Mom's angel Posted January 23, 2016 Report Share Posted January 23, 2016 I was just trying to show that if I died my parents would have been in more pain then I am in now, just like the wolf is in seeing the baby wolf hurt. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mom's angel Posted January 23, 2016 Report Share Posted January 23, 2016 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Margm Posted January 23, 2016 Report Share Posted January 23, 2016 I think we all hurt and the pain hits us hardest at different times. My granddaughter took video's of Billy with her teasing him about music. She was his first baby sitter and would cry for him if anyone else held her. She is 16 now and my daughter was the birth mothers nurse in the hospital. She called him "Dade". She was his heart. She was wanting to play one a few minutes ago and I cannot watch it. I hope one day to be able to watch it. Some of us are lulled with music, some can sleep, some cannot, but we all are missing the most important part that made us whole. I just wish peace. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kathryn1 Posted January 24, 2016 Author Report Share Posted January 24, 2016 Today a friend took me out for a short walk and coffee. And it was surreal being in public and i didnt want to look at anyone. And how do you handle every single thing reminding you of your spouse, all day long. Simple things, like the car that pulled up next to us had a couple in it, middle aged, like we were. And today was one of the harder days. I barely slept last night. And its not like other bad life situations where i would tell myself 'you'll feel better by Christmas' or 'you'll feel better soon' cause i realized something today. The longer i go without him, the longer we'll have been apart and i dont want that at all. So i feel stuck and trapped. Cause i dont want to be here, but i dont want to more time to pass and feel farther from him, And as my friend and i were talking, i cant imagine a year without him, let alone another 40 years. And people say go day by day, but what to you in the moments of worst despair? Its like a feeling of dread thats so deep and dark Ive only felt it a few short times in my life. Crying helps some, but not much. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gwenivere Posted January 24, 2016 Report Share Posted January 24, 2016 Kathryn, you are going thru everything we all have. Maybe in different ways, but the emotional response is the same. No one can really tell you what to do in moments of deep despair because we all have our own ways because of who we are. I know it is hard to be filled with questions and hoping someone has the 'magic bullet' answer. But they don't, sadly to say. Since you were so traumatized by the suddenness and trying to process something that doesn't make sense, everything you feel is your mind trying to make sense of it and it can't. The only thing I was ever told is not to project too far into the future. Yes, you are wondering how you will handle this in 40 years. Normal, but maybe if you can try and stay in the now because you have limited energy and have to get thru the days now. It's ok to think those thoughts, but try not to give them much power. I know that sounds hard, but you have to survive now, not then yet. You will find yourself changing as time passes. What you think you can or cannot do today will change. 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kathryn1 Posted January 24, 2016 Author Report Share Posted January 24, 2016 Thankyou Gwenivere, thi does really help. Its always been hard for me to stay in the present and especially more now. I might need think more hour to hour or minute by minute now. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gwenivere Posted January 24, 2016 Report Share Posted January 24, 2016 I'm glad Kathryn. I forgot to say give yourself credit for what you have done, I ran around like a mad woman doing legal tasks but could not go out for a cup of coffee socially. Shows our differences. But you did it. That is fantastic! Also, you are the newest to this pain. I found reading how others began helpful, those in the same time frame gave me a good gauge and those who were farther ahead of me showed me there are going to be changes in my emotions. The Kathryn you are today will not be the Kathryn in a month, 6 months, etc. This is your path and we are here to share it with you. The very fact you reached out right away is more than many could do. You are normal. You will get tired of hearing that, trust me. But it is so true ax we take each step and sometimes get knocked back. Take good care! 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kathryn1 Posted January 24, 2016 Author Report Share Posted January 24, 2016 Thankyou. its so hard to think of what im going through as being normal. As i feel totally and utterly crazed right now. And nothing makes sense. And today when i was out with my friend i realised it'll be 2 weeks on Monday and i have no recollection of that time. 14 days? Impossible. Its like ive been in a coma as i cant remember much, if anything, and that scares me, but ive read its normal too. I have a big fear and im worried im right. theres many in this group who were soulmates and so happy, like Paul and i were. Im worried I'll never be as happy again. And i know this isnt being present in the now, and its not about finding someone else cause i dont want that again....but its about that feeling of just being completely content. And a few months ago i was thinking how absolutely content and happy my life was with Paul. And as i thought that, i was worried too, as if it was a premonition, cause ive had those a few times in my life, but i put it out of mind. And others have said there might be a different kind of happiness for me, but i feel like its all sad from here on in, and even the good times, will be tinged by tears. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Janka Posted January 24, 2016 Report Share Posted January 24, 2016 3 minutes ago, Kathryn1 said: Thankyou. its so hard to think of what im going through as being normal. As i feel totally and utterly crazed right now. And nothing makes sense. And today when i was out with my friend i realised it'll be 2 weeks on Monday and i have no recollection of that time. 14 days? Impossible. Its like ive been in a coma as i cant remember much, if anything, and that scares me, but ive read its normal too. I have a big fear and im worried im right. theres many in this group who were soulmates and so happy, like Paul and i were. Im worried I'll never be as happy again. And i know this isnt being present in the now, and its not about finding someone else cause i dont want that again....but its about that feeling of just being completely content. And a few months ago i was thinking how absolutely content and happy my life was with Paul. And as i thought that, i was worried too, as if it was a premonition, cause ive had those a few times in my life, but i put it out of mind. And others have said there might be a different kind of happiness for me, but i feel like its all sad from here on in, and even the good times, will be tinged by tears. Dear Kathryn, I´m so sorry for all you have to go through!Please,let it sound in your heart and we all make it easier for you.We are here always. With love Janka Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Posted January 24, 2016 Report Share Posted January 24, 2016 Kathryn, Those are my fears as well. I'm nearing the six month mark (next Friday) and all I'm feeling now is sadness. I used to be able to distract myself but now I just wander around, empty hearted. From what I've read we will emerge from the sadness into a different reality. Yes the future will always be "tinged by tears" but joy and happiness will be there as well. I was talking to a gal at my support group and she was sharing how she had buried three husbands. She talked about how at the times she was married she felt like she loved her current husband more than the others but after they had died she came to realize she loved each one as much in their own unique way. Of course I'm not advocating remarriage, although some here will move down that path, but to me the anecdote illustrates that the human spirit is resilient and that with time we will find our way out of this miasma of grief. I need to believe that the day will come when I do find purpose once more and that I will once again look forward to the new day. For right now it all seems a fantasy as I still can't imagine finding even a sliver of happiness without my wife. Yet even as I write this I am flashing on the warmth and joy I already find in my children and grandchildren; maybe I'm not as depressed as I think I am. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
scba Posted January 24, 2016 Report Share Posted January 24, 2016 When I am with ny friends, in their 30s, married with children, I wish I could speak up my truth, but I cant. I cannot tell them: "do not pray for happinness in my life, nor that my dreams come true. We were close to fulfill them, we could touch them, we wave our hands with hope that we would see again with his health restored, and our lifes were destroyed. He died and I died too, I have seen hell, so please pray that I find serenity, not acceptance, nor happiness, cause I feel I cannot accept this, forget this, and be happy again. Please dont wish me a long life, cause right now I dont want to live 40 years, right now I would like to leave young, I cannot stand the thought of 40 or 50 years without my soulmate. Please dont wish that I find love again, because today I feel cheated by love, because I feel I cannot risk to find myself with my heart being broken again because I need someone, only because I am young. I am not young anymore, I dont feel young, I am back from a road where love were promises of a better future. the vows you pronounced on your wedding days, I have fulfilled them at 35. I did my part, and now what? So please, pray for serenity, pray for peace. I dont care about dreams nor youth nor happiness" I would like to say thisl but I can't. So I write this here cause I know you understand, you won't try to fix my pain. Thank you all. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kayc Posted January 24, 2016 Report Share Posted January 24, 2016 Kathryn, How you are feeling is how we have all felt. My husband died on Father's Day and that whole first summer is a blur, I remember bits and pieces. I do remember worrying about how I could do 40 more years of this, that's why we say stay in the moment, for one thing it's too much to take on, worrying about the whole future when today is enough to deal with. For another thing, if we spend our time unduly in the future or past we miss what is today. I know that may not mean anything to you right now, but it is in appreciating the good that is, that I found the ability to live again. I found I had to look for it to find it and no matter how minute and small, embrace it. The big joy, my George, was gone, but there are little joys that still exist. I also found comparison to be a real killjoy to appreciating what is. It is in embracing what we do have to the fullest that we are able to glean appreciation and find life worth living again. A tall order? Yes! But worthy of effort. 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Posted January 24, 2016 Report Share Posted January 24, 2016 1 hour ago, kayc said: For another thing, if we spend our time unduly in the future or past we miss what is today. I know that may not mean anything to you right now, but it is in appreciating the good that is, that I found the ability to live again. I found I had to look for it to find it and no matter how minute and small, embrace it. The big joy, my George, was gone, but there are little joys that still exist. I also found comparison to be a real killjoy to appreciating what is. It is in embracing what we do have to the fullest that we are able to glean appreciation and find life worth living again. A tall order? Yes! But worthy of effort. The Sunday before Thanksgiving my daughter and I met Katpilot (Steve) at a Hospice of the Valley tribute to those who had passed. One of the speakers spoke of the need to find gratitude. My initial response was like almost everyone here: "What do I have to be grateful for?" Two weeks later, while visiting my boys in Austin, I went to my son's church with him; the sermon was on gratitude. Once more my reaction was the same. Then several of the books on grieving I read emphasized the importance of finding gratitude, appreciation. Kayc started a thread on this site asking what we had to be grateful for. Then right after New Years I once more attended church, this time with neighbors. You guessed it; the sermon was on gratitude. Now I'm not the brightest boy but I began to get the message. Even though I have suffered the most devastating loss I can possibly imagine there are things that I can appreciate about my new life. There are things that I can be grateful for. They do take some serious effort to find. They are there. I find myself getting so wrapped up in my misery I forget to remind myself there are positives as well. They certainly are not enough to overwhelm the grief I feel, but when I focus solely on them I do get a reprieve from the anguish I feel. Thank you Kayc for once more reminding me to look for the small stuff because in this case they do matter. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Margm Posted January 24, 2016 Report Share Posted January 24, 2016 People mention seeing couples together and having envy for them. I went through many milestones in my many years of marriage that some see as things they can never and will never go through. Still the pain I suffer is as hard to accept as younger pain. But, I do have gratitude I was allowed those milestones. I do not envy couples still together, I look at them with pity. One of them is going to suffer, just as I do, just as we all suffer. My friend remarried two years after her husband passed. We had introduced her to her first husband. They got married three days before us. Now this new husband "treats her like a queen." He stays in the hospital off and on. He had to have his heart shocked back to beating right after marriage. Old age has beat him to just a shell. He hangs on. I do not envy her this love. I don't want to see her suffer again. She gets angry at them for leaving. She would scream angry at him for leaving her. I guess the old saying "better to have loved and lost, than never to have loved at all" is true. For myself, I wish Billy had run off with some other woman and his passing would not hurt so bad. I don't have to make sense, I am in grief. My one gratitude was he did not suffer but one night. And you all know my regrets. When they are gone, you cannot change a thing. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gwenivere Posted January 24, 2016 Report Share Posted January 24, 2016 3 hours ago, Marg M said: For myself, I wish Billy had run off with some other woman and his passing would not hurt so bad. I don't have to make sense, I am in grief. I've thought about this too. Not because it would be an enemy I could fight, but he would be alive. Make sense? We aren't really expected to do that are we? Because in that I would fail terribly. 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Margm Posted January 24, 2016 Report Share Posted January 24, 2016 No sense whatsoever. I have to go back to de house, I have to put it on the market, but I am terrified to go back to it. It has all his things. There is no place that he is "not there" like that house. I get afraid to even think about it. I really am frozen and I have to unfreeze and "man up." Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kathryn1 Posted January 24, 2016 Author Report Share Posted January 24, 2016 I understand this. Our house is full of Pauls things, and 1000s of pieces of photography gear. Right now, i cant bear anything, so am leaving it all, even his toothbrush. Nothing of his is gone, i dont know how you get the strength to sort through things? and like someone said, itd be easier if they ran off with someone. Having gone through a really bad breakup years ago,i can say it would be so much easier. Because in that, you know they didnt want you anyhow. And you fight it, but then reality sinks in, and you know you're better off, and there's renewed hope for someone better. But this, this is all different, cause you had that someone better, and they're gone. Totally gone, and you have no choice, and neither did they. And its so awful, cause its not what either of you wanted. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gwenivere Posted January 24, 2016 Report Share Posted January 24, 2016 I drew this in 1979 after a breakup that I thought was the end of the world. Swore I never wanted to feel this way again. Little did I know that it was nothing compared to the pain I feel now. I used to tell Steve I never wanted to feel this again. He said I never would, not when we were together. Didn't factor in he would ever leave and bring a new pain beyond anything I could imagine at that young age. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kathryn1 Posted January 24, 2016 Author Report Share Posted January 24, 2016 Its a great portrait. I agree with your post completely. How simple that breakup pain seems now. I feel the same. Devastating that a man who would have done anything to protect me from any pain or discomfort left me with this void of despair. And devastating for him too. Paul had little time, but he was devastated to do this to me, it was awful. He said my crying made his pain worse, but then told me to cry cause he knew i needed to. I suspec this pain will be the hardest we'll ever endure, and i wouldnt wish it on anyone. I never thought of what itd be like. But it is hell. 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kayc Posted January 25, 2016 Report Share Posted January 25, 2016 Brad, I had to laugh! Your post about all the ways gratitude was being pointed out to you...that is how it is for me too when there's something I need to learn or focus on. Gwen, you have a lot of talent! Beautiful portrait of feeling. I, too, have been through painful breakups but you get over them...this you never do, instead you have to learn to live with it. Kathryn, your Paul sounds wonderful. I know that's bittersweet. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gwenivere Posted January 25, 2016 Report Share Posted January 25, 2016 I was 24 at the time. So naive I see now, but at the time I only had a limited life experience. Life wasn't over when you have a resiliency with hope being the key word. Lots of men around to ease the pain. Steve also felt a lot of guilt about leaving. There was no way to alleviate that. He was the one when I went thru my experimenting with wants and needs. It was a done deal. Now I am 60 and not looking for that, so will be the woman in the picture for real. Challenged by continuing on as no one can fill what I want. Sometimes I find that oddly comforting. I miss him, but don't feel compelled to do that getting to know another person. Plus, I don't want to. 37 years of him in and out of my life (32 married) and I am done with that. Hopefully new friends to help fill the void sometimes. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kayc Posted January 25, 2016 Report Share Posted January 25, 2016 I guess I don't feel the need to fill the void. I did in the beginning. Oh Lord I made some mistakes, went about it all wrong! The truth is, that George-shaped void inside of me cannot be filled but by George. I have learned to make of it something new...it's a testament to our love, how deeply he affected me, my life. It is filled with what he left me, memories of who he is and how special is our relationship, how he's impacted my life, the things I learned from him, and that is vast! I have learned to work with it, it is part of who I am now. I wish he could get to know me, who I am now, but maybe he does. Maybe he sees and hears more than I realize. Maybe he is waiting to reconnect with me when my time has come. I don't mean to insinuate that he has nothing else to do right now, I'm sure his life is full and wonderful and yet knowing who he is and all we have shared, I know a part of him is waiting too... 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kathryn1 Posted January 25, 2016 Author Report Share Posted January 25, 2016 Wow kayc for you to get to this place, just wow. Reading this made me cry. You are such an amazing person to have these viewpoints. Reading this, it is so beautiful. I guess I'm selfish in that I want Paul to know me as I continue in this life, and want him to be aware of everything that happens to me. My biggest fear is that I'll change somehow and we won't know each other when I pass. It terrifies me and makes me shake. And I can't imagine never meeting him again. Do you believe in the afterlife? It's all I can hold onto just now, that someday we'll be together again. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gwenivere Posted January 25, 2016 Report Share Posted January 25, 2016 1 hour ago, Kathryn1 said: My biggest fear is that I'll change somehow and we won't know each other when I pass. It terrifies me and makes me shake. And I can't imagine never meeting him again. Do you believe in the afterlife? It's all I can hold onto just now, that someday we'll be together again. I don't know if there is anything after death (my inner struggle), but if there is, I feel that any time that has passed since Steve and I had to part in this life will be meaningless as far meeting again. Mostly because I feel time is only relative on this plane. But no matter how much I may change here and he wherever, that our love for each other is bigger than any divide. We spent decades in life together constantly changing and becoming better people together and individually. I imagine we would have so much to talk about and share to catch up. It would be like every day we shared our experiences but so much bigger. I would hope one doesn't need sleep on that other side because it would be a long conversation! 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kathryn1 Posted January 25, 2016 Author Report Share Posted January 25, 2016 Thankyou, this helped me Gwenivere, we think alike. I will use this thought to comfort me in times ahead. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts
Create an account or sign in to comment
You need to be a member in order to leave a comment
Create an account
Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!
Register a new accountSign in
Already have an account? Sign in here.
Sign In Now