Whoever Said It Gets Easier With Time...lied!

[nirac]

I havent posted in a while, not sure why..not sure why the urge to now. last week marked a year that charlie is gone. a year, I dont knwo where this year went. the pain is worse now more than ever, I don't find it getting any easier with time, I will say yes some days are better than others, but then there are those days that turn into weeks and I just can't pull myself out of it. Tomorrow is my 30th bday, I skipped my bday last year and would like to skip it again this year but people wont let me. If u would have told me a few years ago this is where I would be at 30 I would have laughed. I finally won custody of his two children which was a sigh of relief for the three of us, it happened on his anniversary, it was a bittersweet day.but aqgain if u would have told me I would be alone and raising two teenagers on my own I would have died laughing,but I guess that is my reality now, and I dont regret the decison of taking responcablilty for the kids, in my heart they are mine. but its just not the life I signed on for, not alone!

[pastmidnite]

My friend said to me that although people say it gets easier to him it gets "different" rather than "easier" like people say... I am sorry you have to deal with this!

[mfh]

Nirac, I am 14 months out and it is different...not easier. I still cry daily...most days several times. I think the second year can be harder than the first and that has been confirmed by grief counselors...we wake up, the fog lifts, reality hits and at the same time that we are now awake and grieving we are also wondering what our own lives will look like and were we are going and so much more. I admire you for taking on two teenagers...you get a medal and I also understand your doing it. Congrats on custody. A day at a time is the rule....sometimes an hour at a time. You are so young to deal with this. I am older, much older, and it hurts as much....your dreams have been disintegrated and creating new ones will take a while..a long while. My heart goes out to you and so does my admiration. None of us signed on to lose the most important person in our lives....and I am so sorry for your loss. Hang in with us. mfh

[Rachael_NI]

Hi Nirac,

I have not posted for over a year, but today I felt drawn back here... I don't think grief ever really goes away... I am nearly 30 too and if someone had told me years ago what my life would be like now, I would never have believed it or imagined worse. All we can do is just keep on going, trying to find those little things that gets us through the day. Its not a nice way to live but what else can we do? I am grateful to have this board to come to and find some support. Look for your support here and please try to remind yourself what an amazing thing you are doing for these two teenagers. Love and Blessings from Rachael.

[Lainey]

You're so right.. it doesn't get easier, the pain and emptiness is still there. Only now after the first year has passed, we understand the reality of this, our new lives. I am finding, after 17 months that the pain is different. Just a dull sad ache inside that no one else sees, but I carry it all the time. I laugh and find many things to enjoy, but Lars not being here to enjoy these things with me is always in the back of my mind.

Be very proud of yourself for getting custody of his children, they are so lucky to have you in their lives.At age 30 that is a huge responsibity to take on.I applaud you.

Hang in there, take time for yourself and the kids.

Lainey

[west]

I too just hit the year mark and the person who said the fog lifts and the grief is still there is so right. It is a sadness now that does not go away. It would be nice to have that love and feeling of someone who cares. the second year according to most counselors can be harder because of the reality of where you are. I hope and pray that we will all come out of this and find happiness again.

West

[kayc]

I'm sorry you're feeling it's getting harder, but it is true that it gets easier to deal with, with time. It's not because you miss them less and there will always be things that fall to you that you feel are beyond you, but our coping skills pick up and help our adjusting process...the key word here is "eventually". That "eventually" might be a year or ten, it's going to be different for all of us because so many things come into play that affect the length of time for our adjustment. Our own personality, how long we were married, how much we relied on each other or our lives were intertwined, how independent we were beforehand, etc. I have heard so many people say the second year is worse than the first...I hate to repeat it because I don't want to discourage anyone in their first year, and I can't say it's harder, just different and harder in different ways perhaps. The shock has worn off, we've quit waiting for them to come through the door or call on the phone. Life in this state is no longer viewed as temporary or a bad dream, now we know it's what we're stuck with and must live with. I think it took me about three years to adjust, if you can call it that. I still need George, I just don't have him. There is no one to hold me, no one to look at me in that special way he had, no one who thinks I'm the greatest, no one who will wash my car, vacuum behind the refrigerator, mow the lawn, no one that will pick up my Rxs and make a deposit for me, no one to bag my groceries at the store, and no one to cuddle up to and watch a movie or appreciate the way I cook and enjoy a batch of homemade (sugarless) cookies. There is no one to help me decorate the Christmas tree or put that special spark in every season, every holiday, every weekend. He is just gone and I will miss him until I draw my last breath. But I have gotten used to the fact that hate it as I may, I am alone. I think that took me until this year...and I hate to say it but he's been gone six years come Father's Day. It seems a hundred years and it seems only yesterday, both all at once, but it leans more to the hundred years mark...it's hard to believe sometimes that I even had him, that he really lived and breathed...I have pictures that show me we got married, but where is that life? It's a dream, like a vapor that dissipates...

[HAP]

Folks,

Dumb question from someone too new to all of this to have a clue: How much of the disappointment in year two stems from a belief that things were going to suddenly shift after year one.? How much is the effect of rising expectations that could not have been met under the best of circumstances? I know that I keep hearing from people who have no clue other than what they have read in some article on grief that things will be so much better after I have survived all the "firsts" of the first year. Do our expectations grow because of those outside influences? Does it come from being absolutely frustrated that the healing is so slow that sometimes it seems to us that nothing has in any way changed for us? I know I need to believe that all the effort I am putting into this is going to result in something more than endless grief. My wife died but I do not want her death to kill us--or me--or what we worked for. I know I am gravely wounded. But I need to believe there is a future beyond waiting for death to claim me. Otherwise I am just sitting in a bus station waiting for the bus to oblivion--or on an empty stage somewhere waiting for Godot to show up.

I know I am never going to be the same as I was when I had my wife physically here--just as I was not the same person after I met her for the first time. But every experience we have changes us. Neither my wife nor I were the same persons after her mother died. The pain of that death still haunts me--even more than my own mother's more recent death.

But Kay is right. For all that we are all on the same path, the path is different for all of us because we bring our own pasts to the experience--and our own expectations of what the future ultimately holds for us. And when those expectations fail to be met--despite our beliefs, despite our efforts--then the distance between what we want and what we can get can--especially in our fragile, often still shattered conditions--create anger, frustration and depression--even a level of despair--that our earlier experiences have not prepared us for. We become tired of being patient--we become tired of the constant settling for a half--or a quarter-- loaf. We want this pain to be over: Haven't we suffered enough already? And our souls want to be able to put down his burden after a year's time--the weight of it wears away our strength--will we never be healed?

I remember having a severe lung problem in my early 20s. It nearly killed me. I remember how long it took me to heal--and how frustrated I was after a year of patiently rebuilding my physical strength that I was still not fully healed. A friend kept counseling patience--that lungs take time to heal, that's all. There were days i heard that that I wanted to rip their lungs out--but I kept doing the work to heal despite the frustration and the desire to give up.

The loss of someone we loved this much is far more grave a wound than a damaged lung. My neighbor lost her husband a dozen years ago and is still not fully recovered. But she no longer curls up in a ball and cries for several hours a day. She is still learning to cope, but still frustrated by the pace of that healing. She is 1000 times better than she was. But she does not see it that way despite the enormous distance she has clearly come.

I am barely beyond the five month mark. I still weep. I still lose emotional control at the smallest provocation. But I play the stereo at a much lower volume than I did the day after I lost Jane. I no longer feel I have to drown out the silence that echos in this house--at least not every hour of the day. I am not where I was five months ago when my friends took away my car keys because they were afraid i did not have the focus to get myself back safely from the hospital.

In another thread kay has suggested posting a good thing that has happened to us each day--a positive moment to remind each of us that not everything is a burden and a sadness. Let me suggest we all take an occasional moment to reflect on how far we have come--to try to remember where we started this journey and what the positive differences are between those first awful moments of shock and awe and the moment we are at now.

The healing from these wounds is clearly an agonizingly slow process--and the distance we have come from yesterday to today is too small to measure. But if we look, perhaps, periodically at the differences between months ago--or years ago--and now, perhaps we will begin to see some more significant changes that will give us greater strength to face the obstacles ahead of us--and greater confidence that we will get past those obstacles just as we have gotten past at least some of the earlier ones.

So much for promising myself a quick bit of reading and a short post or two. There are two strands here talking about this same idea, as were some of the people in my physical grief group last night--and once i started writing i could not stop my brain from thinking or my fingers from writing-so much so I have just discovered the tea kettle i put on an hour and some ago has boiled away and blackened. Argh.

I hope this is useful.

Peace

Harry

[Chrissie]

Thank you Kay and Harry, your two posts expressed exactly how I am feeling right now and was just unable to put into words. It has been 16 months for me and although I am doing better, I have really been faced with reality lately. Tim is really gone and I have to continue my life without him, just like he'd want me to. Bless you all for your help with this journey, don't know what I'd do without you.

Chris

[kayc]

I think HAP may be on to something...it could be reality clashing with our expectation.

I do remember feeling a bit triumphant at the one year mark because I had survived all of the "firsts without", no easy feat, and I hadn't been sure in the beginning that I would or could. Did I expect year two to go better than year one? Probably. I can't imagine anything worse than that initial shock of the doctors coming to let me know my husband had just died, I will never forget it as long as I live. Or the shock/trauma state that I was in afterwards...the feeling frantic, alone, scared, anguished, the incredible pain of separation! I can't say that year two was worse, I don't remember it that way, but I'm sure it was worse than I'd expected because even though I'm in the sixth year now, I still haven't accomplished what I would consider a real sense of purpose and joy. My greatest purpose right now is to provide a home for my dog so I don't have to give him up, that would kill me. That may not sound like much, but right now it is my incentive and I think God knew I needed that when He introduced me to him. This is such an amazing dog, I've never met another like him, but I'm afraid other people wouldn't see him that way...they just see the responsibility that ensues, the rambunctious high energy he has in the house, the things he's chewed up or the holes he's dug...but me, I see the effervescent never ending smile on his face, the sensitivity he has with me, he'll come give me a kiss just when I need it most, the fun he is, how very entertaining to watch as he plays with his toys, prancing through the house, tossing them up in the air and catching them, it's like having a giant two year old, how much joy he has over the little things in life...it gives me continual fresh perspective. There's nothing like a dog to give you such easy appreciation...all you need to do is rub their ears or belly and instantly you have a smile or a wagging tail, give them a treat and they run off with it like it's a prized possession! Sorry, I didn't mean to digress...

But everything is relative...our despair, our joy, it's all relative, and we need to remember that about grief too. Could it be that year two merely seems harder because we've forgotten to some degree just how bad year one was? Have we forgotten the feelings we went through, the lack of sleep, the feeling overwhelmed with all we had to do and how were we going to do it?

I think rather than focusing on which stage is most difficult, we should just continue along as we always have, one foot in front of another, depending on God to get us through this one more day, trying to look for some little good in it...be it getting to witness special needs kids spectacular triumph, or a dog's happiness, or a sister's blessing, or someone letting us in line at the check out counter! It's not so much the "what" as it is that we look for it and focus on it!