Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by bluebird on May 12, 2015 at 10:05pm

Wander,

I don't think you were wrong to make your husband your world.  The same was true of me, and despite my anguish now I would not change that. I think that if you don't put yourself completely into your relationship, it isn't worth having.

If there is an afterlife, then I do fear that my husband is finished entirely with this plane. If he still exists, I know that he will always love me, but I am afraid that by the time I die he will be so far beyond me that I will not be able to be with him. If that is the case, I want to cease to exist altogether, I want my soul to cease to exist.

• ▶ Reply

Permalink Reply by Gabrielle on April 15, 2015 at 4:38pm

Hi Bluebird. I'm really sad reading your posts, I really feel for you :( May I ask how old you are (or if you don't want to tell me, what decade?) It's dreadful to hear that your chance to have children was taken away from you. I recently lost the closest person in the world to me- the absolute light of my life for 22 precious years. My little sister died and I know it's a completely different loss to yours but for me that was like God or fate or bad luck picking THE PERSON I LOVED MOST IN THE WORLD, and taking them away. One day here and healthy and happy, the next day dead. I feel so robbed that I'll never have a genuinely happy moment again. I was brought up believing in God, then became agnostic in my early 20s, and since then have had a mostly atheist view (I'm now 30). I almost took pride in saying "I believe in Science!", like it made me better than everyone else and their silly religious beliefs! Well I'm currently having an internal battle because now this has happened I'm absolutely desperate to believe in an afterlife or any sort of continuation of the spirit. I think about suicide a lot but can't risk it because what if that blew any chance I had of being with my little sister? Also it would wreck my brother and parents lives even more. I wander around in a bubble not accessing life properly. I have friends that try their best but I get pissed off when they tell me happy news because I don't want to hear it. I also don't want to hear any problems they have because everything is solvable, not like my fucking unfixable permanent problem. So really they can't say anything that's right. Surely the most overused line is "At least you've got your memories". To which I reply "Yes, I've always had them. It's the future I've lost, not the past". They don't get it!!!!!!
So I'm resigned to live for potentially another 60 years like this. I don't have a husband/boyfriend (I used to go on comical dates and delight in phoning my sister on the way there and back....I haven't been able to go on a date since nor do I have any desire to do so). I'm still early on in my grief but I really feel no enthusiasm for anything. I get angry with people who are so wrapped up in their nothing problems. Or those with happy family lives, not one that has been torn apart like mine. Im getting through each day a shell of the person I used to be; in general my whole life is on hold and I don't want to resume it. I just can't believe this has happened. There hasn't been a day without crying. In a warped way I don't want there to be, because I don't want my grief to lessen or to devalue my love for her. All this learn to live without them bullshit. Its basically the only way to 'feel better'. What a shitty option. I don't want to learn to live without her, I want her HERE, ALIVE.

What I actually wondered (and have spent a very long time getting to the point) is whether there's anything you've found that makes you feel a bit more peaceful? I sit in the garden or in a park (and if I lived near a beach I'd go there too) just because I think that if my sister is anywhere then she'll be outside in nature. It gives me a sense of calm. Do you have anything like that to make things slightly more bearable?

It's a long, lonely and terrifying path that we're walking. Sending empathy tonight x

• ▶ Reply

Permalink Reply by bluebird on April 15, 2015 at 6:16pm

Gabrielle,

 

Thank you for posting.  I am in my mid-40s; my husband died at only 40 years old, his wake was on his 41st birthday.  I don't know if we would have been able to have children anyway; there's actually a fair chance that we wouldn't have, given my age and our bad financial situation, but once my husband died then any chance of it was taken away (I would never want children without him, the only children I want are ours. I will never have sex with anyone else, and I wouldn't want to adopt -- nothing against adoption, it's just not for me, especially without my husband, and besides which there's no way I could support a child now).

 

I'm sorry your sister died; along with my husband, my sister is the person I'm closest with, so I have some small understanding of what it must be like for you. Of course only you can really know what it's like, because only you and your sister are in your relationship, but I have at least an inkling.  It may be different people that have died in each of our lives, but each of us have lost the person closest to us.  I know what you mean about god or whatever taking the person you love most in the world, as it's the same for me. Like you, I will never be happy. Hell, I'm not even peaceful or on an even keel or anything -- I'm miserable all the time, and if ever there is a moment which is slightly less horrible, something always comes along to fuck it up. I truly do not expect anything good to happen for/to me ever again -- and I used to be quite an optimistic person. But no more.

 

I read on your page how your sister died.  Her death was sudden and unexpected, as was my husband's. I honestly don't know which is worse for those of us left behind, that kind of death or one resulting from illness, which people know is coming.  They both suck, I'm sure....and maybe I'm biased, but as time passes I find myself more and more thinking that the sudden death is worse. But at least I know that my husband knew and knows how much I love him -- I told him every day, and I hope I showed him as well. There was nothing important left unsaid between us, no unfinished business, and for that I am grateful.

 

Like you, I was raised to believe in god, though not in a dogmatic way. My Mom is Catholic, and my Dad is kind of a general Christian with some Buddhist leanings. The Catholic church I attended as a child was actually wonderful, and I have only good memories of the church, the priests there, etc.  Later, after we moved, the new church sucked, and I stopped going, but the old church was lovely, inclusive, full of god's love rather than judgment.  At some point I became agnostic, and I really don't remember when or how that happened -- sometime in high school, I think, but not really due to anything, as far as I know. For years I considered myself a "hopeful agnostic" -- that is, I didn't know if there was a god, but I hoped there was a sentient, loving god. My husband was more towards being atheist, but also kind of agnostic -- he didn't really think there was a god, but he acknowledge that he could be wrong about that.  Both of us felt that the main thing was to live a good, loving life, to do as much good and as little harm as possible, and that those things were what were of the utmost importance, regardless of whether a god and/or an afterlife existed.

 

But now, since my husband's death, because of his death, I am basically atheist. I understand the internal battle you mentioned, because there is literally nothing in the entire universe more important to me than my husband's continued existence, as himself (not as a speck of light in some amorphous god), happily, and my being reunited with him as soon as possible. I too am desperate to believe in an afterlife, but I cannot just "choose to believe", as many people do (I'm not saying you do, just that I see a lot of people in various places online and in books saying that they choose to believe in an afterlife -- I don't understand that at all. How can one just "choose" to believe? Either one believes, or one does not. Simply "choosing" or "deciding" to believe, based solely on my desperate desire, would be lying to myself, and wouldn't even work). For both our sakes -- for all our sakes, everyone on this site -- I truly do hope there is a good afterlife in which we will be reunited with our loved ones.

 

I think about suicide a lot, too. I know it would hurt my family very much, so my choice is to either harm all of them irreparably or to keep living with my soul torn in half and bleeding. Fucking horrible choice, either way. And I do also worry if that would keep me from being with my husband after death, if there is an afterlife. I don't really believe there is a god, but if there is one then I think s/he is either a fucking bastard (because no loving god would do this to us), or s/he is incapable of helping us. If it's the former, then I wouldn't put it past her/him to keep us from our loved ones in an afterlife. If it's the latter, then odds are there would be nothing s/he could do about it.  Problem is, there's no way to know.

 

You said "I wander around in a bubble not accessing life properly." I get that, as it's much the same for me. I literally do not feel that the world is real anymore, for me. I cannot believe in the existence of a world without my husband in it.  I don't want to participate in the world, so I do so as little as possible. Like you, I don't want to hear about other peoples' happy news, because I will never be happy. I don't want to hear about their problems, because unless their most beloved has just died, their problems are not likely to be as horrible as this is for me -- as you said, their problems are mostly solvable, not like your/my "fucking unfixable permanent problem" (which, incidentally, is also why I object to the anti-suicide phrase that "Suicide is a permanent solution to a temporary problem" -- not fucking always, it isn't!  In many cases it is, yes, but this is the exception.  Please note, I am NOT saying you should commit suicide -- I would never want anyone to do so because of anything I say/type -- I am just saying how it is for me).

 

I don't think I've had anyone say to me "At least you've got your memories", but I can certainly understand why you get so angry when people say it to you. For me, for the most part, my memories are only painful, not sweet -- that is, they were sweet when they happened, but now they (along with virtually everything else in the world) just remind me that my soulmate is not here with me now. There is no way I will live another 40 or 50 years like this; I will will myself to die, long before that. I have more or less decided to stay alive at least as long as our cat is alive, because I love him and he needs me, and I promised my husband I would (a long time ago, nothing to do with his death).  And I hope he lives a long, happy, healthy life, for him.  But when he does eventually die, I will more seriously consider suicide.  I refuse to live a long life, though I hope I die of an instantly fatal heart attack as my husband did, as it would be easier on my family and probably easier on me as well. I don't take care of my health at all, so it's actually kind of likely.

 

I am also a shell of myself, of the person I used to be. I want nothing other than to live as small and quiet a life as possible for as long as I am forced to live this fucking empty life, and I want to die as soon as possible. That's it. I hope there is an afterlife where I will be reunited with my husband, but I want to die asap even if there is no afterlife, because to me, complete cessation of any kind of existence is preferable to this life without my husband.

 

I get what you're saying about not wanting there to be a day without crying. I will say that I do have some days where I don't actually break down crying, though rarely is there a day without at least some tears. Here's the thing, for me -- I will never be happy, my grief will never lessen, that simply is not possible.  And even if it were, I would not want it to -- I have absolutely zero interest in a life without my husband. If it were possible, I would rather give whatever months/years are left of my godforsaken life to someone else, to people who need that time and want to live, people with illnesses who want to be with their (living) spouses and see their kids grow up, children with illnesses who deserve to grow up and have lives. I do not want my life anymore, it is a curse to me, not a blessing.  Yet here I am, stuck alive, while people who want to live are dying.  That is fucked up.

 

I don't mind you taking a while to get to your point, lol -- as you can see, I am rather long-winded myself.  To answer your question -- no, there is nothing that makes me peaceful. Anything that one would think might make me peaceful only reminds me of my husband and of him not being here. For example, my husband loves summer and the beach, so I tried to sit on the beach in an attempt to feel closer to him, and in a way I did, but at the same time it only made the pain of missing him even more acute. I have a wonderful family (Mom, Dad, sister, and brother-in-law); I love them very much, and they love me very much, but even that love doesn't really help, because the love I most want, my husband's, isn't here -- or if it is, if he is sending it from an afterlife, I can't feel it.  So either his beautiful soul no longer exists, which is a horrific thought, or I am too dense or whatever to feel his love.  The first idea is of course worse, but no matter which it is, it's horrible.  I spend time at my sister and BIL's house, usually four evenings a week (after work).  We watch science fiction tv series that they have on DVD, series' that I have never seen, and that offers sort of a brief moment of respite. The only reason I can even sort of enjoy them at all is because my husband has never liked science fiction, so while watching these shows I don't feel his loss quite so acutely, because even if he were here he wouldn't be watching them with us.  Anything that he and I did used to do together, I can no longer do, because he is not here to do those things with me.

 

It's good that you are able to feel a bit better/calmer by sitting in the garden or elsewhere outside; it's good that you were able to find that for yourself. The only semi-respite I really get, aside from the dvds I mentioned, is sleep. Even then, I often have nightmares in which my husband has left me or I have left him, or he has cheated on me or I have cheated on him -- none of which ever actually happened, nor would any of it ever have happened. I know it's just my subconscious trying to make some sense of this fucked up situation, trying to figure out why he is not here, but these nightmares are awful, and then the truth when I wake up is even worse. I think I've only had maybe one or two tiny dream snippets which were regular dreams my husband was in, rather than nightmares and I have never once had an actual visitation dream from him. I have to take either Benadryl or a sleeping pill every night in order to get even 6 or so hours of sleep, but once I'm asleep and if I don't have a nightmare, that's the only break I get.

 

You're right when you say that it's a "...long, lonely and terrifying path that we're walking". I can't really offer any comfort, because I haven't found any myself.  All I can say is that I hope you are able to continue finding ways that help you, that make you feel closer to your sister.  May I ask if you have had any ADCs ("after death communications") from her? Have you seen her, heard her, had a visitation dream from her, any kinds of "signs"?

• ▶ Reply

Permalink Reply by Gabrielle on April 19, 2015 at 5:04am

Hi Bluebird

I haven't experienced any ADC's. Having said that she's been stuck in China (where this happened) until last week when they finally sent her body back. I don't know if that makes any difference in the spirit world (if there is one!) but it definitely didn't feel like she was 'here' while she wasn't in the country. I'll be able to see her next weekend (it's a closed coffin though because the body is now too decomposed). I really can't wait to just be in the same room as her....if that makes sense...even though it will be incredibly traumatic....it will be the first time that I'm close to her since this happened. I'm desperate to be in her presence, even though it's just her body inside a box :(

You're right that we can't just 'choose to believe'. I don't know what I believe. I suppose all I know for sure is that my love for her will be the most dominant feeling for the rest of my life. I'd like to become a better person for her, but it's so hard when I'm so sad all the time. It terrifies me when I consider that she may not exist anywhere anymore....I have to hope that she does.

Francesca's cats are still alive (we got them for her when she was 10 years old)..they are sweet things and I sit with them a lot. No replacement for a person though! I'm seeing a psychotherapist and am going to start group counselling. Of course none of it does much good; none of it brings her back and that's the ONLY thing that will make this better. I don't even know why I'm doing it. All this is so horrible. So final.

Sleep is the only respite I get...I've only dreamt about her 3 times (she died on Feb 10th). One was a nightmare where I was trying to wake her up from the carbon monoxide poisoning. The other 2 were normal; we were chatting in the family home like any other day. I take sleeping pills when I need them...although I don't have trouble getting to sleep (I am always absolutely drained by the end of the day) but I often wake up in the early hours and lie there despairing. I do find it incredible that the human body can withstand this relentless misery. I get chest and heart pains now and I wonder why my body doesn't just give up and have a heart attack. Instead it keeps waking up every morning, forcing me to face another day. I find the mornings AWFUL and only feel marginally more capable of coping when I'm in the company of others...my family being the best source of comfort as they feel as I do (or the closest to the way I feel, we each had our individual relationship with her of course). We talk about Francesca all the time and I know I'm not burdening them like I am my friends (although my friends will never admit it, but I'm fully aware they are waiting for me to get back to my positive, outgoing self...no matter how many times I tell them that I'm changed forever).

I wondered- do you work? Are you close to your husband's parents? Do you talk to your sister and brother in law about your husband when you see them? Have your family accepted that you won't feel happy again and don't want to be here anymore? And what sort of person were you before you met your husband? Did you feel like you were waiting for him all your life and then everything was complete once you met him? Or were you happy with yourself and then he added to that happiness ten-fold? Of course....only answer the questions that you feel comfortable with.

Gabrielle

• ▶ Reply

Permalink Reply by bluebird on April 19, 2015 at 3:00pm

Gabrielle,

I have had "signs", which might be viewed as ADCs, but I cannot believe that they are really from my husband for more than a day or so at most. I just have no faith. It's not a lack of faith in my husband, it's a lack of faith in an afterlife, in god, in myself, etc.

I hope you are able to have ADCs with/from your sister. I think you not feeling she was "here" is more a matter of your own perception than it is anything to do with an afterlife, but that doesn't mean that they way you feel is invalid, and I hope that having her physical body back home will bring you some comfort. I understand wanting to be close to her physical body; I climbed up on the hospital bed with my husband when I was finally brought into the room where he was, and at his wake I kept holding his hand and kissing his lips.

I guess some people can just "choose to believe", but I can't. I am incapable of trying to fool myself in that way (I'm not even saying that others who do it are necessarily fooling themselves, but for me that's what it would be). It terrifies me when I think that my husband might not exist anywhere anymore, too, and I desperately hope that he does and that he and I will be together again. I can't even try to be a better person for him; I've lost all motivation to do anything.  I don't want to do anything with my life, anymore. I don't want my life, anymore. If you are able to better yourself and your life, for yourself and/or for your sister, that's a good thing.

Are her cats living with you? Or if they're not, would you want them to? Maybe that would help you, especially as you get along with them. I know that our cat is a kind of link to my husband, for me.

I hope the therapy and group counselling helps you.  I don't see a therapist because I know it wouldn't help me -- as you said, the only thing that could possibly make anything better would be to have my husband (or in your case, your sister) back with me.  I've done therapy in the past, for anxiety issues, and found it helpful for that, because anxiety is something that can be addressed with therapy, medication, etc.  It's not necessarily reversible, but it can definitely be lessened.  The death of my husband cannot be lessened, nor can the effect on me of his death. Therapy/counselling does seem to help for some people, though, so if you even think it might help you, it's probably worth trying. I hope it does help you.

I think having nightmares involving the dead loved one is not uncommon, but that doesn't make it any less horrible.  I envy you the two regular dreams you had about your sister; I haven't even had that.

I have to take two Benadryl or a sleeping pill every night -- most nights it's the Benadryl, and then the sleeping pills for the really bad nights. I have trouble getting to sleep and trouble staying asleep, both during the night and into the early morning. If I don't take the Benadryl or a sleeping pill, I don't fall asleep until about 3 am, and I wake up every half hour or so, moaning and rolling from side to side, and I wake up for the day at 5 or 6 am.  And that's on nights when I don't have to work the next day. Days when I do have to get up for work, I have to wake up at 6, so I can't get that little sleep. I'm barely able to function at work as it is. My brain simply doesn't work properly anymore, and I doubt if it ever will again.

I sometimes get chest pains too; I always hope that it means I will have an instantly fatal heart attack like my husband did. I am very upset and pissed off that I didn't die of broken-heart syndrome in the days/weeks following my husband's death. I don't understand why I didn't.  My body has betrayed me by continuing to live, just as god, if there is one, has betrayed me by allowing my husband to die. I feel as you do, that my body keeps waking up every morning and forcing me to live this hell each day. What the fuck, just let me die, already. I find the mornings awful as well, though I don't find it better to be in the company of other people. I don't feel better when I'm with my family, because I can't talk to them about how horrible my life is without hurting them, and I have no interest in talking about anything else. I don't feel better at work or in public or whatever, because I refuse to pretend to be happy and so I just don't interact with others except when I have to at work (and my job involves dealing with the public, so I have to -- and it is exhausting).

I only work because I have to in order to not lose my apartment, to pay my bills, etc. I would very much rather not; I would rather just stay in my apartment all the time. But our financial situation wasn't good when my husband was alive, and my financial situation now is very bad, including having had to declare bankruptcy and go on food stamps. I'm intelligent, and have a Master's degree from a very good college, but my brain simply does not work as it used to, and I cannot get a job doing anything that would pay me well.  I'm no good at math/bookkeeping/finances/IT, the sorts of things that would pay very well. I used to be a paralegal at a law firm, I did that for about 8 years (I was with the firm for 15 years overall). I made over $40,000 a year -- not wealthy, by any means, but not bad. I could never do that job now, though, due to my messed up brain. I can't even get my shit together enough to go to interviews, for the most part.

My husband has some decent family members, including his father, but most of the decent family members have been dead for years. His father has his issues, some of them serious, but he has always loved my husband. He and I don't really talk, but we've never had a fight or anything, it's just how it is.  Whereas the evil bitch that gave birth to my husband -- I hate her with all of my being. She has never loved my husband, she was abusive and horrible, and she never deserved to have children. I wish she had died instead of my husband.  My husband is a wonderful person -- not without his faults, of course, but they were minor, and he has always been the sort of person who would do anything to help anyone else, without needing to be asked. She is a truly evil being, who has never brought any joy to anyone's life, who is cruel and sneaky and literally evil. I don't believe in hell, but if I'm wrong and there is one, she will end up there, and she will deserve it.

I do sometimes talk to my sister and brother in law about my husband. They actually knew him for about two years before I did, as they were all in a band together (up until he died, actually). They were close friends and then became family when my husband and I got together.  They come the closest to understanding how I feel, to understanding how this is for me.  My parents kind of understand too, but not as well as my sister and her husband.  I think my Mom accepts that I don't want to be here and will never be happy, my sister and her husband less so, and my Dad even less so.  My Dad thinks/hopes that at some point I will find some kind of happiness in life -- he knows I will never be who I was, but he hopes that I will find some portion of happiness. He doesn't believe me when I tell him that's impossible.  That's one reason why I don't like to talk to my family about this.

What sort of person was I before I met my husband? I would say I was a reasonably happy person, though I was missing having my soulmate in my life. I always knew, since I was a child, that I was not interested at all in dating or casual sex or any of that. I knew that if I ever found my partner, we would be friends first, and he would have to love me for more than my body.  And my husband is that man. I knew the moment I met him that he was the one for me, and I knew that first evening that he and I would be married, even though at that point all he was to me technically was my sister's bandmate and friend. I never went on a real date before meeting my husband.  In my life before I met him, I only kissed maybe 3 other guys, and I never had any kind of sex with anyone other than my husband.  So I think it was kind of a combination of the two things you said -- I was waiting for him all my life, but I was also reasonably happy before I met him. I had made close friends in college, backpacked around Europe with one of those friends, moved into my first apartment, went to and graduation from grad school, got the job at the law firm, etc. But everything became so much better when I met my husband and we fell in love, and now that he is gone so is everything else. I simply don't want any of it.

 

• ▶ Reply

Permalink Reply by Gabrielle on April 29, 2015 at 4:35pm

Hi Bluebird
I'm sorry it's taken so long to reply. I read posts on this site every day but sometimes I find it very hard to write myself. I'm struggling to motivate myself to do anything really.

After 4 sessions I gave up the psychotherapy. It was useless. The lady was nice but she says about 5 sentences per session, and spends the whole time nodding in agreement with me. I became bitter that she wasn't fixing the problem (an unrealistic/impossible expectation) and that she was making £50 p/hr from my misery. I only went because that's what people do in these situations isn't it, and I have no idea what I'm doing.

So the funeral is next Friday, which is nearly 3 months to the day that my sister passed away. Sometimes I don't know where the time has gone. Where did March go?! I can't believe I've been in this state for this amount of time. If I didn't keep a journal I would have almost no recollection of what I've done since February. I write in a journal because I always have (since I was 8 years old); so it is a habit, not something I have started since her passing. I carry it everywhere with me and actually wrote ten minutes after I received the phone call, in shaky handwriting: 'Chessie has died.'
I didn't write again for another 4 days. I avoided it, and knew that as soon as I committed pen to paper that would be it.

I've been to sit with her coffin twice now and will go as often as possible before the funeral. It's a closed coffin as I said in my last message. It's white with white lace draped over it. It's beautiful. And small. Being with her while she's trapped in that box is the most emotionally intense experience of my life. I took 2 of her favourite childhood toys and placed them on top. There is a single red rose. I read to her the poem I'm reading at her funeral. I plead with her to wake up. Most of the time I can't speak at all, just convulsing with sobs. I see the plaque "Francesca. Died 10th February 2015. Aged 22 years. At rest." and can't believe what I'm reading.

The cats stay with my mum because I live in a rented house that doesn't allow pets. I'm glad you love your cat and he's there to come home to. He clearly gives you a reason to live. How old is he? Will things change for you once he dies?

Has your grief changed much over time? Has it reached a point where it's plateaued? I don't know what to do. I'm apathetic towards everything. Things seem to be changing all the time for me at the moment (I guess because it's still the early stages and still no funeral). Last time I wrote I said I liked the company of others. Since then I prefer to stay on my own and curl up in bed with an assortment of her belongings (this started with 1 thing- her pyjama top- a few days after she died but has now practically grown into a shrine). I also think no ones grief could be as bad as mine. Which of course is ridiculous. I feel really selfish all of a sudden. I hear about other people's grief and I think "well that person was old" or "you weren't that close anyway" or "it was a newborn baby- you didn't even know it" or "it was a parent, they're supposed to die before you". It's like my brain has gone haywire and it's just Chessie and I in the centre of everything and everyone else doesn't count.

There are terrible things happening in the world and I KNOW there are people going through worse than me. There is always someone worse off. Sorry I'm really rambling now so I'll stop. I just feel like I'm going crazy :(

My main overriding thought is: WHERE IS SHE??
x

• ▶ Reply

Permalink Reply by bluebird on April 30, 2015 at 10:12pm

Gabrielle,

No need to apologize, I understand completely the lack of motivation.

Are you thinking about going to another therapist? It doesn't sound as though the one you went to was right for you. It often takes a couple of tries, with a couple of different therapists, before you can find one that's good for you and able to help you.  Maybe find one who is specifically a grief therapist (I don't know if the one you were seeing was one).

When my husband died, I wrote down in a journal all the sweet little things about him that I love, things we would do for each other, physical characteristics, memories.  My memory has never been very good, and I didn't want to forget. So I understand when you say that if you didn't keep a journal you would have almost no recollection of what you've done since February.

It's lovely that you took two of your sister's favorite toys and placed them on the coffin. Are you going to bury them with her? I understanding wanting to sit there with her. I kept going up to my husband's coffin at his wake. It was as if the rest of the room, and the rest of the world, faded away. When he was in the hospital (already dead), I climbed up on the bed with him, and begged him to come back, to wake up, to breathe. 

It's good that your sister's cats are with family, anyway.  I do love our cat; our cats are our babies.  Our female cat died a few years before my husband did, and until his death, her death was the worst thing to ever happen to me. We really love our cats.  Our male cat gives me a reason to live insofar as he needs me to love him and care for him, but not beyond that. When he dies, I will never get another pet. I don't want anyone or anything to depend on me. I will not kill myself while he is alive, but after he dies I might. I certainly want to.

My grief has changed very little over time.  I would not say it has plateaued. In some ways it's harder now, in that everyone else has moved on with their lives (as they should), but I am still, and always will be, stuck in those moments directly following the phone call I received, and seeing him dead, and his funeral. For me, he has always just died.  That is the moment in which I live, for as long as I am forced to live. Nothing that has happened to me since his death matters to me in any way (other than when bad things happen to my other loved ones). I am also apathetic towards everything, and will remain so. I told my mom that I simply want to make my life as small as possible, until I can die. I don't yearn for anything, I have no passion, I have no joy, I have no desire. I want to limit my life as much as I can, so that I don't have to do anything or extend myself in any way.  I really want to die immediately, but if I can't do that, or until I can, I will just shrink until I disappear.
 

I prefer to stay on my own as well. I don't have a lot of my husband's belongings, simply because he didn't really have that much stuff, but I do have the things he did own. I still wear his t-shirts. I still have all his albums and cds and books and musical instruments. I understand feeling that no one's grief could be as bad as mine. I know other people feel their grief just as strongly, but I don't feel that they do. I have definitely become a much more selfish person than I used to be. I don't care about anything anymore, including other people.  And I feel the same way about other people who have died, that they were older and had lived their lives, or the like. I know that their loved ones grieve, but I feel that my grief is worse. Ultimately I suppose it doesn't matter -- it is worse, for me, because it's the grief in which I live. And every other grieving person is in her/his own little similar hell, as are all the people in the world going through all kinds of other shit.

But I just don't care. I used to be a very caring person, but now I barely have the energy or wherewithal to brush my teeth and drive to work -- I don't have any energy to spare for caring about what happens in the world.  I have become a person I despise.

• ▶ Reply

Permalink Reply by Gabrielle on May 3, 2015 at 11:55am

Hi Bluebird

I might try another therapist- one that specialises in bereavement this time. I don't expect to get better or even want to get better, I only want to see someone so I can talk about Francesca for an hour and I'm entitled to do so. I won't feel bad like I do when I talk about her to my friends. I know they're becoming bored of it. Problem is I'm bored with all their conversation; it's just not interesting to me anymore. I think there is a danger I will lose all my friends if I carry on like this. I'm not sure I care though!! Do you still see any friends, or do you only see your work colleagues and your family? Did you have many friends when your husband was here?

That's really good that you wrote down all those memories about your husband. I have been going through my old diaries marking anything significant that I wrote about Ches, starting from the beginning. I'm up to when she was 13 years old and I've written "I'd die for Ches in a second; she's the person I love most in the whole world". I had no idea I had only 9 years left with her, not the lifetime that I expected. At the very least I'm grateful that I always appreciated her to the fullest, that we were always so happy together and she knew how much I loved her. From what you've said previously that's the way things were with your husband too; you knew how much you loved each other and have nothing to regret now.

Yes I also sit with my sister and plead with her to wake up. As I haven't actually SEEN her dead I can't help having daydreams of the police turning up with her in tow, saying they've made a terrible mistake and actually Chessie is fine. It's ridiculous to think about that but it's literally the only time that I can feel any vague happiness- even though it's all in my imagination.

Do you feel glad that you got to have your wedding before this happened? Or is there too much anger about being robbed of a future with your husband to feel glad about anything? What was your wedding like?

Gabrielle x

• ▶ Reply

Permalink Reply by bluebird on May 3, 2015 at 12:46pm

Gabrielle,

I see what you mean about going to a therapist so that you can talk about your sister for an hour and being entitled to do so, without it hurting or upsetting or boring anyone. I have actually thought about that as well, but I just don't have the "oomph" to actually do it.

I had friends as a child/teen, of course, and I had very good friends when I was in college, and I had friends (though nowhere near as close as those in college) in grad school. Once I finished grad school and started working again full time, I stayed friends with some of my grad school friends, but as we hadn't been that close to begin with, eventually we drifted apart and stopped hanging out together. I was friendly with my work colleagues, but for the most part I wouldn't say we were friends.  My closest friends were/are my husband, my sister, and my brother-in-law (my sister's husband).

It's been a long time since I last looked at the journal in which I wrote down the memories about my husband -- probably at least a year, if not more (my husband died 2.5 years ago). I'm glad I wrote it all down, but I don't know when/if I'll ever look at it again. It's like everything else to do with him -- it only hurts, now. I very rarely look at photos of him/us, I don't do any of the things we did together (like going to flea markets or watching historical documentaries or having picnics), I don't watch any of the tv shows we used to watch together, etc. If he isn't here to do those things with me, then I cannot do them.

It's good you have your old diaries, with your memories of your sister. You said "I had no idea I had only 9 years left with her, not the lifetime that I expected." -- I know what you mean; everything for me is divided into having happened before my husband died or after. Things that happened shortly before he died, when I think about them I think "That was only 3 weeks before he died, he only had three weeks to live when that happened", and the like.

You are right about my husband and I always appreciating each other, and always knew how much we each loved the other, and still love each other. I am thankful that I have no regrets in that regard.

I think that you having daydreams (and/or actual dreams) of your sister turning up are normal. I still have daydreams like that about my husband, and probably always will.

I am glad that we were at least able to get married officially before my beloved died (we had been together, happy and monogamous, for nearly 13 years, so we were essentially married for much longer than the one week), but I still will never forgive god (if there is one) for letting him die only one week after our wedding.  I had to mark "widowed" on forms before I ever got to mark "married". That is beyond fucked up. I will always be angry, pissed off, fucking raging that he died so soon, and the timing of it.

Our wedding was lovely.  Small, outside, in a park, with only immediate family.  We had very little money, and neither of us were religious, so no big wedding or church wedding. He didn't care what kind of wedding we had (though he's never liked big, fancy events any more than I have), and I always wanted a small outdoor wedding, so that's what we did.  It was beautiful, as was the week following it.  And then our life was over.

• ▶ Reply

Permalink Reply by Gabrielle on May 9, 2015 at 5:48pm

Hi Bluebird.
Your wedding sounds really lovely. Small, intimate, and just about the important stuff.
It is utterly appalling that you were marking 'widowed' before you had a chance to mark 'married'. What an absolute blow to further add to your pain.

It was my sister's funeral yesterday. It was beautiful. Her white coffin was covered in red roses. After I read a poem and Dad his eulogy there wasn't a dry eye in the packed church. I felt so touched that she was loved by so many. It was a wonderful day (as strange as that sounds). I suppose because it's been 3 months and to actually break the monotony of being miserable every day was a relief. This time I could show everyone how important she was/is to me, and share how devastated my family are, and give her a bloody amazing send off. Also to have my sister as the only topic of conversation all day meant I could actually tolerate talking to people.

And then I woke up this morning, and I have nothing to plan for or aim towards anymore. It's back to the relentless heartache. I know I don't want to be here and the only reason I am is for my parents and brother. Don't want to take any steps to 'move forward'. Just want to stay the same (or have a heart attack in the night, but that doesn't seem to be happening) even if it hurts this much. So tired. And it's only been 3 months. I can't believe you've had 2.5years of this hell. I can totally understand that your life has been divided into 'before' and 'after'. I can't believe that at the beginning of this year I was able to feel normal happy emotions like a normal person. It's all gone. I'm just a shell and I don't see the point of it anymore.
Gabrielle x

• ▶ Reply

Permalink Reply by bluebird on May 12, 2015 at 10:11am

Thanks, Gabrielle. It really was a lovely wedding.  And thank you for acknowledging that having to mark "widowed" before I had a chance to mark "married" is appalling (I mean that sincerely).

I'm so sorry your sister has died, but I'm glad the funeral was beautiful, and that it helped you in some way. I understand about it helping because it let you talk about her all day -- that's how I felt/feel, as well. My husband is really all I ever want to talk about, all I ever want to think about. I don't usually even bother making "small talk" -- it's unimportant, irrelevant, and I don't care what other people think of me so I just generally keep to myself.

I also understand about the relentless heartache now, as that's the same for me as well.  I always feel it, and then sometimes it hits me anew and even harder, and I think "Why does this world even still exist, without my sweetheart in it, and why the fuck would anyone think I would even consider continuing to exist in this hellhole of a life?"  I literally cannot believe that my husband is not here.  My life has, quite literally, transitioned into a nightmare, from which there is no relief.  The only reason I am still here is for our cat, and for my family (parents, sister, brother-in-law), but there's no way I will live for years more for them, I can't. I too am hoping for a heart attack (instantly fatal) in the night, or similar, but if that doesn't happen then I will take care of it myself in a few years.  Like you, I feel no happiness, I am barely even a shell. This life, for me, is not worth living.

• ▶ Reply

Permalink Reply by HollowHeart on November 4, 2015 at 3:21pm

Hi, Gabriel, I read this post and wondered if I had written it. Except for your sister being your little sister and being in China this mirrors my exact situation and my exact feelings. My older sister died a couple of weeks ago and it still does not feel real. She was only sibling and when I say we were close that is an understatement. I'm so glad you shared this because it made me cry and made me miss her even more. My situation is completely fucked up because I have such heavy guilt over causing her death. The circumstances are unbearable to live with.

She had a heart condition and was in bed just sleeping and sorta talking to me and my Mom, and my mom just thought she needed to sleep and she'd be OK. Later that night she wasn't doing that well and my mom for some reason decided to ask a family member to drive her to the hospital in the morning, and my stupid ass knew that we should have just called 911 then. She didn't make it through the night. So yes, we caused her death and let her die and I am ready to die myself, but that won't bring her back. She said she didn't want to go to the hospital, but by that time we should have rushed her to one anyway. Everyone is to nice to tell me I am to blame but it really is my fault as I should have never just went along with my mother like a stupid ass idiot that cost her her life. I simply hate myself and the guilt is beyond anything in this world. You can't even imagine how I am feeling knowing I did that. Everyone goes, 'you don't know if getting her to the hospital would have changed anything' but I know in my heart she'd be sitting in there now, or released by now  and getting better. I just know it. I truly know she would he just fine right now and everything would be right with my world.

As it is, I am just like you and Bluebird, I have nothing to look forward to, nothing to live for. We talked EVERY day. She lived right across the hall from me and I'd see her every day, or facetime her or text or something. Not a day went by we didn't communicate in some way. We liked about 90% of the same things so doing anything I like now only reminds me of her so I see her everywhere I go, I can't get her out of my mind, not to mention knowing that I caused all this does not help either. Had we not had a choice in intervening it would be different, but we had a choice in saving her.

We LOVED movies, especially horror movies so October was horrible for me, and the holidays are right here and we were looking forward to the new James Bond movie and of course Star Wars which comes out on my birthday. My life is just one constant state of misery right now. She had a cat and we left her in her apartment (for now) as I live at home and we have 2 cats and they don't get along, so my Mom always tells me to go over there and sit and visit her cat. But it's so hard to go to her apartment and my mom can't understand why I can't just go over there for the cat's sake. I don't want to do anything anymore. I do have my Ma, but of course it's not the same as hanging with my sister who got all my jokes and quirks and I'd be over there for HOURS just hanging out, watching movies, watching YouTube (that was her favorite thing to do, watch YT videos) and just talking. It's so hard to be sitting at home and wanting somewhere to go and talk to someone and cant' do it. It's pure torture.

My ma is either sleeping or watching QVC. We dont' have much in common in hobbies and such, so any movie watching, TV shows, all that I have to do alone and it's hard not to have someone to watch them with. I think me and my Ma like about 1% of the same shows and movies. She was everything to me, my ENTIRE social circle. We did everything together, now I am so lonely. I don't want to go out, or do anything at home either. I do want to do anything that used to make me happy. I can barely take a shower or do laundry, and forget about housework, it's a mess. I want to quit working but need to be logical.  Sleep is terrible. I wake up at about 2:30 or 3:00am and am wide awake until my alarm goes off at 6am, needless to say it's horrible to have to then drag out of bed and go to work mentally and physically exhausted. I hate it.

I can't stand the idea of feeling like this for the next 40 years. Not to mention, my parents aren't getting any younger so when they go I will be all alone. No kids, no husband. No one to help me like I help my Ma. She says I should adopt but imagine trying to adopt with limited money, living at home, single mother, etc. My future is so scary and lonely and bleak.

• ▶ Reply

• ‹ Previous
• 1
• …
• 34
• 35
• 36
• 37
• 38
• …
• 80
• Next ›
• Page