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How Am I Supposed To Go On?


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My beloved husband died on February 26th. I came home and found him. They suspect it was a heart attack, a side effect of the medication he was taking for kidney cancer he'd been fighting for almost 15 years.

I'm lost without him. We'd been together almost 26 years, married for almost 20. I'm just lost. We were so close. We never just said 'I love you', it was always 'I love you more'. Those were the last words I said to him. I went to work and then he was gone.

How am I supposed to go on?

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I am so sorry that you lost your husband. George and I used to say that too sometimes.

I am very sorry for the reason that you are here, but glad you found this place. There are a lot of new ones here, and those of us who've been here a while will keep on and see you through this journey. This place has been my salvation and I've been here nearly ten years.

You ask how you go on. It's helped me to focus on one day at a time...in those early days, I couldn't handle even one day at a time, more like that hour, or a minute. Breathe. Put one foot in front of the other and keep going. It's okay to cry. Okay to scream too (although I preferred to do that when no one was around). It takes as long as it takes. Try not to compare your grief/timetable to others, we're all unique and so are our relationships and our ability to cope. It will get better, but it takes time and effort. There's a verse in the bible that says to work out our salvation...well we have to work out our grief too. It does take work, it doesn't just magically work out, we have to work at it and it's the hardest work I've ever done.

One of the most important things I've learned is it helps to express ourselves...give voice to our grief. You can talk to someone, see a grief counselor, post here, journal...I even depicted how I felt and how my goal as to where I wanted to be through art. A lot of us here happen to have some form of art in our lives. Creativity can be healing and cathartic.

It takes time to find our "new normal". For the first few years I was wounded, with a gaping hole inside of me I tried in vain to fill. I finally learned it could not be filled, and I just had to work with it.

I also learned there is no way to circumvent our grief...no way around it but straight through it. We tend to want to avoid pain so we keep busy, trying to avoid feeling...it doesn't work. It's all still staring us in the face when we run out of gas. We need to allow ourselves to feel the pain in order to heal. Sometimes it's hard to live with the continual pain, so it helps to learn to allow it part of the time, but not all of the time. Some people have "scheduled" their pain/tears sessions to half hour a day. I never did that. I'm not sure I could have fit it into half hour anyway, at least not in the early months.

Know that whatever you are feeling and experiencing is normal.

You are not alone here...we'll walk with you.

Kay

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I know you feel "done", but you aren't...it's a process where we learn that we are still a whole person, even without our other half, and that there is still life for us, although not what we ordered! It's up to each of us to look for what there is now...it can take a while to see it. You are very very early in this, things may seem different to you on down the road, although the missing them continues.

(((hugs)))

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  • 2 weeks later...

I'm having such a hard time. I don't want to eat, I don't want to go to work, I don't want to see anyone, I don't want to talk to anyone. I just don't know how to deal with this. I have an appointment with my doctor today hoping I can get something, anything, to help me.

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My heart hurts for you, my dear, and I want you to know that your cries are being heard and felt. Of course you're having a hard time, you don't want to eat, or go to work, or see or talk to anyone. Of course you don't know how to deal with this ~ You've never had to deal with anything that comes close to this, so how could you possibly know how? You are in the same "classroom" as everyone else who comes here, and we're all learning the same lesson together: how to deal with the death of someone dearly loved, and how to go on in the face of devastating loss. You are wise to see your primary care physician to rule out any other conditions that may be causing your symptoms ~ but I can assure you that most of what you're feeling is a normal reaction to the fact that the love of your life has died, and it's an earth-shattering event that happened barely a month ago. Please give yourself some time ~ time to be where you are, time to sit with the enormity of what has happened to you, time to feel the pain of it all, time just to breathe. Share with us here whatever you are thinking and feeling. Tell us about your beloved. How did you meet each other? What was special about your husband? What made you fall in love with him? We would love to learn more about you and the love of your life.

We are here. We are listening. We will help you carry this pain. You are not alone.

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Yes, you are not alone, and there are others here who've just lost their soul mate as well. Your being so candid here helps them know they are not alone in what they are feeling. It IS normal to feel this way with your loss. I hope a grief counselor can be of help to you.

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