In Need Of A Few Friends

[melina]

Today has been another "three steps back" for me. I haven't sobbed in weeks, but today I've had several sobbing breaks. (I suppose I shouldn't have watched Brokeback Mountain tonight.) I'm alone right now and can't think of anyone to call who would listen to me or understand what I'm trying to say.

Anyway, I've read about some of you who still grieve deeply after a year, two years, three, four, etc. Sometimes I don't know if I have the energy to get through this. I'm so tired all the time. I try to keep busy. There's certainly enough around here to keep me busy. But I can't find any enjoyment in anything. I had a couple of hobbies a few months ago, but now I just don't feel like doing anything I don't have to do.

It's as though I'm just puttering around, arranging and rearranging things, waiting for him to come home.

Melina

[Susie Q]

Melina

I can feel the pain in your words. I'm sorry it has been a bad time for you. Yes, I'm still grieving deeply 20 months later and I don't expect that to change either.

But I decided about 3 months ago that SOMETHING needed to change and so I started a bit of a fitness program. I can control my physical body at least! I've found that it has helped me a whole lot to have something positive to focus on. All the heartache is the same but I'm tired after the sessions and am sleeping better which is a blessing.It was hard at first to maintain the motivation to go but now I look forward to it.

I needed an organised program that required some commitment. I'm certainly looking better and that is a start.

It's hard to find something that will work for you but you have to keep trying and over time, you will start to feel the way you have been acting.

Don't give up - accept the sad and bad times as a break to regroup and get back a little of that inner strength that we have (just not all the time). Thinking of you....Susie Q

[nats]

Melina and Susie Q,

I also wonder about the grief journey and if it ever ends, I am at the 15 month point...I am in a little differant situation in as much as I got involved with another grieving spouse head over heels for us both due to the intense loss and emptiness we both felt and now she has put it on a friendship basis after what we both thought was "Love" which I'm sure it is but so differant and so close to our loss that we we're both in a tailspin me more than her as she decided this was best for now, this whole emotional episode has triggered a whole new grief for Ruth and now I'm sort of grieving Brenda, and she is indeed still grieving her husband...so I share this with everyone as a prime example that things are not as always as bad as they seem....now don't get me wrong I also know many more people have things rougher than me but sometimes it's tough to swallow what we have been given to deal with, and I also am getting tired, I fully relate to that, we all go up and down like a roller coaster out of control and it's so exhusting....well didn't mean to ramble we all just need a few friends and here we for sure have them...

God Bless All

NATS

[LarrysGirl]

Melina, I'm sorry you are having a rough day. Grieving does take a toll on us. I'm alittle over 5 yrs., have been on this site since pretty much the first year of losing Larry. I can tell you the exhaustion and fatigue are pretty common effects from the grief. It is so important to take care of yourself, like eating well, resting, etc. I did not heed this advice and am struggling now with some health issues that I know are due to not taking care of myself. Always staying busy, fixing the house, yard, pets, work and doing it all alone. Some things that took the two of us, I've pushed to do on my own and it has caught up with me. Please take it easy on yourself, it is a tremendous loss to lose the one you love and it will take time for your body and heart to heal. Deborah

[Lainey]

"I've read about some of you who still grieve deeply after a year, two years, three, four, etc. Sometimes I don't know if I have the energy to get through this. I'm so tired all the time"

Melina, your words are so true, I don't have the energy anymore and I'm physically tired as well as emotionally tired. And I thought the first year was hard!! Today I tried to recall some of the things that I did last year,other than the obvious things, my mind was blank. My memory is gone, I generally had a list of things to do, groceries etc. Now I make the list and lose it.Motivation is lacking also. I wonder if it could be spring causing these feelings. We both loved this time of year and now I don't have Lars to enjoy it with

Hope your feeling better, let yourself have your crying time, it heals you.

Lainey

[melina]

Thanks everyone,

It's good to know I have friends out there who understand - who get this. What can we do except just plod on and hope that we have a few good days and good moments in between the bad.

Melina

[kayc]

Gosh, I think we all must be feeling this way to some extent. Susie, you offer the best suggestion and I know I need to take better care of myself, esp. since the doctor put me on Prednisone and I gained 20 lbs and was 20 over to start with, now it's harder to exercise with all that extra weight and only makes me feel worse about myself. I feel depression, not extreme, just a little, but it's there anyway, I think cuz I don't see the point. Every day, M-F, I get up and commute 50 miles to work, work all day, then another 50 miles back home. I walk the dog before and after work, then feed the animals and myself and when I'm done, it's almost time for bed. Every day I get up and do it all over again, always alone, nothing fun, nothing to look forward to. Saturdays I clean house and do chores, laundry, cooking, etc. By evening I'm too tired for anything. Sundays I get up and go to church, leaving the house at 8:30 and getting home between 12:30 and 1:30 or 2:00 depending on what they have going. I fix something to eat and spend the day with my dog. Then it's time to repeat the week. What is there to look forward to? Holidays drag out because then you have an extra day and although the free time is nice, what is it to look forward to? So you have more time to do chores? Or more time to be alone? It's been six years and I guess I've given up on it getting any better.

I struggle to do things alone but can't get the riding lawnmower started and no one to call, the lawn is one foot high now...

Transmission still out on the truck, no one interested in taking a look at it and no money to pay a garage to fix it.

No one interested in helping me move the refrigerator out so I can vacuum behind it.

what do you guys do about these things? I don't have a dad or brothers or brother-in-law to call upon, everyone lives so far away. And that's another thing, I couldn't sell my home if I wanted to, with the drop in the market nothing is selling and now I'm upsidedown, it's worth less than 40% of what it was just three years ago. I feel like I'm stuck and I don't know why God keeps me around.

Sorry to sound so depressing, it's where I am right now.

[Queeniemary]

Melina, Keeping busy does help me, but I agree with Kayc, that sometimes it feels like I am just spinning my wheels, repeating same schedule over and over. I am retiring next week, looking forward to retirement, but also afraid that I won't be "busy" enough. Don't think these feeling of grief ever go away, at least they have not for me at nearly 16 months, but I think the best we can do is just somehow learn to live with it. I am trying, and pretty peaceful most of the time, but then something will trigger the grief, and it is like it is happening all over again. I have to say that I do have more peaceful days than otherwise, and I am grateful for that, but life does just stretch out ahead, and I am thinking.....what am I gonna do with the rest of my life! I am just rambling along, but just wanted to tell you that you are not alone in your feelings. Just wish none of us had to be on this journey, but am grateful for those here for their support.

Mary (Queeniemary) in Arkansas

[melina]

Thanks Kay and Mary,

I also feel that way - that I'm trapped in a routine that involves a lot of work, but few rewards. My days off are only good in that I can sleep longer, but otherwise they're pretty empty. I just want to have something to look forward to. Some reason for still existing. Why am I still here? What am I meant to be doing?

Kay, I'm sorry about your situation with the house and truck and no money. Why did the doctor put you on Prednisone? And how did things work out with your job? You wrote that there might be some lay-offs.

Hoping everyone manages to get through Sunday okay. Thanks for all the replies...

Melina

[HAP]

Dear Melina,

It's been a rough few days on my end, too. I read your post last night, but just could not find the strength to do more than nod in agreement. Even though i know there is work for me to do, even though I get thrown every conceivable sign that Jane is ok, even though I try to laugh and keep moving forward, every day is a strain. Trust that there is purpose to what you are experiencing. Trust that there are signs of hope around you--even though you do not perceive them.

A wise man once told me: The best steel must pass through the fire. The darker the moments in my life have been the more fire I knew I was being put through. Those fires strengthen the blade. And the better the blade, the more fire it must face--and the greater the work that lies ahead for it to do.

The heat of the fires you are encountering now tell me you have important work to do. It may not always seem that important to you, but it will be for someone. At the top of my profile is a quote I first heard when my wife was in the hospital. It has become a motto for me in the days since her death: Be kind to everyone you meet for you cannot know the burdens they are carrying.

Your kindness to me in the first days I was here may be a piece of that work that you do not know that you are doing but may be important in the other person's life. The corollary to that quote may well be that we never know the extent--or the power-- of our impact on another person's life, so we can never know how important anything we do for someone else may be to his or her future. Christ says it well: whatever you have done for one of these you have done for me. He means, I think, that you need to treat everyone as though you thought they might be God--not because they might be but because we all are a part of God and need to be treated with a special kindness.

Here, we all know at least one of the burdens we are all carrying. But for each of us that is both the same burden and a very different burden. But that is not the only burden we carry. We come to this with different life experiences and a raft of other burdens that shape how we carry this one. Your isolation in Norway creates additional burdens for you because you feel isolated by the fact you are a stranger in a strange land. And you came to this new burden, from the sound of it, at the same moment you suddenly found yourself with a nearly empty nest--your children grown and moving out on their own.

But despite those burdens and your own pain, look at your last post--asking Kay about her problems and troubles--sensing that there is more to her situation than she lets on. Your compassion--and your ability to listen--are both things of great value--not only here but in the wider world.

So be patient with yourself. And be patient with the world. What you are supposed to be doing may never be clear to you because you are too busy doing it to notice how important you truly are.

Peace,

Harry

[melina]

Thanks Harry,

That was an awesome reply (if I may use so outdated a word). Thanks for listening to me and showing me empathy in spite of your own pain. Sorry you've had some rough days as well.

My grief counselor has been my lifeline, apart from this group. She's the hospital chaplain who was actually in the room when my husband died, so she was witness to my first reaction which I now don't even remember, apart from a lot of wailing.

Anyway - she told me once this story about a man who is walking in the woods and sees a butterfly struggling to emerge from a cocoon. The man watches it for a while and feels sorry for it. Such hard work, poor thing. So he takes out a pocket knife and slits open the cocoon to free the butterfly from its struggles. When it comes out, its wings are weak and underdeveloped, and it can't fly. If the butterfly had finished its battle with the cocoon, it would have been strong enough to fly away.

When I first heard the story I thought - yeah, right. But gradually I've come to see her reasoning. If there is some sort of cosmic order - where this is part of our learning process here on earth, or if there is a God who has work for us to complete before moving on - I don't know. But they do say that whatever doesn't kill you makes you stronger. I suppose sometimes that may be true.

Just wish we didn't have to be the ones to go through this.

Melina

[kayc]

Melina, I'm off Prednisone right now, but not w/o having gained weight from it first. My job continues to be precarious at best...kind of like waiting for the ax to fall any minute. My boss has been unable to sell the company and it continues to operate in the red and he continues to be behind paying payroll. Hopefully my son will have a chance to look at the truck this summer inbetween terms...