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Loss Of Dreams, No Purpose


Guest Guest_Deborah_*

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Guest Guest_Deborah_*
Sitting here tonite, I am still struggling as to why I should go on. Being left behind is so hard. People around me just don't understand how losing Larry affects EVERY thing in my life. They go back to their lives, their plans, their families, planning their next vacations... My day consists of trying to decide if I'm willing to go on or not. My neighbors are back to their own routines. Friends have moved on. What am I supposed to do? I contacted a newly young widows group... no one will has returned a phone call. I received their newsletter, they are going on a cruise, a day ski trip. How is that supposed to help me? I'm not interested in that stuff and I don't have money to even attend anyway. I was left with nothing but our dogs. I'm sorry to sound so sorry for myself but Larry's dying has left me feeling this way.
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Dear Deborah,

I am so sorry for your loss. I can remember little about what 2 months was like. I was still in shock and barely hanging on to my sanity. And there still are days that I think I will loose my mind but those days have grown further apart with time. It's been nearly 8 months since Gene had to leave.

I have no support groups where I live, no one to talk to...this site has been my support. Write about Larry...write to Larry, scream, yell, cry here....we listen. We all know the pain. The world goes on around you and your mind can't understand why. This is so hard. As much as I hated to hear it and could not believe it in the beginning of this journey, time does help. The constant pain will ease...it has not gone away but the periods between accepting pain and being overwhelmed by pain become farther apart. Larry goes with you...the love is always there...you carry Larry with you. As WaltC has said.."because you live, Larry lives". For me the pain is my price for the LOVE. I keep reminding myself that I was so blessed for 28 years...I am still blessed because it's not over...the love goes on.

Be gentle with yourself. You are at the beginning of this horrible jorney none of us wanted. We can only do what's left of our lives one moment at a time. Our loved ones are with us each step of the way.

Know that you are not alone. I and others are thinking about you.

I wish just a moment of peace for all of us.

Always Gene!

Always!

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"Always Gene", you said that beautifully!!! It's been 14 months for me and the pain has eased some. I used to cry everyday and now it's not as often. Doesn't mean that I don't miss him SO MUCH everyday!! He was the best friend I've ever had and probably will ever have. He made me laugh and that is a huge part of him that I miss!! I miss his face and kissing it. I miss him coming into the kitchen while I was cooking or washing dishes and just putting his arms around me. I miss him hugely!!! If I had just one wish....

Time does help. You just have to know and believe in your heart that Larry is right there with you ALL the time. I wear a necklace that Charlie wore so it's close to my heart - so I KNOW he's with me. I talk to him and we knew each other so well that I know what his response is. Sometimes that response makes me laugh.

Just keep going!! Time goes by so quickly that before you know it, the pain will slighten for you too. Just carry him through life and things will be OK.

We're always here!!

My thoughts are with you.

Patti

(for my love, Charlie - 6/10/58 - 11/16/04)

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I lost my husband on Father's Day, and I barely remember last summer...I was in a fog the whole summer and it's like I lost the entire summer. I remember come Labor Day wondering when it had come and gone, and I missed it. I remember spending a lot of time on this forum and talking on the phone...trying to connect with people, pouring out my feelings through writing. Trying to assimilate it all...it's hard. The only thing I can say is, be kind to yourself. Don't expect too much. You will make it through the best way you know how, and it may not the the way others do, for all of us have to find our own way to survive. We are here for you in your journey. I wish you the best in it!

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Guest Guest_Deborah_*

Thanks to all who respond to me messages so graciously, I know you are suffering also. I wanted you to know that it helps, just being understood. I guess I need to learn not to be so hard on myself. I know my life has changed, I just don't want to accept it. Why would I choose to live without him, thats what I have to figure out. People say to me, Larry wouldn't want you to be this upset. What does that mean?? We held on to hope until the last second. He had to know I would be devastated. He knew my heart would be broken. I wish I could feel he was with me. The only time I speak to him is in pleading with him to help me sleep, or help me go on. I just can't bring myself to just talk to him, it makes it all too real. Thank you all for your help. It does make me feel like I may still be on planet earth even though it doesn't feel like it.

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Thanks to all who respond to me messages so graciously, I know you are suffering also. I wanted you to know that it helps, just being understood. I guess I need to learn not to be so hard on myself. I know my life has changed, I just don't want to accept it. Why would I choose to live without him, thats what I have to figure out. People say to me, Larry wouldn't want you to be this upset. What does that mean?? We held on to hope until the last second. He had to know I would be devastated. He knew my heart would be broken. I wish I could feel he was with me. The only time I speak to him is in pleading with him to help me sleep, or help me go on. I just can't bring myself to just talk to him, it makes it all too real. Thank you all for your help. It does make me feel like I may still be on planet earth even though it doesn't feel like it.

Deborah,

The responses you have received have all been good ones, but I'm going to take a different tack here with what I've done and just recently.

Let's get this out there before you tear yourself up any further...YOU didn't make this choice to lose your Larry. Larry did NOT break your heart. Hon, you have to remember that life has a finite quality and we all have to deal with the inevitables.

I lost my fiance almost 6 weeks ago and felt like everything had ended...I had died with him that horrible day in December. (Read some of my previous postings on here...not pretty at all with all my whining and self-pity.) Everything that we hoped for, had, and dreamt of died with him. We were going to have a wonderful life and we, in our early 50's, finally were going to get it right this time around. His family and friends had totally dismissed me, and I was left a wreck and not feeling like I had anywhere to go, no one cared. All I wanted to do was die, give up living, and join him. For 5 weeks I had been making myself sick every day grieving horribly, when I had a friend of my Ed's remind me of the Serenity Prayer. He had gone through AA with him...almost a decade of meetings and the like...and the Serenity Prayer is the heart of every AA meeting and in the heart of everyone that has dealt with Recovery. My Ed lived his life around the Serenity Prayer and the 12 Steps of AA as no one that I'd never met before. How in the world could I forget the Serenity Prayer? It was so, so important to my Ed!! [i must add that I was so proud of my Ed being clean and sober till the day he died...almost 10 years to the day...9 Jan. would have been when he would have received his 10 year chip.]

Please take the time and Google the Serenity Prayer. Read it and take it to heart. Carry it around with you, make it your mantra when you start coming apart.

It hurts horribly to admit that we are not in control of such circumstances as that is human nature to be in control. We have to ACCEPT what we cannot change. We cannot control what has happened in the past regardless of the devastation, hurt, or the deprivation that we felt. As dear as my Ed was to me and I loved with all my heart and being, he is now in the past. He is in the past and I'm in the here and now...it is that simple. I cannot change his dying so unexpectedly of that heart attack...there was no warning and no good-byes to be had. I cannot change his family's actions. I cannot change a bloody thing because it is in the PAST and where I had NO control over the situation(s). It hurts me to have to admit that it is all in the past now and should be just a lovely, warm memory that he'd want it to be.

We make the conscious choice to be miserable and to allow such misery to dictate our emotional and physical health. Do you really enjoy being miserable and wallowing in the pain, making yourself ill? I didn't and was doing exactly that till I had my Ed's friend throw the Serenity Prayer at me as a wake-up call, something to live by.

I will love and cherish Ed till the day that I die. He was my soulmate in every sense of the descriptor. He gave me such joy and love. I had dreamt that such would never have been mine to be found again in this life, but there he was, my middle-aged gallant on a Harley with his long moustache and flowing George Custer-like silver hair. Our time together wasn't long enough in my humble opinion and not what he and I had planned, but we were given just a little time to call our's. I miss him and everything about him. I know that what we had is now in the PAST and in order for me to heal, for him to find peace with his Higher Power, and for life to move on, even if it is painful and not by choice, that ACCEPTANCE of the inevitable must be. He's never coming back and has died, but he made my life so bloody wonderful and even with all the pain I'm going through now I wouldn't change this ride for all the tea in China. I still cry and it hurts, but it has eased with the acceptance of what could not be changed and placing things in their perspective. And it will continue to ease as the days pass. Ed's my "forever love" from that one Josh Groban tune.

Trust me, as there is peace of mind and heart to be found in acceptance and to know that we cannot change the past, distant or immediate. This is the first step to taking the long road to healing and living again.

"God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change..."

Pat

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Pat,

You are doing well to realize so much so soon...the Serenity Prayer is indeed a very good thing to remind us all of, for this is truly one thing we cannot change. It's not what life doles out to us...it's what we choose to do with it. None of us would have chosen to lose our loved one, we cannot blame ourselves in any way...we love and continue to love them, but we must come to terms, somehow, with our altered state. Good luck to both of you...

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I lost my fiance almost 6 weeks ago ...(Read some of my previous postings on here...not pretty at all with all my whining and self-pity.)... All I wanted to do was die, give up living, and join him. ...My Ed lived his life around the Serenity Prayer...

We make the conscious choice to be miserable and to allow such misery to dictate our emotional and physical health....

Trust me, as there is peace of mind and heart to be found in acceptance and to know that we cannot change the past, distant or immediate. This is the first step to taking the long road to healing and living again.

"God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change..."

Pat

Pat

Sorry for your recent loss. It is quite normal during the early stages of grief to cry, "whine" and have "self-pity". There is nothing wrong with those emotions. In fact, one cannot by-pass such feelings and hope to be successful in over-coming grief and attaining serenity.

That Serenity Prayer was one of my wife's favorites. It helped her live with her increasingly disabling MS for over 20 years and the initial weeks of her stay in Palliative Care after her diagnosis of cancer. There is a plaque on her gravestone with the short version of the poem.

Serenity Movie

I disagree with your statement that we make a "conscious choice" to be miserable. What works for many people does not necessarily work for all. The Serenity Prayer did help my Jeannie, but It has not helped me find peace. I have not decided to be miserable for the rest of my life, and I would love to tell those who come here that all they need is the power of positive thinking to get ovet their loss. Unfortunately, that's just not the case for some of us.

I don't want to start a debate on this issue. I just feel that those who come here with similar feelings should not think that they are alone, or somehow weak because they have so much pain, especially during the first year of their loss.

By all means, read that Serenity Prayer and find some comfort in its words.

But don't think that you are weak if you still feel somehow cheated by life.

Sure, we cannot change the past, but we can certainly find some comfort by remembering the good times we had with our partner and looking forward to being with them once again.

I do agree that we won't achieve serenity unless we make a conscious effort to do so.

"Remember - when your dreams have ended, Time can be transcended. I live forever - Remember Me."

Josh Groban

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Guest Guest_Deborah_*

Thank you Patti, and thank you WaltC. I am familiar with the Serenity Prayer. I'm just not there. I don't think I am choosing my feelings right now. I'm grieving and I need to take small steps towards acceptance. I am still very disoriented and am doing the best I can. I would like to say that Larry did not break my heart, what I said was he knew losing him would be heartbreaking for me. Thank you everyone for your support and encouragement.

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I think we all feel like a puzzle with missing pieces. I know I feel a part of me died when my dear husband passed away. It has been 15 months now and I still cannot put my life together as it was. There are to many missing pieces to my life now, I hope someday some new pieces will fit into this puzzle of my life.

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"Charlie" - There you are.... I was hoping you'd come to our lunch last Sat. at Applebee's. We had some new faces there. We'd really like to meet you if you have the desire. I know I'D like to meet you. Seems like we have some "common" things. Both of our husband's were Charlie and they passed just about the same time.

We meet there each 3rd Sat. at 1pm. So we'd love to have you.

Take care.

Patti

(my Charlie - 6/10/58-11/16/04)

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There are to many missing pieces to my life now, I hope someday some new pieces will fit into this puzzle of my life.

I think this is a very positive statement...we all have missing pieces in our lives now, and all we can do is look for something good and try to rebuild our lives with that...it's not the same, it's never the same, it never will be. But we're here, we have to go on, and we need to make the best of a bad situation. Sometimes we don't want to, but we have to keep our focus and keep trying. Ustwo mentioned having a hard time focusing on anything but today, that's okay, sometimes all we can expect from ourselves is getting through today and that's enough. How I wish I could bring comfort to your souls!

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  • 1 month later...
Guest Guest_Vivian_*

Deborah: I don't know where you live, but I plan to attend a bereavement group next week through an organization called Our House. I don't know whether this will help me, that remains to be seen, but I know that on this site I've connected with people who seem to be speaking my newly acquired language and I'm willing to give a support group a chance for the same reason.

This particular organization places people in groups according to age and relationship to the deceased, something I believe is essential.

Please don't give up, we're all here for you.

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