It's Been 13 Months Today.

[Suzanne R.]

Everything I ever posted I still would write today even though it's been 13 months today since he passed away on 1/22/10. I really don't understand how others have told me that I've come a long way and they 'think' I am doing better than I was at this time last year. I don't see it. I still hate the sunshine, I loathe the chirping birds, and will never step on a beach ever again because he is not here with me anymore. When he was with me, I wanted to live, I wanted to enjoy eating, I wanted to listen to music, I used to love to read, watch TV and do things, I loved all the seasons. But now, I know I will only have joy in the next life. I don't get it. During the past year, I've heard, 'happy easter,' happy 4th of July,' 'happy birthday', happy halloween, happy thanksgiving, merry christmas, happy new year, happy valentines' day. I don't understand for the life of me what's to be happy about. He is not here and when he died, so did my spirit. I believe I wrote these same words before and they still ring true. There is no point in my life. Everyone around me acts like everything is fine, but they are not me, and he and I were involved with each other 24 hours a day. I don't like being without him, I don't like life. I often wonder what's to become of me. A nursing home? There is no point in anything anymore. But, somehow I truly believe God is getting me from one day to the next. So, I'm just following His lead, even though I don't know how or why. I would only hope everyone doesn't follow my lead and is having a better life somehow. I know it's so hard for you all and I remember you in my prayers that you all have peace.

God bless,

Suzanne

[Lainey]

Suzanne,

I am so sorry that you are still struggling after 13 months.I wish there were magic words that I could say to take away your pain. As we all know there are no easy fixes for what we are dealing with.

Do you have family nearby that you could spend time with? Are you able to get out to a job or to visit or volunteer? Anything to take up some time and maybe make you feel useful again? I found with all the time on my hands all I did was think about my loss. I decided to get out, get some exercise, and volunteer. Now my mind is more occupied and I'm much more settled than I was 6 months ago.

You said" I don't like being without him, I don't like life." I still don't like being without Lars, after almost 15 months, but there isn't much I can do about it. Life goes on without them here,I truly believe that none of our spouses would want us to be sad and alone . They would want to see us smiling and enjoying life.

Hoping you feel better soon, I'm sending you a hug

Lainey

[sunstreet]

Dear Suzanne,

I so hear and validate your pain. I am so sorry. I understand it so well, as I have been right where you are now. It is excruiating. I understand how you feel when others around you say "you've come along way" when your insides feel full of pain and your eyes see nothing but darkness. Forgive them, Suzanne for they know not what they say. The only truth you need is your own.

I understand that you don't see or understand "what there is to be happy about" It is OK Suzanne, you are allowed to feel, and it is your reality at present. I do want to encourage to try and hold the belief that the way you are feeling will not be always.

I understand that the pain is so ominous that it blinds us to all hope, to all thought, beyond the moment we are in now. I do want to encourage you that you will not always be blinded by your pain. Hope is there just waiting for you when your ready to see it, it is patient, it will let you take all the time you need.

I am so happy for you that you believe in a Higher Power, God. I believe along with you that God is taking you from one day to the next. I am so happy that you seem to have not lost your Faith. Faith will see you through Suzanne. A visualization that I used a lot when I was at the place you are now on this path of grief and loss is I imagined every night as I tried to let sleep come that God himself came and took all my pain away and carried it for me while I slept.

When my Melissa died, it was the biggest challenge I faced in so far as my Faith and God. Here I am at just over 7 years now and I can assure you that my Faith is only stronger and God ever stronger.

Sometmes Suzanne, it comes down to just getting through the next minute and then it doesn't seem so huge. I remember thinking, I'll fake it till I believe it. That is I'll fake believing it gets easier until I believe it, it worked for me. Maybe it will work for you.

Here is a website that offers a lot of inspirational slide shows that offer a lot of comfort and solace in the wee hours of the night.

www.tommyswindow.com

Blessings and Courage, Carol Ann

[Den's Gail]

Hi Suzanne,

I just posted and said the exact same thing you did, what's next, a nursing home???

I've also told friends the same thing as you wrote, we feel the "same way" about all of this. I hate the sun streaming in the house, literally hate it and used to love summer. Now I can't stand it and I also hate hearing the birds chirping in the morning. It just seems all wrong now that it keeps going on without him. Everyone is looking forward to Spring and Summer as I used to, but now all I can think of is that Spring will bring the rain and I'll worry about our crawl space and sump pumps which I never had to before and then the yard work will start again. The days are getting longer and it's staying lighter out and all I can think of is that another season is going to start without him and I don't want to do it but I don't have a choice until God takes me Home too.

I know everyone also says that Dennis would want me to be happy but I know Dennis and Dennis knows that I was happy with him and he knows what I was like when we found out he had cancer and before we knew anything about it and thought he'd have ten years, I was hysterical! Then the next day I got on the computer and researched and researched and found a support group, close by no less, called the number right before 5 p.m. on a Fri. night and the woman on the other end told me there was a support group meeting the next morning, my birthday, and to go to it and to tell the leader of the group that she said to give me a "packet" and it was the beginning of learning all about it. We took a year researching our options, we had the luxury to do it because he just had an elevated PSA and after he had a biopsy we knew what we were up against and he was early stage. Thank God he was never sick from it, we just knew we wanted to treat it, a luxury I know many of you didn't have. Anyway, when we did make the decision, he went out-of-network and out-of-state for his treatment, not an easy decision for him I assure you because it wasn't easy for him to be away from his job. We talked a lot about how we would do this and I went with him for his initial consultation and overnight hospitalization, but for his radiation treatments he thought it would be best if I stayed home with our dog and the house and he would drive his truck down to FL and then fly back and forth on the weekends. Well, if you had seen us the day he had to drive away, I thought we would both die leaving each other. There was never a time in the 43 years we were together that if we had to be apart at all and it wasn't often, including when I was in the hospital having our children, that I didn't cry. It killed him walking away, with tears in his eyes getting into his truck and we were on the phone almost as soon as he drove off. I sent him cards that would be there when he got there and filled his suitcase with notes and surprises. He bought two packs of Valentine's Day cards and wrote notes in all of them and hid them all over the house and I'd find them wherever I went and cried as I read each one. Every Mon. morning when I had to drop him off at the airport I bawled leaving him there and couldn't wait to pick him up on Fridays.

I don't know how we could go through all of that and bury two children together and so many other things to go out for a bicycle ride for lunch one beautiful Nov. day to have a freak fall and die four days later? We were joking at the restaurant with the hostess as we were leaving...how could God just let us ride off knowing it was going to be the end??? We stopped at a drug store and I went to the washroom before we were going to get on a path just up the road ahead. How could he have left us ride off from there knowing that in a few seconds he'd be lying on the ground having a seizure??? I was in shock seeing him there but not even wanting to call for an ambulance immediately because I thought for sure it would stop right away and he'd have a stroke that I called an ambulance! But no, the seizure didn't stop and he didn't have a concussion as I assumed next because my Dad fell and had a concussion when he was drunk no less, but he survived from it, but no, not Dennis. We got to the hospital and the next thing the Dr. was telling me was that they were rushing him into brain surgery, this can't really be happening, it just can't, but it did. Then they came out and told me he had a 50/50 chance if he woke up in two hours but he never woke up. Unfair yes, but life isn't fair, is it. As I said in the other post, he always said life wasn't fair but we'd find out why when it was our time, but he knows now but I don't. I'm not even supposed to ask why, just trust God and I want to, but it's so hard but I have to keep faith that there is a reason. The wrong will be made right, good will triumph over bad, love will triumph over hate, righteousness over evil, but it's still SO hard. Blessed are those that mourn...

I too feel there is no point to anything anymore, no purpose. As I think many of you know, I'm almost finished getting off of the anti-anxiety medication I was put on when he died...a very high dose that I had to say I wanted to get off of in June of 2008. Now in just three months I will finally be off of them, but could still have a long road ahead of me yet in the withdrawal process as it can take up to 18 months for the brain to heal, but I've come a long way, but I'm doing it and I know he'd be very proud of me for doing what I knew I had to do no matter what anyone else thought and that I figured it out and sought out the help I needed.

I still reach out to others as much as I can and do what I can for them, but it still doesn't seem like enough purpose to be here. I always say, I helped people when he was alive and there wasn't anything we couldn't do better together than apart so it still doesn't make sense that he had to die for me to help someone, why in a different way??? I don't know, I don't have any of the answers but even if I did, I doubt it would hurt less.

I haven't turned on our stereo since he's died and I used to love turning up the volume and cleaning to it. Now I occasionally listen to a song online relating to grief and crying. I don't even clean much anymore, hopefully it will improve as I recover from the withdrawal, but right now it seems to me like why bother, it's just going to get dirty again and he's not here to enjoy it with me. I don't find joy in doing any of the things we did together before and I don't do them anymore either. I think the only thing that I have found joy in is picking out gifts for the people who have helped me along the way. Maybe that's my start, I don't know. I've prayed and prayed for God to take me, to spare a child or a parent or a soldier, but then I think He's punishing me for wanting to die. Who knows, only time will tell. I only know the thought of living to me seems impossible but I know I can never end it myself. I know Dennis would never want me to do that. Even the counselor told me I need Dennis to get me through this...

Love, Gail

[kayc]

Suzanne,

I'm sorry you're feeling low...you wonder why people think you're doing better and you don't feel it...it's hard to see progression when we're in the middle of it...it's there, but because things aren't the same and we aren't happy like we once were, we don't feel we're doing well at all. But we don't have the total panicked and shocked feelings we did right at first...instead it's settled into a kind of sadness or like we're carrying a weight with us all the time.

I hope it gets better for you, I hope it gets better for all of us. I know some have found joy again, but it's very individual as to how it goes.

(((hugs)))

Kay

[Ron B.]

Suzanne,

I'm trying to understand your experience of grief. Seems like you have carefully gathered your thoughts over the last 13 months; your posts convey a steady line of thinking about grief. This seems strange to me. Because my experience of grief was, well, confused. In the first months I was emotional, depressed, and desperate. Now, 15 months on, it feels like I've somehow clawed my way out of psychological depression. I feel recovery, and even growth.

It's remarkable if your thoughts and feelings really have not evolved over 13 months. Seems like most everybody else here goes through a lot of process or change as they work their way through grief. But your views are so singleminded and so tenacious that I've been dumbstruck for months trying to answer your posts.

Though you are entitled to your thoughts and feelings, you don't have to be completely stuck with them. We all have some ability to mold or change our lives. It can be as simple as making an effort to get something done. And if we make a systematic effort to change our own behavior, then it's probable that we can learn a new pattern of life.

You say that all the joy has fled from your life. But is that really true? In other posts you mention family gatherings. Obviously you still care about that. And probably there are a lot of other things that you still care for, and take some trouble over. 'Caring', at least for me, measures a vitality of life. I dearly hope there are still things you care about. In them you will find some joy.

You have written how you loathe the sunshine and chirping birds. Strange, but I too felt a measure of that years ago when I lost a girlfriend. Your loss is of greater scale, but at least I can identify with how you feel. What concerns me now is that the embittered feeling you have is so persistent. I wonder, could you learn to tolerate some of these things that are now so loathesome to you?

All I'm trying to suggest is that you can initiate change in your life if you really want to. If you are unhappy, then you can probably do something about it. Nature or God may already be healing you.

Ron B.

[sunstreet]

Dear Gail,

I am so sorry for your pain. I remember feeling exactly as you do know and it is so excruiating. I encourage you to keep giving words to your pain. To let it out. I know it is so hard to pour your heart out so publicly and I just wanted you to know that I heard you and I am so sorry.

Blessings and Courage, Carol Ann

[Suzanne R.]

To those who replied to my post,

I wanted to thank you all for your words of kindness, your hugs and support. I just wanted to also mention that I do go out when I need to for errands, groceries, appts., etc., for lunch with a relative, and to see family, but everything I do is just a temporary distraction. I attend weekly counseling, Hospice Widow and grief meetings, and I exercise and maintain my food plan at home daily. I don't volunteer because I wouldn't want anyone to get depressed after spending time with me. I don't know how to fully express my feelings and thoughts any more other than to say I am just being honest when I say I truly believe it is not a choice that my reaction to my husband's death is one that has rendered me incapable of feeling joy or looking for happiness when I already had it and now that he is physically gone, my desire for enjoyment has been terminally suspended. I guess we all grieve differently and it is so individual and personal, there are no right and wrong ways to grieve, and there is no specific timeframe for grief. We were together for 39 years, and I've heard from professionals and other widows that it is true no one gets over grief, we just learn how to deal with it. My husband knows that I was happy only with him and I wouldn't want him to tell me how to be or how to live when he was alive, so I don't believe he would want to tell me how to be or how to live from beyond. God is carrying me through and so I wait for my joy in the next life. Thank you for the link, Carol Ann. Ron, I honestly don't believe it is a choice. To me happiness is equal to living with Danny. Take Danny out of the equation, there is no happiness. For me, there is no recovery, there is no healing, there is no evolving, things that I enjoyed only because he was with me has no place for tolerance of what used to be the beauty of life. I just don't want to live without him in my life. I don't have a choice, so I await God's will to be revealed to me while I wait on Him to call me. Thank you all again, for your words of wisdom, advice and your hugs. It is really very much appreciated.

God bless,

Suzanne

[LostmyHoney]

I just don't want to live without him in my life. I don't have a choice, so I await God's will to be revealed to me while I wait on Him to call me.

Hi Suzanne,

I feel the same. You know that old Gladys Knight song "Midnight train to gorgia" "I'd rather live in his world, than live without him in mine"...but as you, I realize I have no choice but to wait till it is my time to go "HOME".

Though I have a plan for my life, only because I have some making up to do with my parents. I wasnt all ways the best of daughters to them in the past, and the lil bit o time I got with my Honey helped me to "grow up" quite a bit. Im hoping that I can spend some quality time with my Mommy and Daddy, BBQing for sure, Church on Sundays...ext. I'll be back in my home town with them and my sons on the 31 of March, though I may have some fun, I know I will always feel the slow hot burning embers of grief.

(((hugs)))

Rachel