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Comment by Trina Mamoon on July 14, 2016 at 2:14am

Dear morgan,

 

I always appreciate hearing from you as you are a very compassionate person and also because all that you say sounds so true. I could have said those things myself about my journey of grief.

I am having a very hard time. Our dream home is under contract for sale, which is a relief because I do want to sell the house. But having to sell the house where Joseph and I lived the last few years of our life together. Not only am I going to have to give up the home that we both so loved, but also I am having to part with most of Joseph’s belongings. I had already started to give away his things, especially winter clothes. Up here in Alaska there are many people who have use for free winter clothes. So soon after his passing, I gave away a bagful of clothes and shoes, and gave his adoring students a bulk of his books.

But now the time has come for me to be ruthless and give away most of his worldly possessions, and he had many. We made fun of each other as we both liked to buy and accumulate things. As I am going through his clothes, books, bags, shoes, musical equipment (he used to play the piano and keyboards; he played with a band), camera gadgets, I am finding myself wrapped in reminiscing and remembering. Each of the items has a memory, a story that we shared. So I find myself paralyzed, both by grief for having to part with something that belonged to my darling Joseph, and also because at every juncture I am pausing and remembering. It’s a heartbreaking experience. I am reliving the pangs of loss of first few months. I had been doing a little bit better, not crying every single day, most days though, and now having to part with Joseph’s belongings is like parting with him anew.  The pain and suffering never ends. They come back to haunt you in different guises, under different circumstances. There is no escape until death.

Every morning now as I wake up, I say a prayer that as soon as the house sale is complete and I have vacated it, may I be freed and given leave to join my wonderful husband. I didn’t want to die before having disposed of my responsibilities (selling the house), so as not to impose on my siblings. When I have sold the house, I will write my will to leave part of my estate to Swedish Hospital and St. Jude’s Hospital to benefit cancer patients and their families. At that point, I will feel that I can die without having caused my family members a hassle, having to take care of my affairs.

My siblings have long lost patience with my ongoing grieving. It will be two years on August 4^th, and as far as there are concerned, enough grieving, on to life. My second nephew (I have two) is getting married at the end of this month. As his aunt I am supposed to show a brave face and join in the festivities. Life is so cruel! I can barely keep it together, but all my family members believe that I should be joining the world of the living and “doing my part.”

I have become quite an accomplished faker. When I am around my family, which quite frequent, I engage with them, minimally, but I do engage and take part. Only when I am alone can I retreat in my inner world and commune with Joseph.

So my dear morgan, what you say sounds so familiar and close to my heart. I wish you some respite from the mourning. At least, as you say, the grief and the pain is cutting down our years. I know years have been shaven off of my life span by my loss and mourning. Hang there, dear friend, and take one day at a time.

Sending everyone on this forum wishes for peace and healing.

Comment by morgan on July 12, 2016 at 11:41pm

Trina, Part 2

This silence that envelops me without him responding is slowly but surely twisting the knife and shortening my time here as the anguish just keeps taking minutes off my life.  Better still, as I can’t see this lasting.  It’s not anything I am sure he would have planned to have happen to me as his love ran too deep.  I can only hope against all reason that he is somewhere just waiting for me to join him.   He must be, otherwise I could not feel such an unremitting pull still towards him.  Waiting has been torture but until I can do otherwise it’s all I’ve got.

 May each of us find some small parts of day when the pain is less.  I think we deserve at least that.

 

 

Comment by morgan on July 12, 2016 at 11:40pm

Trina,  PART 1

 

I think of you often, and have, as you are, been busy trying to reconstruct my life without my beloved husband.  This has been the longest, most arduous, distasteful and painful time of my life. 

 

I am so tired of trying to make something meaningful from what is left of me.  I have gotten better at functioning which means that I avoid all unnecessary contact and when I have to deal with others I try to escape as quickly as possible saying as little as possible or if an encounter lasts long enough and they inquire enough to send my heart into the hole, I end up crying.  No one can understand how unrelenting this tearing asunder of our very existence can be except others who are dealing with their own inability to comprehend the extent of the damage to their psyche. 

 

I am at my wits end to give any kind of credence as to managing the pain of how I am coping with my husband’s death.  Put simply, from day one I have not, and am no longer worried about managing or coping.  .  There is no hope anymore given to how I feel about how I will cope.   There just is nothing I can do to make this better.  I’ve tried.  

 

If anything it feels like its worse.  Much worse.  The shock has now been replaced by a deep despair at recognizing that this is good as it gets.  That I will always feel this hatred at having to live.  That there is nothing that can give my life meaning again because meaning for me was interconnected with meaning for him.  We had a shared understanding of the importance of what needed to get done to live life and at the end of each shared decision was a shared sense of satisfaction/fulfillment.  Now I grope around for the kind of sharing I had.  I get it in dribs and drabs from a couple people but not in the amount, consistency and quality that I had from my beloved husband.  I know I am getting more despondent.  I can feel it in my very soul of souls.  I am beginning to question like I did in the first year the value of continuing to suffer like this.  I have no idea how I made it this far.  But as time is passing it is becoming clearer to me that I am losing control over my thoughts of the value of my life.  I know full well that I would be a loss to some others but only for a short period of time.   I know how this works now.  I just don’t know how long I am willing to continue to suffer this pain.  I don’t want to suffer anymore.  I’ve given it all I’ve got.   Over and over and over.  It’s worn me out and worn me down.

 

Of course I have moments where I am not quite as consumed by the feeling of loss but those moments are fleeting and replaced quickly by the thoughts of him, our life, what I had, how badly I miss him and the cycle just repeats itself throughout a day.  As we all now every day is different and we cannot anticipate how the day will go but I’ve given up thinking I am going to make it through days without crying.  It seems to be my release valve and as much as it hurts trying to suppress it, that hurts even more. 

Comment by stewart p on July 12, 2016 at 6:13pm

i dont think there is any significance between whether you do have dreams of your lost or not.  For me they've come and gone over the months sometimes more than others.  I wouldn't necessarily welcome them either because after a while it becomes rather unsettling because obviously I do have wake at some point and it really isn't much to look forward to then.  But thanks for sharing

Comment by George H on July 12, 2016 at 5:03pm

Fram I've ask that same question because I don't dream about Mary and I was told that maybe she thinks I'm not ready yet I don't know if that makes any sense just thought I would tell you what I heard

Comment by Fran on July 12, 2016 at 4:58pm

I wish I would dream about Bill. He just doesn't seem to show up in my dreams. He's always showing up in my 27 yr old son's dreams! And my daughter dreams of him often, too. Why does he NOT show up in mine????

Comment by Mary on July 12, 2016 at 4:57pm

I have also been dreaming of my precious husband Neil. Not lots but once or twice a week. I never used to before. The dreams aren't long but we are together doing something. I did have one about 2 weeks after Neil passed away which gave me comfort. I had been looking for him in our house. I ran downstairs where I saw his shadow. Turned around and there he was. He gave me a big beautiful hug like he used - would make me feel like all wAs well in my world - then he said "you would like it there". Then I woke up. I miss him so much. It's 11 weeks today. It's very hard. I haven't been able to go back to work yet. I have been feeling ill most days. I never imagined losing a husband (spouse) would be SO difficult. Neil was my life, my life partner. There is no joy. real joy.

Comment by joanne on July 12, 2016 at 3:31pm

Hi Stewart, lately I've had quite a few dreams of Andy, but they are different to so called normal dreams, ever since I was a young girl, I've always experienced birraze realistic dreams, infact Andy had his cardic arrest on a monday and on the Saturday before I dreamt that he had died and I was standing beside his grave, it was so real that when I woke it really shook me and I recalled my dream to him and he just told me not to be silly and it was just a dream, unfortunately it wasn't just a dream, im not saying I can predict things in my dreams but it was very strange, also when he was In hospital, I dreamt that my  that my grandparents knocked on my door and said that they had to take Andy, I remember running and screaming and looking through a window in to his hospital room, he was smiling at me and I was banging on the window shouting for him not to do it,has I knew he was going to remove his life support, which he did, he just kept smiling at me, I try to believe that he was somehow trying to tell me it was ok and that he had to go, maybe it was just my mind acting crazy, but I have dreamt of him since and it's always been nice happy dreams, although when I awaken I'm so terribly sad, ive been told that a deceased person can contact us through our dreams, I don't know if it's true or not, but I'd like to think it is, every night I go to bed hoping to see him, I hope everyone on here is lucky enough to see there beloved in there dreams. xxxx

Comment by Charlie on July 12, 2016 at 2:00pm

I really envy you, Stewart.  I have never dreamed before, but I was hoping that now that she's gone that I would start dreaming of my dear sweet Dreamgirl.  Unfortunately, I continue to not have dreams of any kind.  I guess it's better to not dream at all than to have nightmares, which my so called life has become.

Comment by stewart p on July 12, 2016 at 11:36am

I wonder if anyone else feels the same, I seem to dream quite a lot of my wife when I sleep, doing things, going places all sorts of stuff, so much that i actually prefer sleeping more than being awake and I tell myself because life sucks so much id rather be sleeping.  anyone else here experience this before?

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