Comment

Comment by Maxey on October 29, 2016 at 11:21am

Irwin, I totally agree with you about wanting to end this ongoing pain. I think exactly as you do about either joining my husband or "nothingness". One way or the other, I just want it to end. Just to have a whole day without pain. Just one day of peace. That is what I would settle for today. I hope God takes me soon and shows his mercy.
I read these posts and wonder why we have to suffer like this. Sometimes, when I read the posts, I can actually "feel" the pain of the writers. Maybe it is because I know exactly what they are experiencing and have such compassion for them. I wish I could reach out and take all the pain we are all suffering away if just for a little while.
Here we are, and for most of us, our life is over. We sit waiting for something. I sit and I don't even care anymore what happens. I just want the day to be over. I simply just take up space now. At least that is how I feel. Why is this our fate in our "golden years"? It seems like a very cruel way to end our lives.

Comment by Maxey on October 29, 2016 at 11:08am

I am going out today to a play with friends, and I really do not want to go. I keep thinking how much I looked forward to doing things like this with my husband. I know I will have to make small talk, smile, and act as if I am enjoying myself. I hate this feeling that I just want to stay home and grief, even after a year has passed. Even my dreams are upsetting lately, I am so envious of the people on this site who have pleasant dreams of their loved ones.
I keep thinking that with the rainy, gloomy season coming here in WA, I will not make it through the fall and winter. I look outside and every day it is raining. It feels just like me, the rain looks like the tears that I shed every day. Not a day goes by that I don't cry for at least a while - sometimes for a long time until I am exhausted and my body is shaking.
This has to end soon since I cannot think of how I can keep going through this day after day with no relief.

Comment by Irwin on October 26, 2016 at 7:25pm

Kevin....I feel for you and we're both walking in the same shoes. 35 days ago a big part of me died, if not the entire fabric of my being. I am going back to work in 2 weeks. I hope I'm ready. I hope my social skills are not affected by this tragedy....we'll see. If I cross the street and see a bus coming at me, I will not move out of the way, but if I'm on the sidewalk and see a bus coming, I will not step in front of it. That's my philosophy. Someone asked me if euthanasia was legal would I do it. I can only answer as as how I feel today and the answer is yes. I watched my beautiful wife shrivel up in pain and suffering from cancer and held her in my arms telling her that she could go.....and she did. I might not have cancer, but my pain is real and manifest itself in every part of my being. Like many of you, I await the day the pain ends. Also I read all your posts and take solace in the fact that I am not alone in feeling never-ending pain and suffering. Thank you everyone. Irwin

Comment by Kevin Bailey on October 26, 2016 at 2:17pm

Well my beautiful wife passed on Oct 5 2016 and today is my birthday but I would rather have one more minute with my beautiful wife than all the birthday wishes and celebration. My heart is so heavy right now.I miss her so bad it hurts but I feel her telling me to try to smile a little today.

Comment by stewart p on October 26, 2016 at 2:00pm

Charlie, glad to see you’re still there and to all the others as well, sadly the newcomers too.  I read your post Irwin with some keen interest as well.  I was out knocking on doors yesterday for a campaign and one lady I met came out and told me her husband had just passed away a week ago.  I told her it had been nearly 4 years for me as well since my wife passed away and that I understood. She then began to tell me about the arrangements she was preparing and some of this and that and I carefully listened I could not help but notice the look upon her face that Im sure I had as well for a time early on.  That look of uncertainty, bewilderment, confusion, shock, pain whatever it is but you know what I mean.  I didn’t dare tell her that this was only the beginning what she was about to be in for as I remember all to well how the weeks and months that followed slowly unfolded for myself.  Its curious now to me how many of us seem to think or want to believe that it is within our power to make this all better or somehow restore things to a degree to their former self.

I know now nearly 4 years later there is no way.  After nearly 23 years my life had changed in an instant, never to return remotely to what I once thought it would be or knew and since the last 4 years it continues to change in ways I never imagined nor would have chosen, none the less each day moves on and I either get on board or miss it altogether. There is no rush to “fix” things, to make them better, to change them, and the more we try the more confusing and painful it is.  I think its helpful and wonderful to go to a bereavement group, counseling, whatever.  I went for a year or two, tried different things and in all I think it helped me get through some of the darker moments but it didn’t change them, it didn’t make them go away and it certainly did not restore things to their former self. Many of us seem to think we can avoid it or fix it altogether by keeping busy, whether that is dating, or working two jobs or whatever.  Ive talked to many others and seen how a wide variety of people choose a wide variety of ways to deal with it and through my own experience have come to at least once conclusion as someone else here put it once, there is no getting over it, there is only getting through it.

Comment by stewart p on October 26, 2016 at 2:00pm

It’s said that each person we encounter changes us, some more than others obviously.  Recall how meeting our spouse changed us from the beginning until they passed away.  So it is that their passing can only change us that much more then right?  Life as I knew it or thought it was is no more, it is changed and changing daily, and I have a choice to either accept it or  not, but one thing is certain and that is the change is inevitable. 

With those first 3 months, 6 months a year I spend a lot of time grieving, missing, crying, sorting and so forth, trying to make it better, change it, “see the light”.  All this did other than pass the time was to confuse me more and frustrate me.  I thought if I took a new job, found a new hobby or whatever this would help, but then when sadness struck me expectantly on any given day I was unable to follow through only to feel further disappointment and sadness.  Then I started realizing and it helped to hear this as well from others with similar experience (as in at a bereavement group) that it was ok to be sad, to sulk, to sit at home alone in the dark for a while, to do nothing, to be alone, to have nothing to say or everything to say.  That whatever I felt or did or any of you are doing now it is ok, its what you need in the moment and rather than try to change it or resist it accept it.  However sad, lonely, depressed or whatever we’re feeling at this or any other moment is OK.  There is no need to change it, to try to improve it or rush through it, there is no “light” at the end of the tunnel to reach.  It is the new normal and with time we begin to learn how to live with it a manner that honors our loved one and ourselves.   I will not say it will get better with time but only that it does seem to change, thankfully. I don’t miss my wife any less or think of her much less often, in fact I probably would say I miss her even more now because I feel like a whole new part of me has been opened up (torn open) that I wish she could be here for me to share with, and the sad thing is it took her passing away to open that part of me up.  Boy if that doesn’t suck. 

I left that lady’s porch yesterday with her reaching out and holding my arm, total stranger after listening for a half hour, a part of me that never existed before.  For others of you it might be something else, but in each of us there is something or something that can and will change as a result of our experience that may open up whole new experiences we may never been able to have before all this happened.  Don’t misunderstand or get me wrong, Id rather just have things the way the way they were before, this sucks for me, my life is a shell of my former self in many ways and I don’t see that changing much, I’m just trying to find or express the softer side of what I as many of you have had to experience or will.  Best to you all until the next time.

God grant me the serenity to accept the things I can not change...and the wisdom to know the difference

Comment by Charlie on October 26, 2016 at 11:26am

Linda, that image is PERFECT!  I'm going to steal it.  Hope you don't mind.

And you're so right about everyone who posts being a godsend.  This experience of losing my Dreamgirl is beyond unbelievable, but reading what everyone else is experiencing somehow helps.

Comment by Linda Engberg on October 26, 2016 at 7:25am

Just to let all the friends who post on this web-site are a godsend. Don't know what I with do without all of you. A Heartful Thanks To Each and Everyone Of You/

Comment by LIZ on October 26, 2016 at 6:52am

Thanks for the kind words :)

Comment by Mary on October 25, 2016 at 10:13pm

I agree - the pain is too much. How does one live each day without the most important person of their life? I mean LIVE - not just live.

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