My older brother died on September 14 from kidney failure and an infection that could not be treated.

My sister-in-law called me to tell me he was in the hospital as I was checking my bag to fly from California to Iowa for my daughter's birthday.  That was on September 6th.…

As I read the anguish in the blogs of so many who have lost the love of their life recently, it takes me back to that dark, black empty place I lived 5 years ago after losing my wife of over 23 years.

Everything that I've read echos where I was, how alone and shattered I felt.  …

It's been a very long time since I've posted anything on my page, and I can't tell you why I'm moved to write this morning.

In June of 2012, after "dabbling" with online dating services, I returned to eHarmony as I found it to be the safest and provided more compatible matches than any other.

On July 20th, 2012, I checked my "what if" matches, women who were not 100% compatible, but the differences were minor enough, "what if" you contacted them and things worked…

I has been a while since I have written, but only because I write on paper, to other's in grief and in notebooks.

It is almost 5 months now since she has been gone, and I am getting used to the emptiness of her not being here.  I have been sad, but have only had a really, really good cry and that was about a month ago when I was formatting the audio of her service so I could burn it onto CDs for others.

I had to listen to it to ensure the quality was acceptable, so while…

It is now six weeks since my heart was torn in half. The unbearable pain of that moment is healing, just as one heals after major surgery.

I may be alive, but I am not living, I am existing. The only emotion I come close to feeling is the pain form losing Nanette, but it is so unbearable I run from it.

Things like this are supposed to happen to other people, not my family. But this time we are the other people and I am lost, lonely and so very, very sad to even consider it is…

When I open "My Page" the picture of my beautiful wife full of life greets me and seeing it feels like she is still here.

Acceptance is still a long journey for me, I cannot comprehend life without her. But every day the reality hits and knocks the wind out of me.

You can see the impact just driving by our house. Here it is November 7th and there are piles of leaves in both the front and back yards. Something I would never have let happen when Nanette was here. She made me want…

Nanette died on September 26th, one month ago. As my daughter said, this has been the longest and the shortest month or our entire lifes. I can't begin to imagine the sadness she carries. Bailey loved her mom so much, but then we all loved each other so much. We never ended a conversation on the phone with out saying I love you. Let me ammend that to say we never end a conversation. And it was no different with her brother Alex.

If we were leaving to pick something up at the store, we…

When you stop counting the minutes, hours, days and weeks that have passed, does that mean you are starting to heal? I'm still counting...

I work at dealing with this unbearable grief by talking, writing, going to therapy and my primary source of comfort, my faith in Jesus Christ.

Intellectually I feel normal, but emotionally and this may sound weird, but even physically I feel like I am missing half of me. I am confused, apathetic and some times angry.

The things I once…

3 weeks ago tonight I lost my wife. Today has been so very difficult as I miss her so much yet it is still too painful to comprehend. I know I keep repeating that, but that is how I feel. I feel so lost without her after 23 years married but nearly 25 together.

How can anyone even begin to adjust when your best friend is gone in the blink of an eye.

It is almost midnight and I have to get up at 5 am to go to work after 3 weeks off trying to recover. Trying to recover? That is…

I look at pictures and she is still as alive as she was at 9:30 pm Seprtember 26th. I know Nanette is gone, but when I see the photos and just going about normal day to day activities everything feels normal and I expect to see her when I get out of bed in the morning or when I sit outside on the patio I wait for her to come out and then the paralyzing grief hits that those things will never happen again.

My heart cannot accept it and I believe God is holding the reality back until I…

Nanette,

You are always there, always the formost thoughts in my mind. The shock is starting to lessen, but now I the really difficult stage is setting in; missing you. You are the reason I did my best, the reason I went to work when I was too sick to be on two feet. I hate cleaning and am a pig, yet I always tried to pick up after myself and put anything away that I had taken out of it's place.

Now my clothes are all over the bedroom, I have piles of paper on every available…

My mind still protects me from the intense grief, but it is unable to prevent the loneliness that is slowly seeping into my life. When I go to bed Nanette is not there, but I remain in the same spot as before. When I wake up during the night I find myself reaching over to see if she is there...

Still no hint as to what caused her death. But the memories of trying to save her still haunt my every waking moment. I just knew the EMT's could save her, I had no doubt, but they couldn't.…

Tonight I went to a visitation for a woman who died from LHS at the age of 41. I did not know her but do know her step mom and dad, they are members of my church.

Hard to do. They even asked me if it was difficult to be there and of course I said yes, and I cannot stay long.

I'm still trying to accept the loss of my wife but every time I start to fully grasp it my brain shuts it out. It's like God is telling me "you are not ready to feel this intense pain". It leaves me…

Last night I felt almost normal for a while. This morning I was ok until church was almost over. I kept looking at my phone as I have every Sunday expecting to see a text or voice mail from Nanette asking me to stop at the store or run some other short errand on my way home from church.

I don't know if it was out of habit or because we actually need some things so I went to the store.

My goal was to pick up lawn bags but I forgot what I wanted before I arrived and never picked…

I fell in love with my wife at first sight in the summer of 1980. I asked a coworker who she was as I had not seen her at work since I started the previus March. He told me her name and that she had just returned from maternity leave. "She just had a baby?" I asked, followed by "she's married?" to which both questions were yes. I shut that door immediatly as she was off limits.

Two years later I was getting married to a woman I had been dating for 5 years as the love of my life was…