Where I Was At The First Month Or Two...

[kayc]

I just went back and reread some of my early posts, from the first couple of months after George died, and I thought it might be interesting for some of those with new losses to see where I was a couple of years ago so they could compare the difference to where I am now, and see that it does get better eventually.

Not ready to get rid of anything:

http://hovforum.ipbhost.com/index.php?showtopic=596

Surviving:

http://hovforum.ipbhost.com/index.php?showtopic=620

Learning to live with this pain:

http://hovforum.ipbhost.com/index.php?showtopic=632

I don't know how to put links in here but I think if you copy and them it in your browser, it'll go to it.

[dpodesta]

Thanks Kay, one of these nights when I don't have anything to do I will go back through my own posts. You have come a long way the last couple of years. I heard so much of what I was feeling in the begining in your previous posts, and I am sure it will help some of the new comers to see that is does get better. God Bless.

Love always

Derek

[MartyT]

Excellent idea, Kay ~ and your links work just fine!

[kayc]

Derek,

I don't think you ever sounded as negative as I did...I heard so much anguish and despair in my early posts, and I remember how hard I tried to be positive! Can you imagine if I hadn't tried so hard!

[dpodesta]

Kay,

I think I kept a lot of it to myself. I was very sucidal for awhile and I don't think I ever posted it. I am better at trying to help someone else than for asking for help for myself.

Love always

Derek

[lorikelly]

KayC

Thanks for sharing that with us. I was just thinking about where i was a yr ago. My friends mom died and it made me feel sad all over again. When we were coming home from the cemetary yesterday , i thought about how she was going to feel. All those emotions and when the funeral is over and the quiet comes.

I realized that i have come far , i know that i still have a long way to go and that this journey will never end. I am proud of myself that i was brave enough to ask for help and seeked therapy, spirtual guidance and my support groups (here and the one at church.). I think we never look at how far we have come , we only see how far we have to go. I remenbered how i felt last Crhisimas, i laid my head on the table and told my husband i would not make it. i felt like every part of me was dying. i reached out for help and i did make it . Today i am going to feel proud of myself, all of you should feel proud. We still have a long way to go but we have made it to today.

Lori

[suzanne]

Dear Kay

Thank you so much for posting these. These are the same feelings I had in the beginning and are still having. I have often wondered if I can ever get through this because the agony is so relentless. I just reached six months on Sept 2. You are so right about people not understanding. My first day back at work I was greeted with "I know just how you feel". Well,duh, he got a divorce and has now been remarried for over a year. Then my Dad died on August 30 and at the funeral home some insensitive woman came up to me and said "losing your father is the hardest thing in your life you will ever have to go through". And it was terribly painful but I still had so much pain and grief anyway. My reply was, Losing your husband is pretty bad too. Well she told me "I don't know about that, I still have mine" And she knew about Will but she said she just forgot. She still has her partner to help her through, I don't. I don't forget. It lives inside me every single waking minute and eats away at my very soul. I miss him so much and long for the day we can once again be together. That one true unconditional love can't be forgetten nor ignored as so many try to make me do. Friends you thought you had don't call anymore. You, all of you wonderful friends here and Marty gave me hope that just maybe I can get to some point of healing. I pray every day that through all of us standing together we can find our way.

Love to all

Suzanne

[dpodesta]

Suzanne,

You will get through this, one day at a time. Keep in mind when someone says something to you that sounds insensitive that they don't always know what to say so they are trying to comfort. Like you siad they just don't know unless they have been through it. My favorite was I was told that I am still young and will find someone again. My response was that I didn't waant to find someone else, I wanted the person I jsut lost. Now that I am 17 months into this I realize that I might find someone again, but I will also be ok if I don't. And what will really get you is this person had lost her husband and remarried so you would think she would have known better. Any way, you are doing great for 6 months, just keep taking it one day at a time.

Love always

Derek

[kayc]

Suzanne,

I had someone tell me within a week after George died that he knew just how I felt because he'd lost his parrot...yeah and it was gone three days before it came back! Can you believe it! Comparing losing a husband to losing a parrot, and then the stupid parrot wasn't even gone/dead! No offense to parrot lovers, I love animals too, but a husband isn't even in the same ballpark!

[suzanne]

Dear Kay and Derek

Thank you so much for your compassionte responses. It is so true, nothing or no one can ever replace the light of your life nor would I want it to. I just had a response from someone named Duke who has lost no one. Why is he on here? Is this just something else I need to be wary of? I was so protected and shelered with Will. He would never let any harm come to me.

Suzanne

[WendyJ]

Kay thank you so much for sharing those, I didn't start here until it was about 5 1/2 months since Steve's passing but if I had started sooner I know those posts would have been me. I remember thinking that I no longer wanted to be alive but I was always told that if you commit suicide you don't go to heaven and I know my husband would be in Heaven without me and I couldn't bear that thought.

Wendy

[dpodesta]

The other one I have heard is that commiting sucide is giving up on God. That is saying that you know more than God because you think that you can't handle it anymore when God doesn't give you more that you can handle. If you really want something to read, read the book of Job in the bible, he had everything taken away from him and everyone was telling him to give up on God and give up on life. He hung in there and because of that God gave him everything times 10 back.

Love always

Derek

[lorikelly]

Derek

thanks for reminding me about Job in the bible, i am going to reread it. Lori

[kayc]

I am not positive of the theology...I too have heard that all my life, but I don't think it's quite so (that if you commit suicide you don't go to heaven). There are people that are mentally ill that commit suicide, do you think God would hold it against them because of an illness they can't help? Some people are just tormented. A friend's son commit suicide...I'd known him all his life, he'd accepted God as a child, yet he suffered from very severe depression that he was being treated for...they were nearing a breakthrough, but he was suffering so much he felt he couldn't hang in there and he killed himself. Does that mean he didn't go to heaven? I don't think so, I think when I get there I'll find him finally whole and happy. However, that being said, our eternal destination is of such great magnatude, it's not something I personally would want to take a gamble on in case I'm wrong...that keeps me from succumbing to suicide when the temptation strikes...that and the fact that I have a few people here who love me, and my personal faith tells me that God has granted us such a precious gift in life, who am I to look him in the face and tell Him it's worthless? "Shall the creature say to the Creator, 'Why have you made me thus? Heaven forbid!'" And so I continue and try to learn the lessons He has for me, knowing all the while that feelings, although they have a place in our lives, where never intended to be a barometer of anything. We should listen to them, but it is our faith that carries us through. Faith is the continued belief even when you can't see the outcome.

[dpodesta]

I believe that once you have accepted Christ that no one not even yourself can change that. Once you have accepted Christ all of your sins are forgiven the past, present, and future. Thaat would include taking your own life. However I agree with Kay, I wouldn't want to take the chance. God has allowed this to happen in our lives for one reason or another. I choose to go with that and try and live my life to serve God in what ever fashion that may be. He has given me this experience in order to learn from it and to do his will. It may be that I have had to go through this in order to help others, who knows? I will say, I may be at this point now, at the begining, I was no where close nor did I want to be. It takes time, one day at a time.

Love always

Derek

[kayc]

Derek,

I agree completely.