.  A friend of mine often says, "At least my dog loves me, but she could be lying too!"...he means it for a joke but the sad part is it is our reality.  The dogs do love us...as long as we have food and treats.

[Cookie]

Thanks all:  My surgery is arthroscopic.  I will have someone to take me and bring me home....listen to what they say after the surgery.  Hard.  It used to be John and I didn't even think about it; just knew he would take care of me (spoiled, I know).  I am grateful that I have someone to help me, though.  I heard from another widow recently whose husband died about the same time.  She said she is managing well....what is the magic bullet?  I want it.  I can say that I'm managing, but well does not fit.  I am jealous; that's all there is to it.  I'm hoping to be up and around quickly.  Activity is what has saved me these last 2 and 1/2 years.  Best wishes to you all.  There are so many sad pitfalls this time of year especially.  I think we all try to get joy where we can, though....hugs, Cookie

[kayc]

Cookie, is your surgery TODAY?

4 minutes ago, Cookie said:

I heard from another widow recently whose husband died about the same time.  She said she is managing well....what is the magic bullet?  I want it.  I can say that I'm managing, but well does not fit.

Not only are we all different, our personalities and particular set of coping skills, but so are our relationships.  You are not grieving the relationship she is, you are grieving your own unique relationship with John, and that makes it tough because it was the best relationship in the world, to you!

[DaveM]

On 12/21/2017 at 10:55 AM, kayc said:

  You are not grieving the relationship she is, you are grieving your own unique relationship with John, and that makes it tough because it was the best relationship in the world, to you!

Kay, that is absolutely spot on. We each had a unique and wondrous relationship that not everyone ever has a chance at. I was divorced twice, but my brief time with Dana was the pinnacle of my life.

[Gin]

Dave,. I was divorced ad then widowed.  THEN Al came along and we had the absolute best ever for 16 years.  We were the best for each other.

[kayc]

I have you beat, Dave, I've been divorced three times although the third doesn't count for a marriage as we never lived together, I was married but he was not.    George was by far the only one that ever truly loved me as I deserve to be loved, and was it ever reciprocal!  It's weird but I've been away from him almost twice as long as he was in my life, but he impacted me so much that he's affecting me the rest of my life!  I learned so much through having had this love in my life, through our mutual respect and caring, the enjoyment we shared, he will never ever be forgotten.  I realize so much that the only difference between someone who has been married five years vs fifty is the one married fifty years has deeply ingrained habits that can be hard to recover from.  I see this when a partner is left, never having driven a car, or balance a checkbook, that can be hard for them.  But the love and our getting used to each other in our lives, it's amazing how quickly it can take root in us, we finished each other's sentences, we knew each other's thoughts, we knew each other so well!  Our communication was key, it was amazing!  In my 23 year marriage to my kids' dad, I never had this type of love.  Indeed it didn't feel much like "love" at all, I cared about him, but we were never on the same wave length.  We learned to partner well in raising our kids but that was about it and even that was not without it's struggles.

Gin, I relate to your words...when George and I were developing from friendship into "friendship with wings" (as George called it)  he would always tell me, "You're the best!" and it wasn't until after we were married I learned that this was in response to my having talked to him about not "settling" for someone, but that he deserved "the best"!    All that time he'd been hinting, he knew, and I didn't put it together!  But oh how we realized that love and enjoyed it.  I'm so glad we did!