Gin Posted January 23, 2021 Report Share Posted January 23, 2021 Today would have been Al’s birthday. My brother died last week from covid at nursing home. Too many losses. I know we all feel that way. We are expecting 10” of snow on Monday. Hope some kids want to earn money. My neighbor will probably plow the front, but I have to do front and back porches and stairs. I am tired of just thinking about it. gin 4 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gwenivere Posted January 23, 2021 Report Share Posted January 23, 2021 I’m so sorry you lost your brother, Gin. Too many losses for you. That much snow Is way too much too. My heart is with you. Birthdays are so hard now. 💖 3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MartyT Posted January 23, 2021 Report Share Posted January 23, 2021 Dear Gin ~ 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
widow'15 Posted January 23, 2021 Report Share Posted January 23, 2021 Gin: I totally understand your saying "I'm just so tired of thinking about it". Your Al's Birthday is a tough reminder of how difficult it is without our dear husbands. The recent loss of your brother tops off your sadness. Sounds like the weather is not much help either. Hugs, Dee 3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
brat#2 Posted January 23, 2021 Report Share Posted January 23, 2021 You are in my thoughts Gin, sending you hugs 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kayc Posted January 24, 2021 Report Share Posted January 24, 2021 On 1/22/2021 at 7:34 PM, Gin said: Today would have been Al’s birthday. My brother died last week from covid at nursing home. Too many losses. I know we all feel that way. We are expecting 10” of snow on Monday. Hope some kids want to earn money. My neighbor will probably plow the front, but I have to do front and back porches and stairs. I am tired of just thinking about it. gin For some reason I did not see this, I am so sorry. We're supposed to get up to a foot of snow today but now they've lessened the predictions, less is better than more in my book.. I hope you don't get that much either. An inch at a time I can handle. I dread it too. Those special days are hard, but following so close on the heels of losing your brother...there are no words, I just wish I could send you a hug. 3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gwenivere Posted January 27, 2021 Report Share Posted January 27, 2021 Found this on my Garfield page a day calendar....... what makes old age hard to bear is not the failing of one’s faculties, mental and physical, but the burden of one’s memories. - W. Somerset Maugham 3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gwenivere Posted January 30, 2021 Report Share Posted January 30, 2021 Today is Steve and my 38th anniversary. We planned on it be yesterday but the train we took to Reno got in too late. We spent into early morning gambling with money Amtrak gave us. I hit on a machine I saw when we checked in and we had breakfast. We took wedding pictures with the cake eating, Jack Daniels toast and a kiss before going to a chapel, hung over and in jeans, by a hotel car to a place with a very eccentric woman. We missed the train back so had to fly back to San Francisco. We didn’t have any cash at all, I had a terrible cold and we spent the day sleeping off bloody Mary’s and an illicit substance. We were young and it added to our many adventures before and to follow. In 1995 Steve sad let’s renew it right which we did at a church he attended. The pictures looked much better. 😍 the avatar pic I have here was that day. i miss and love him so much. 8 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
KarenK Posted January 30, 2021 Report Share Posted January 30, 2021 Gwen, it sounds like an adventure for sure. Funny how some of us had dubious beginnings and yet our relationships lasted a lifetime. If someone had suggested I would meet my future husband sitting at a stoplight, I would have laughed in their face. Only a fluke that it happened. Keeping you in my thoughts..... 5 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
scba Posted January 30, 2021 Report Share Posted January 30, 2021 3 hours ago, KarenK said: Gwen, it sounds like an adventure for sure. Funny how some of us had dubious beginnings and yet our relationships lasted a lifetime. If someone had suggested I would meet my future husband sitting at a stoplight, I would have laughed in their face. Only a fluke that it happened. Keeping you in my thoughts..... I met him on a bus stop on Easter. 3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kayc Posted January 30, 2021 Report Share Posted January 30, 2021 I met George through writing letters...I'd written a letter to the editor and they'd read it at Promise-keepers and he said there was a standing ovation, he wrote to me, and the rest is history...we clicked. 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Margm Posted January 30, 2021 Author Report Share Posted January 30, 2021 Through a blind date planned weeks before and talked on the phone many times. I was always busy and he told me I didn't know what I was missing. I figured I did know. I had a friend take me to meet him, didn't want him coming to my house. The friend was a guy, just a friend, that happens sometimes. Billy was livid, expected, but wow! a Steve McQueen lookalike. I could stand under his outstretched arms. Wonderful full encapsulated hugs. Sent my friend home. I miss those hugs. I cannot believe I cannot reach up and touch those high cheekbones. I can see them, I can feel them, they are really not there, but they are memorized. 4 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
brat#2 Posted January 30, 2021 Report Share Posted January 30, 2021 My heart is with you Gwen and you are in my thoughts! Sending Hugs 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gwenivere Posted January 30, 2021 Report Share Posted January 30, 2021 I met Steve 6 years before we married in a bar he was playing at. My roommate thought I’d like him as another 'notch'. I certainly did, but it was too easy. I liked challenges. The game. He had a ton of easy picks being the lead singer. He got intrigued by the game. Had never experienced it. Made for many adventures and I wasn’t disposable. The hardest thing for both of us was wanting to be the one pulling the strings (constantly exchanging power) was admitting when we fell in love. Real love. We had dallied in the words with others. To give over that, become so vulnerable cemented us from then on. It took years to get there tho. When he said, not asked, we should get married it was a gauntlet. We gave ourselves over to each other. Something neither of us ever planned to do with anyone. It was like an addiction. But a very good one, even thru the dark times. I think today of how hard we worked to put those in the past and got it right. We so rarely argued. We discussed. No raised voices. Respect at all times after feeling the sting of it when we learned how we could hurt each other. The vow to stop doing that and the trust that bonded us too. We still made mistakes, but we had grown so much. Not idolizing, I have not forgotten the pain we inflicted on each other to get where we did. Shouting, cruel remarks. It took us 12 years to get there including 2 apart, yet we’d still see each other weekly for dinner or sharing our dog who we adored. We didn’t have to as he had a key to pick up stuff. It was obvious his desire to divorce was the ultimate test and fortunately we failed. I never wanted to, but had to let him go and take the chance. I almost gave up hope til he proposed properly after having his freedom. So I think of him today. Our day. I know a couple that never married and have a child and are only considering it for legal reasons as they are getting older. Making that promise to each other has very significant meaning to me. It’s a day that was totally ours. Now it’s only mine. A day to honor that rough journey. I sit here alone. Think of all the things he did that made him unique. Little things that made me laugh for how silly they were. Others that annoyed me. How this day means nothing special to anyone while my heart is bleeding yearning for that love. Doing my daily things so alone. So emphasized. Flashbacks of prior years like they do when celebrities die of their remembered moments. No one can see mine. This is my 7th without him. It isn’t easing. So much is happening now I want his help with. My crazy fantasy is I don’t want to be old without him. More so, I don’t want to be without him and yet here I am and to express this to anyone outside of here would get me looks of pity. I don’t want pity. I want the pain to stop. Physically I’m in it daily. Just called my doc for a medical reaction to a medication. I’m just put on a list. Urgent priority, but I know the drill. Whenever they get around to it. Our partners made us number one always. Bad way to spend what once was a happy day. 6 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
nashreed Posted January 31, 2021 Report Share Posted January 31, 2021 It's hard to know what to say, Gwen- Happy Anniversary. It's still a day that you can know that you were loved- that you found your soul mate. So many people don't find them. He sounds like an amazing man, and I'm sure he treated you like a Princess. That's how I tried to treat my Annette. I know what it's like to be the only one to remember a life together. It feels like it was somebody else's life. Our little in-jokes and the nicknames I had for her...they're like a dead language now...like Latin or Sanskrit, only remembered by me. It was our fault. We were private people. She made friends and they would betray her trust or drift away. She eventually stopped trying, and we just were us against the world. But that means that nobody really cares she's gone (except her Dad and sister). It's sad because she was so amazing, and I'm the one who has to try to keep her memory alive. 3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gwenivere Posted January 31, 2021 Report Share Posted January 31, 2021 Well, the princess part took a long time. I liked he called me his 'bride' the last few years. They were all amazing people we lost. That spurs my anger when I see horrible people still here hurting others. Steve may have hurt me, but that happens between couples. He was so giving to others and one thing that sometimes annoyed me as I saw his being taken advantage of. I think he did too, but had higher expectations of others. Pretty much I sensed about people was true, but he kept giving chances until he was thoroughly convinced they were toxic for him. I had no trouble expressing my opinion. All part of our working dynamic. I don’t have anyone to keep his memory alive for. His close buddies have not forgotten him. His family is down to a brother who is emotionless. It’s just me. And there is no way he will ever fade from my being. 4 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
widow'15 Posted January 31, 2021 Report Share Posted January 31, 2021 20 hours ago, Gwenivere said: i miss and love him so much. Gwen: Unfortunately time cannot ever remove our pain of missing their presence, their love, the hugs, the beautiful and fun memories. Your first wedding 38 years ago sounded like an experience and so worth remembering and so glad you shared with us. Please know you are in my thoughts. Hugs, Dee 3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gwenivere Posted January 31, 2021 Report Share Posted January 31, 2021 Thanks, Dee and James. I spent the evening I used to picked out a nice sweater, putting on blush and lipstick, long hair down for our night out at our favorite special occasion restaurant. Each getting sandwiches we could swap halves. I ate alone, hair up, lounge clothes. A box meal from the community center. Not very good. Crystal glasses still in the hutch. No special bottle of wine. I’d thought I’d be used to it, 7th time round. Maybe it’s the pandemic or that last year I wasn’t so physically restricted. I’m so glad I got to write here. He was all that was on my mind. He’d be 69 to my 65. Last we saw each other he was 61 and I was 57. Missed our birthdays by a month. Thought about Ally too. She was here for all the years of special days. Not this round leaving in August. I write about missing hugs. She was my snuggler. Mel just likes to be close. Tough year all around. I took a short nap jumping around different anniversaries, when we had a more youth and thought lots more time. He still wasn’t there when I woke up. 😢 5 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kayc Posted January 31, 2021 Report Share Posted January 31, 2021 I never know what to say, Happy Anniversary on a day we will always remember and yes, cherish, but it has taken on a whole different feeling now that they're gone?...it's hard. Know you're in my thoughts, it's hard. I too am so glad I had George in my life. We were so happy to have found each other, I think we both felt something would jinx our marrying, we both had visible relief after she pronounced us husband and wife! 4 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
scba Posted January 31, 2021 Report Share Posted January 31, 2021 "Now it’s only mine. How this day means nothing special to anyone while my heart is bleeding yearning for that love. Doing my daily things so alone. So emphasized. Flashbacks of prior years like they do when celebrities die of their remembered moments. No one can see mine". I feel the same Gwen. Even the flashbacks. This is total reality to us. 5 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
scba Posted January 31, 2021 Report Share Posted January 31, 2021 Gwen, you said "My crazy fantasy is I don’t want to be old without him". I can relate too. In 6 years there are very few pictures of myself. I don't take pictures with me in it. I don't take selfies. 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
nashreed Posted January 31, 2021 Report Share Posted January 31, 2021 I've reverted back to my previous self, before Annette came into my life and saved me from a life of loneliness. My family does not hug, and so I now don't hug. I only miss Annette's hugs and don't really need any other human touch. I hate that I have to distract myself from thinking about her too much, or I start to get upset, and it's easier to just distract myself. I want to remember the happy times, but they just make me sad at this point. 3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gwenivere Posted January 31, 2021 Report Share Posted January 31, 2021 1 hour ago, nashreed said: I want to remember the happy times, but they just make me sad at this point. Sometimes I wonder if there is something wrong with me. I have such a hard time talking about memories as they make me too sad also. I’ve had conversations with people and told them things and it was OK at the time, I’d even smile thinking about it. But once awakened and then alone later, I’m kinda stuck with it being stirred up and feel how much I miss how I felt when it happened. I don’t know what to do memories sometimes. I want them, but I don’t. I want to talk with him about them as we were continually making new ones. That is what was lost. How easy it was to talk about any of our past together or with others doing the same. Now I just hear their stories continuing on. Obviously none of us can add updated info on our lives together. 4 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
nashreed Posted January 31, 2021 Report Share Posted January 31, 2021 It truly feels like my real life stopped in May, and I'm hear at my Mom's on a trip/"vacation" that never ends, and I just wish I could go back to our home. I'm like a guest that way overstayed my welcome. And I have very little motivation to do anything. I just don't care and I don't know how to. 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kayc Posted February 1, 2021 Report Share Posted February 1, 2021 16 hours ago, nashreed said: I'm like a guest that way overstayed my welcome. I wish this was not your life right now. Our lives sure arent how all of us thought our lives would turn out, is it. 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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