I strive to be a better person...

[Widowedbysuicide]

47 minutes ago, Gwenivere said:

   

My last real outlet of volunteering has become a hassle because of a woman who dislikes me so much and I don’t know why, has the power to make what once was a pleasure and turn it into a tense experience with rules and restrictions directed at me.   Not worth getting into the details off that beyond it makes it hard to go and do what I have for 24 years and left with a positive feeling inside.  

I can totally relate to this.  It's not you that is the problem but she has hurt you deeply and you don't need that.

I know purpose has to come from within and won’t come to me sitting here.  I think of things I want to do but I am so limited physically it gets discouraging.  I don’t have any hobbies as my family with Steve was that, my life.  You can’t create interest in things you don’t feel.  I used to draw, evvident by pictures framed around the house.  Can’t force that.  Only my dogs depend on me for care.  If something were to happen to me, it would be days anyone noticed.  Sometimes I have felt so desperate I’ve considered calling the Crisis Clinic and that feels so awful showing me how alone I am.  My counselors are great, but they are not my friends.  Ethical divide there.  

Calling the Crisis line was one of the best things I did.  They listened and offered appropriate resources when there was no one else I could call.  Don't ever feel bad when you are looking after yourself.

....I’m just extremely sensitive right now and ...

(Excuse my formatting here 🤔)

Since my husband died I think people worry that his death is contagious. 

If their current behaviour is the best they can do then I am well rid of them. 

I have been extremely sensitive since his passing and I can't seem to shake the hurt caused by so called friends.  Your description of evaporation is so true.

47 minutes ago, Gwenivere said:

 

i do envy you having friends you can talk to.   I miss that as mine local ones  have have evaporated for many reasons.  The ones I know would still 'be there' for me have ironically died.  

 

I hope life I improves for all of us on here.  Sorry that life is so unrewarding right now.

[kayc]

@DarrelW  Don't know how this thread went from A to Z but just wanted you to know I've missed seeing you on here lately and hope you're doing okay...

To all the others posting here, I don't think any of us feel any judgment to our fellow journeymen here, we're happy for them when they've found love, I'm not looking for it, I'm content living my life as it is...wow, that statement surprised me, but I realize I have gotten used to living alone and am not looking for something else.  Like Marg, I've learned never say never as we have seen older people surprised, my good friends Beth and Bob met and married in their mid-80s, still I don't look for that but certainly wouldn't judge anyone for it either!  I just realize that what George and I had together was so special, I can't imagine it could exist with anyone else, he was very unique and just what I needed.  Lord knows the thought of spending 40 years alone scared the daylights out of me when I lost him, but now I'm a little further into it, it's down to 27 years now and hopefully way less than that.  I just want to make it long enough to outlive my dog and cat so they aren't left alone or scared, and to get my house paid off so my kids can take their time cleaning it out and selling it.  But not that I'm waiting to die either...I have a full life, I have purpose, I have friends, I am blessed.

[scba]

From Megan Devine`s facebook board. Don´t own this. I suggest her book

[Cookie]

Gwen:  I do understand, I think, what you are saying.  Even being as lonely as we are does not necessarily give us what it takes to meet someone new and get happy, and the "changing your life" thing is complicated and sounds a little like the "positive thinking" thing that can make one feel really terrible because they can't seem to achieve it.  I think sometimes it's just the roll of the dice or it was meant to be and happens despite what you do, which is wonderful for those it happens to.  I truly wish all those on here who have found each other much happiness, and they are lucky; who wouldn't wish them well.  In truth, I wish it could happen for me, so I'm probably a little jealous, but not in a negative way.....for me, John was my soulmate and love of my life, and if I could find another person who could be that I would be so happy, but don't think it's in the cards for me.  I do get out, do lots of things and meet people, but still have that big black hole in the pit of my heart and stomach.  I know, "never say never".....but it's not for lack of wanting and trying I can tell you that.  Cookie

[Gwenivere]

5 hours ago, Cookie said:

Gwen:  I do understand, I think, what you are saying.  Even being as lonely as we are does not necessarily give us what it takes to meet someone new and get happy, and the "changing your life" thing is complicated and sounds a little like the "positive thinking" thing that can make one feel really terrible because they can't seem to achieve it.  I think sometimes it's just the roll of the dice or it was meant to be and happens despite what you do, which is wonderful for those it happens to.  I truly wish all those on here who have found each other much happiness, and they are lucky; who wouldn't wish them well.  In truth, I wish it could happen for me, so I'm probably a little jealous, but not in a negative way.....for me, John was my soulmate and love of my life, and if I could find another person who could be that I would be so happy, but don't think it's in the cards for me.  I do get out, do lots of things and meet people, but still have that big black hole in the pit of my heart and stomach.  I know, "never say never".....but it's not for lack of wanting and trying I can tell you that.  Cookie

You are so right, Cookie.  Sometimes I swear if I hear that positive thinking adage one more time I will implode.  There was a time I had it happen now and then, but physical pain has robbed me of it.  There is only do much you can focus on at a time and this isn’t optional as it is there all the time.  Pushing that aside tho, positive thinking requires a hope and reason to exist.  That is my stumbling block.  If the pain went away it would help so I could do more and have energy to devote to navigating this new path emotionally that I was doing, not how I will get things done to feel again I can take care of myself, home and dogs.  My mind is sleep deprived so any minor problem is earth shattering.  Just want to curl up and sleep.  Rest that restores.

like some others, I have no desire to find someone else to fill Steve’s absence.  What I miss is a friend as I have none that I can truly confide in.   I have to watch what I say around people because they definitely don’t get it with their full lives with thier partners.  It’s tiring pretending I have interest in their plans and going ons.  I want to feel interest.  I've had a couple guys show interest in me but it’s not going to happen.  Too much work to try and feel that safety and trust I knew for over 3 decades.  The best I can hope for is caring without trying to 'fix' me.  I’m a different person now and have my hands full figuring out who that is myself.  Never say never can be misleading.  Some things you know deep in yourself are forever.  I don’t even know if this makes sense.  So tired.  

 

[kayc]

I don't think of "thinking positively" as bunk or something to fail at, but rather as something to try, so I guess I don't see it as a pass/fail or as a bunch of construed garbage.  I know some of you get volatile and angry when you hear it, that makes me feel bad because I don't know another way to be than to keep trying and if I try to be positive, it's not meant as a reflection on anyone but myself.

[Margm]

8 minutes ago, kayc said:

I don't know another way to be than to keep trying and if I try to be positive, it's not meant as a reflection on anyone but myself.

Kay, I'm sorry if this steps on anyone's toes.  Right now, living with grief, I am trying to help my son "think positively" through a break up of a relationship of over 10 years, and I pray that he does not go back into that toxic relationship.  He is bipolar and tends to depression anyhow and his dad was his hero, now he has cut loose a toxic relationship that was as toxic as the water in Flint, Michigan.  He tells me "don't worry Mama, I am just ready for what is next."  And I know him.  I have fought for him before and I won't quit.  And I think about all of us, there is no getting back with our mates, so "what is next?"  With the heartache that has happened and we try to lift up our virtual friends "what is next?"  I have fought for him before, fighting to make him fight for himself"  So, for all of us "what is next?"  

Thinking positive????  Hate to hear it???  Well, if we do not try to think of something positive for us, for the ones who are hurting, then "what is next??????"  Seems like one positive thought has to come from somewhere, for someone, for any of us, for one of us, because I cannot think all is lost for my son.  He is young.  He has so many talents.  And I have faced this bipolar depression with him before.  If I don't think a positive thought somewhere along the line then why didn't I take the 50 morphine and follow Billy?  Why didn't we all?  For some reason we are still here and if we cannot dig up one positive thought then all is lost and we are fighting too damn hard to live for all to be lost.  

[Gwenivere]

I should clarify, the positive thinking advice knee jerk I had was it coming from outsiders.  Join a book club, start drawing again, the list is endless.  Yes, activities are good, but they totally miss the mental side of it.  They don’t understand that getting up and dressed is very positive in this new world.

[Margm]

I agree 100%, which does not negate positive.  We get up every morning.  That is positive.  The new ones cannot sleep, that is negative.  When they finally get a full night's sleep, that is a very positive thing.  Waking up in the morning without thinking, realizing, that you  are alone, that is a positive, and it can happen.  Missing them is negative.  Talking to the clouds is heartbreaking, but I can do it.  One of these days, the one who broke down sobbing for entering his workshop, the day she can enter without crying will be positive.  Me opening these boxes will be positive, but it ain't happening any time soon.  Finding out my son is okay today..........that is a very good positive for me, but I have not heard from him and it is nearly 4:00 p.m., but my kids are from the vampire family, as well as grandchildren.  They prefer night to howl, daytime to sleep.  

Oh, as an addendum, advice from outsiders can just be ignored, you do not even have to acknowledge hearing it.  One longtime widow told me to just keep busy.  I ignored her.  My busy would drive her bonkers.  But, it is mine.  Other people telling you to do things, you can very easily ignore them.  I like doing that.  I don't even find it bad etiquette to just walk away.  I find as I get older, what people say really does not bother me.  Gnats.  We have a lot of bugs in the south.

[Margm]

Heard from my son.  That is  a big positive, even if it involved weed.

I don't smoke but I have heard a recipe for making butter with it.  

[kayc]

15 hours ago, Gwenivere said:

Join a book club, start drawing again, the list is endless.  Yes, activities are good, but they totally miss the mental side of it.

Those are all well and good suggestions for any of us, but they in no way are intended to "fix" anything or make you feel 100% better!  They serve to kill time, get you out of yourself and around people and hopefully raise your interest in something else.  I've had a slump in my 30 year hobby (card making) the last few years, just haven't had the interest like I used to.  Maybe mild depression, I don't know.  When my GF lived here, we'd do it together, so maybe it's because she moved away about three years ago.  And it might return if I joined a group but they usually meet at night and I don't drive at night anymore.  I was in a group for many years, it was inspiring and fun.  People say why don't I get rid of the stuff...I have thousands of dollars invested in it, I would lose a lot of $ if I sold everything and then never be able to re-acquire it if my passion returned...so I wait on it.  I have the room so no need to do something drastic or in a hurry.  And I do still use it when I need to, it's just not the same love and passion I once had, you know?

[kayc]

12 hours ago, Marg M said:

Heard from my son.  That is  a big positive, even if it involved weed.

I don't smoke but I have heard a recipe for making butter with it.  

Weed butter?  That doesn't EVEN sound appealing to me!  But I suppose they don't use it for the taste, not that I know what it tastes like, but...

[kayc]

15 hours ago, Marg M said:

Oh, as an addendum, advice from outsiders can just be ignored

Haha!  I agree!

[Margm]

59 minutes ago, kayc said:

not that I know what it tastes like,

I know it is widely used.  I also know it is illegal in Louisiana.  I never could smoke, tried to inhale and it hurt my lungs, so figured if something  hurt that bad it was not worth it.  Oh, I know I did it wrong, but  was not gonna try a 3rd time.  The last two weeks Billy tried it and as he could not eat and was throwing up, it  helped him for a moment.  Remember he had quit  walking, used a wheelchair but after a few puffs he bow-legged ran to me when he saw me.  It smelled like a skunk to me.  Funny, the maintenance building here sometimes smells like a skunk and going into Kelli's apartment building sometimes is the faint aroma of skunk.

There are recipes on how to make a butter, straining out the leaves and using it to cook with.  My nephew, on his first one (grown man, two years younger than me), had one and went and sat in the ER waiting room until the effects wore off.  

If it helps people with cancer though, I'm not against it.  

[Cookie]

On ‎08‎/‎02‎/‎2018 at 10:39 AM, kayc said:

I don't think of "thinking positively" as bunk or something to fail at, but rather as something to try, so I guess I don't see it as a pass/fail or as a bunch of construed garbage.  I know some of you get volatile and angry when you hear it, that makes me feel bad because I don't know another way to be than to keep trying and if I try to be positive, it's not meant as a reflection on anyone but myself.

Kayc:  It's so hard to articulate what you mean sometimes by writing.  I don't think striving for positivity or hope or trying to look forward is garbage or bunk......It is something I try to do and want but not something I want said to me in the form of advice or how to get on or fix myself when I'm in pain.  Do you know what I mean?  I have been hurt by that advice time and again since John died (as well meaning as it probably was maybe) because it shuts you up when you might need to spew hurt and sorrow, can make you feel guilty.   It's funny....if a person will/can allow you space to feel and be sorrowful, rage against the universe, and speak your fears about life and love, magically sometimes it allows you to make some small moves towards feeling hopeful and "positive."  John was really great at being able to do that and I miss it terribly.  I could be very negative and down and he was able to listen and just accept me where I was...he would hug me and say, "it's going to be okay."  Wow, how powerful and positive that was.  I guess since we're all on here talking, that is what you might call positive and looking for hope.  I know it is for me....fondly, Cookie

[Cookie]

On ‎08‎/‎01‎/‎2018 at 10:49 PM, Gwenivere said:

You are so right, Cookie.  Sometimes I swear if I hear that positive thinking adage one more time I will implode.  There was a time I had it happen now and then, but physical pain has robbed me of it.  There is only do much you can focus on at a time and this isn’t optional as it is there all the time.  Pushing that aside tho, positive thinking requires a hope and reason to exist.  That is my stumbling block.  If the pain went away it would help so I could do more and have energy to devote to navigating this new path emotionally that I was doing, not how I will get things done to feel again I can take care of myself, home and dogs.  My mind is sleep deprived so any minor problem is earth shattering.  Just want to curl up and sleep.  Rest that restores.

like some others, I have no desire to find someone else to fill Steve’s absence.  What I miss is a friend as I have none that I can truly confide in.   I have to watch what I say around people because they definitely don’t get it with their full lives with thier partners.  It’s tiring pretending I have interest in their plans and going ons.  I want to feel interest.  I've had a couple guys show interest in me but it’s not going to happen.  Too much work to try and feel that safety and trust I knew for over 3 decades.  The best I can hope for is caring without trying to 'fix' me.  I’m a different person now and have my hands full figuring out who that is myself.  Never say never can be misleading.  Some things you know deep in yourself are forever.  I don’t even know if this makes sense.  So tired.  

 

 

[Cookie]

Just now, Cookie said:

Gwen:  I hear your pain and feel much the same a lot.  I know exactly what you're saying about watching what you say around people.  You can't help and neither can I feeling like you got hit by a 2 x 4 every time you have to listen to someone's wonderful plans with their spouse, kids, etc. when all that has been lost to you.  I try to change the subject or just let the pain come, grit my teeth and go on.  It's kind of the human condition.  I was there once.  I was full of love and life and the possibilities were limitless.  It is such a high....I think the problem is when someone knows what you've suffered and they still can't help themselves from regaling you with their joy.  I guess that's the human condition too.  Who doesn't want to shout from the rooftops when they are in love with life....that is a good thing, I know.  I think perceptiveness is the key here.  Maybe I will have learned a lesson from my pain and if there is ever another life for me to love life in I will be that perceptive person around those suffering great loss.....Cookie

 

[Margm]

6 hours ago, Cookie said:

I have no desire to find someone else to fill Steve’s absence.  What I miss is a friend as I have none that I can truly confide in.   I have to watch what I say around people because they definitely don’t get it with their full lives with thier partners.  It’s tiring pretending I have interest in their plans and going ons.  I want to feel interest. 

First off, feel so much interest in yourself that you do not care to share it with someone who has not been through the flames.

I talk to my sister.  She listens and she really does not offer advice.  I talk to my kids.  Both hurt too.  I have lots of friends who are widows.  They seem to have learned from their own experience not to offer advice.  One told me to keep busy.  I thanked her, but her busy is not the same as my busy.  We all hurt.  We all are in grief.  I have let myself gain 30 pounds since Billy left.  Guess I fed my grief.  There comes a time when you realize you want to lose the weight, not for admiration from anyone else, but to be able to pass a window in the mall without wondering who that fat woman is and realizing it is me.  Some on here have lost children too, and I so hope and pray I leave before my kids.  

Thinking positively?  Think some for yourself.  You got  out of bed.  You changed that light bulb.  I bought three Rubbermaid ladders, different sizes, and I'm not afraid to use them.  Quit letting ignoramus's hurt you.  Might not be politically correct, but the first part of that word is ignore.   

(I took out half this crap, I tend to say the same thing over and over).

[kayc]

20 hours ago, Cookie said:

Kayc:  It's so hard to articulate what you mean sometimes by writing.  I don't think striving for positivity or hope or trying to look forward is garbage or bunk......It is something I try to do and want but not something I want said to me in the form of advice or how to get on or fix myself when I'm in pain.  Do you know what I mean?  I have been hurt by that advice time and again since John died (as well meaning as it probably was maybe) because it shuts you up when you might need to spew hurt and sorrow, can make you feel guilty.   It's funny....if a person will/can allow you space to feel and be sorrowful, rage against the universe, and speak your fears about life and love, magically sometimes it allows you to make some small moves towards feeling hopeful and "positive."  John was really great at being able to do that and I miss it terribly.  I could be very negative and down and he was able to listen and just accept me where I was...he would hug me and say, "it's going to be okay."  Wow, how powerful and positive that was.  I guess since we're all on here talking, that is what you might call positive and looking for hope.  I know it is for me....fondly, Cookie

We do need people to be in the moment with us, just sit with us.  Sometimes I feel the less said, the better.  It's when people open their mouths to us they say the wrong thing, especially in early grief.

[scba]

On Friday, August 03, 2018 at 1:53 PM, Marg M said:

First off, feel so much interest in yourself that you do not care to share it with someone who has not been through the flames.

 

You wrote that long ago, and from that moment I took it as a quote to stick to. And hardly never referred to my grief again. The difference with most of you is that at 39 hardly nobody lost "that" someone. Perhaps a grandparent, or a parent. Surely not a husband / partner. Not to death at least. I feel alone outside from this forum.

I came to accept I will not be that kind of better person again. Or Not now. Perhaps not next year also. I will strive no more. I am not interested in other people personal love life and I offer no advise, or I offer platitudes. My peers can freely talk about anything, but never ask me how is my grief. They are good people though, they are lucky to live in such an ignorance as to not know how it feels to be on the other coast witnessing. I hurt when someone new join us. It is not fair.

I am a good citizen, a good work colleague, a good neighbour. Sure that can be enough.

I came to accept that what I have had and who I have had, was rare, exception, uncommon, not ordinary. I treasure that although it doesnt help,yet.

Since I have accepted, little by little, that lack of deep interest and care are part of my present life now, i feel a strange freedom. A freedom in a myst of total unhappiness. 

My cynic salad. 

[Margm]

1 hour ago, scba said:

They are good people though, they are lucky to live in such an ignorance as to not know how it feels to be on the other coast witnessing. I hurt when someone new join us. It is not fair.

Oh my Ana, you are such a good person.  You are such a young person for this grief to hit like this, but one thing about grief, and even cancer, it is no respecter of age, gender, or anything else.  It sits in and on anyone, at any time.  It hurts the rich as well as the poor. Does not matter what nationality we are, it hits us in every country all over the world.  Different cultures take it different, but they all hurt.  In some religious sects, the grieving widow has to take the brother of her deceased husband, and in some religious sects here in the good ole USA, young widows are expected to take whoever the Bishop picks for them two weeks after death of mate.  (Yes, I watch too much Hallmark TV shows).  In places in India the wife throws herself on the burning pyre, called Sati.  Kinda glad we don't do that here, but I was going to follow Billy as fast as I could with those aforementioned 50 morphine.  I would have caused so much harm to my family.  I considered no one's pain but my own. I will follow soon enough anyhow.

We talk about being positive, well, how about just "being" and bide our time without making plans, and let what ever happens happen.  No guilt.  Nothing but living life as it comes to us.  I will be 76 this month.  I think you are so very much younger. 

I come from "olden times" families when you actually fought sometimes to make marriages work and sometimes lived through bad times, but I would not change even the bad times.  I remember my two grandma's  as widows.  As much as my grandma loved my grandfather, after many years another man came to "call on her."  She was receptive, but her grown kids were not.  They actually, figuratively, ran this fellow off and one of the "mean" sisters actually threatened him.  Now, my sweet little mammaw, hers was not a marriage of devotion like my  other grandparents.  I know it produced four children.  She was in her early 50's when my granddaddy died.  No one seemed to miss him but my dad, and he had beat the respect into my poor dad.  The only  child he beat.  My mammaw's best friend had died years before and her husband came "courting" and the grown children put a stop to it.

Damn I've lived a long time, no wonder my notes are so long.  Sweet Ana, lets me and you just take it one day at a time.  You've got a lot of life ahead of you I hope.  Live it my sweet girl.  That is about all we can do really.  

Myself, today I am going to a town about 40 miles away, country road, blacktop, plenty  of time to think.  I go past my last "home" and will stop and put other flowers on my mom and dad's, grandmother and grandfather's graves.  It is not a sad drive.  I love talking to Billy in the clouds.  

 

[scba]

6 hours ago, Marg M said:

You've got a lot of life ahead of you I hope. 

For young widows, somehow that length of time ahead feels like a life sentence. Last week I was at the hospital doing the yearly check ups. I am healthy, but then I thought if grief will come and take its toll on my health later on, I thought how long can I live with grief, how many years. 10, 20, 40, 60? I was 35 when I became a widow. My grandnmas survived for 20 years. 35+20=55, I won't need to hire a retirement advisor LOL

 

But then As you, and as Kay and Darrel repeat too to us, lets take it one day at a time. 

Thank you Marg for your reply to my post. I appreciate it very much. I enjoy your stories, also from the old times. Keep telling these. I'm not American and I enjoy reading about how was in other countries. I don't have my grandparents anymore. I miss their stories. 

 

[Margm]

1 minute ago, scba said:

. I enjoy your stories, also from the old times

Ana, that is mostly all I write on Facebook.  My son tells me that is the first thing he reads each day and my granddaughter on the East Coast likes me posting old, old family pictures like the one I posted somewhere.  She likes to read the stories and when she was little, I told her stories just like my mom told me.  You see, my grandmother missed her husband so much, she was a little country mouse store keeper.  Her kids, I guess, got tired of her grief and they told her to take her Big Chief writing tablet and write her family history with her #2 pencil.  (She even wrote her will on a Big Chief tablet, which you young people won't remember.)  That book, in typed version, copies have been passed down through all the grandchildren.  She wrote for the Bossier Banner, a newspaper in the parish, since she was 14.  Some of her writings are in the parish library and actually have been used in local history teachings even in aTexas college. She was very lonesome and in between waiting on customers in her little country store, she wrote page after page.   When computers came into being my cousins and I would email each other our impressions of all the country  reunions and holidays.  Now I have all their letters saved and now I have all the old pictures.  My latest favorite is my great-great grandmother next to her son, my great grandfather, behind him my grandmother, and my namesake Margaret, my aunt, and the name died with me, I'm afraid after generations.  The oldest woman's name was Parthenia and it was passed down too and has a smidgen related to long ago relatives from the Iberian Peninsula.  She outlived her husband.  I think he must have worn himself out..  She had 11 kids in 21 years without benefit of epidurals.  I'm sorry, but this is what I write about on Facebook and they encourage me, so I keep on telling family history. We even had gangsters and they were my favorite.  I was lucky, I had lots of cousins, a bunch of aunts and uncles and even my great grandmother until I was about 12.  Kept my grandmothers until they were late 80's for one, mid-90's for another and kept grandfathers until I had hit my teens.  And of course, I miss Billy more than any of them.

Made the 80 mile round trip today talking to large voluminous, fluffy storm clouds.  Listening to various CD's and only came close to crying once.  Okay for 1017 days or so, but who is counting?  I talked to him about our son's romance breakup after all these years.  I know he will be happy of that, I gotta tell you, she was not missing a tool from the tool shed,  had no tools in her tool shed period, talked to him about our daughter doing all the small town Mardi Gras photography, last night I think 800 pictures (with his new camera).  And talked over family problems, and we all have them.  He didn't talk back, but he was listening.  I think the only time he has not listened to me was when I was not going to let him go and he ignored me.  

[Margm]

1 hour ago, scba said:

For young widows, somehow that length of time ahead feels like a life sentence.

It is a life sentence Ana.  Until the end of time.  And the fairy tales lied, they did not all "live happily ever after."  But your "ever after" is not over and you are keeping up on your health and that is good.  I thought my life was over, and life as I knew it was over.  I fight every day to help my family, without Billy.  He was supposed to be here with me and we were supposed to be living finally in the RV again.  Instead, I live in an apartment, and I am not afraid, even with crime everywhere and in that big house that we had lived in, I would have been so afraid, even in a no crime little town with a deputy living at the end of the street.  I love, very much, a granddaughter that is afraid of everything and I hope we can break through that with counseling.  I see hope, even if she does not.  

I also see hope for many on our forums.  We might not can use the word happy, but this spring I saw the flowers, the fluorescent green in the trees, and mine and Billy's time was autumn and him taking pictures of the leaves.........for me.  I have not seen beauty since 2014 in autumn.  I'm hoping I see a little this year.  You see, like the wound not healing, like developing scar tissue over the wound, maybe, just maybe we can learn how to live, for you a long time I hope, for me, I am not sure, but I am not afraid.  I have people like you my young friend that will carry on for me and many more.  And we are strong, even if we don't want to be. 

 

[kayc]

Ana,

On my other forum are many young widows, 20s, 30s, 40s, and it breaks my heart.  Yes, it can seem like a life sentence.  I was 52 when George passed, he was barely 51.  I knew I could easily live another 40 years, it scared me to death!  Every time I have that thought I remind myself of "just stay in today...do today, you can do that."  I hope I don't make 90s alone, 80s is enough.  I can't imagine 90s being as I'm not near kids and can't imagine shoveling snow and hauling wood at that age.  I pray strength for the day...
 

I forget you aren't in US as your language is impeccable!