My Wife Was My Best Friend

[Riverbear]

We were together 15 years - just married this Valentine's Day, at 12,500' at our favorite ski mountain.

She passed on June 5th, from liver failure. She was 46 - we have no kids, no close friends, and no nearby family. We always relied on each other.

Counselors, chat rooms, friends/family, comforting messages like 'She's watching over you now'...nothing seems to be helping. I keep hearing I should expect this terrible pain to continue for months or years. I can't. I am done.

[Penny]

I am so sorry Riverbear. I wish I had comforting words to give you...but as you said...they are but words and they haven't helped me in the least. My only advice is to find something to hang on to....find something to live for and find something to do.

I know the lonliness. I recently lost both my Mother and my brother...very close to both of them. I am not married and have no children. They were not only my family but my best friends. I am alone too.

Your loss is so very recent as well. I wish the pain would ease for you.

Riverbear...we have no choice but to continue on. Please find something to hold on to.

My thoughts are with you.

Penny

[MartyT]

Dear Friend,

I am filled with sadness to learn of your tragic loss of your soul-mate, this woman you married barely four months ago who died too soon at the age of 46. As I read your story I am reminded of a poem that appears on the Comfort for Grieving Hearts page of my Grief Healing Web site:

Undo it, take it back,

make every day the previous one

until I am returned to the day

before the one that made you gone.

Or set me on an airplane traveling west,

crossing the date line again and again,

losing this day, then that,

until the day of loss still lies ahead,

and you are here instead of sorrow.

— Nessa Rapoport, in A Woman's Book of Grieving

The feelings you describe so vivdly – pain, sorrow, abandonment, loneliness, hopelessness and despair – are so very normal, especially at this early point in your grief journey. You say that nothing anyone says seems to help right now, and I’m sure that is true. The bitter fact is that no matter what others say to you, no matter how caring and sensitive their words may be, there is nothing anyone can say that will give you what your heart really wants and needs – and that is to have your wife back. But that is not to be, and coming to terms with this awful, unspeakable reality cannot be achieved overnight. It’s way too big and too painful to take in all at once.

Of course it is discouraging when others tell you this is what you can expect for the next several months or years. I think it’s more accurate to say that while the acute, gut-wrenching pain you’re feeling now will lessen in intensity over time, it will never go away completely. Maybe it will help if you think of it this way:

Grieving is as natural

as crying when you are hurt,

sleeping when you are tired,

eating when you are hungry

or sneezing when your nose itches.

It's nature's way of healing a broken heart.

A cut finger is numb before it bleeds.

It bleeds before it hurts.

It hurts until it begins to heal.

It forms a scab and itches until finally,

the scab is gone and a small scar is left

where once there was a wound.

Grief is the deepest wound you will ever have.

Like a cut finger,

it goes through stages and leaves a scar.

When you try to help someone heal from their pain,

chances are you are probably healing yourself.

Listen to the words

within your own heart.

— Patti Filion, The Compassionate Friends

Nothing the good people on this site can say will take away your pain or bring back your wife to you, my friend, but if you'll permit us to walk beside you, we hope to persuade you that you need not travel this difficult path alone.

Wishing you peace and healing,

[yellowroseoftex03]

Dear ((Riverbear))

I couldn't sleep and found this link. The first thing I saw was your post and I could so relate to you. My Partner and best friend passed New Years Eve from Liver failure also. They had a liver for him for transplant but he had a seizure. They did an MRI and found brain cancer. It was so devastating as we were to be married in January we were waiting until after transplant. We had been together for seven years. I feel your pain Hon. It's like I'm just walking through the motions of life and trying to keep going forward. I am also very ill and am on Chemo and many other meds, its really hard to keep fighting without him by my side. I feel like part of me is gone like a whole in my existance. I start feeling a little better or will have a fairly ok day when all of the pain seems to rush back in like he just left. I know for a fact he is still with me in spirit like your wife is with you. It's just so hard because we can't touch them. ((Eddie)) and I had many talks and his worse fear was me going first. At the memorial something I will never forget, our bodies in time will ware but our love lasts forever. Even through passing this is something that will never be taken away from us. Another thing that was told to me recently is that ((Eddie)) wasn't mine he belonged to God just like you and I. Eddie and your wife was lent to us for a while and what a blessing to have been given such a wonderful gift. We will make it and we will be ok with time but for me I know I will never forget until we meet eachother again. For some reason we are still here, God is not finished with us yet, we still have things to do in this life. I'm sending you prayers for healing in turn this also will help me. Love, Theresa