Michael,

I just loved your article. it was so true and very touching to all of us who have to endure Christmas without our soulmate.

Michael, What a beautifully written,  heartfelt tribute to your wife and the impact of what death drops at the doorstep when we lose our beloved. You gave a gift to those who read your message of what the true spirit of love and purpose of living should be, including how overwhelming it is when the practicalities of life are heaped upon those whose emotional wheels have crashed into a wall.  Well done and I hope the readers of the paper take heart in what you have written......thank you for sharing it with all of us here. ........

big c is evil

dem/alz is evil

its 1s it sea luvd 1s suffer its lk we feal it to we do

yore articl  is so sweet it is so truee 

Michael,

i love the line, “we always had a visit from the spirit, the sparkle, and the magic of Santa Claus.”

I would call my Mom Mrs. Claus.

She would make everyday like Christmas.

In my opinion as a Widower by 4 and a half years, men find dealing with being alone and loneliness harder than woman, this is what widows I meet tell me. 

I strive on a daily basis to at least be less anxious, but I miss my right arm in my wife. 

There is also a certain inner confidence that comes with marriage, its gone when your spouse dies. 

Have heard the same thing about men and loneliness, based on the assumption that women usually have richer and more developed social networks, a wider range of relationships, etc.  Of course this isn’t true of all women, though it seems to often be the case.  My husband was the more sociable person in our household, and that encouragement to engage with the world, entertain, meet new people, was very good for me.  He sort of brought me along, I guess. Now I look at all the wine glasses, picnic baskets, even the croquet set — they reflect an outgoing, celebratory approach that was mine, was ours, but make me wonder who I am now that I am alone.  Will I do such things again?

Are you finding any successful techniques for being less anxious?  That is something I struggle with as well.  The loss of confidence you mention is definitely part of this anxiety problem...I read a bereavement memoir in which the writer talked about the shame of being bereaved, and that really resonated with me.  Maybe the shame leads to the anxiety by way of self consciousness?

I feel it all depends on the relationship, no matter if man or woman.

iv loss lot of pepplee iv lovd dealy to big c

iv

got to say gud by to sum 1 iv new for ovf 36 yrs to big c

im 44

im her oldeds nbor i am 

iv lovd her dealyy still do i do iv lovd dead pepelel for yrs if no 1 gets it no 1 will only on hear thy do

Hello Dream moon Jo B,

Good to see you back on the site. 

thnx

linda

got lot on my mondd it min

do i go get big c testt dun or not to

wored in casess moms brestt c is bac agan

bit of me sayin get testt thn othr bot of me sayin evry 1 will thng im only thng of my me not otherss coz thy is mor improtin thn me 

my hedss spinnin in wot to do

Jo B,

It is a big decision to make. I will pray for you. Take Care.

Here in England, im deeply saddened to learn of Doris Day's death aged 97 I believe ?

My late wife and I loved her as a singer and actress.

She was the soul of human decency, with a beautiful voice that radiated goodness.

RIP Doris Day..

thnx linda

its all thes in my hed

obesetyy is 1 of bigesttt 1s

yes i obesess

2 my diett is rubsishhh

big c runss in famlyy lookss lk bth sidess 

 I am at my wits end with loneliness.  Losing my wife in 2014 has taken away a certain confidence, and this happens to those left behind. Being married is much more than a ring, it is a friend, and companion, someone who knows you better than anybody else situation that you lose when one of you dies. This cannot be replaced. I am completely and utterly lost, and as such im at my wits end to know what to do to reverse things ???. I know it would be great for me to have a female companion, but I am not going looking. She and I met in passing in 1991, and it was instant, we met in a local bar, and she had just walked out on her second womanising husband after 18 years of married life. We hit it off famously, and we married in 1992, and I miss her. They say death is part of life, and of course it is. But just how are we Widows and Widowers supposed to pick up the pieces. ?. I am battling my emotions every day, the mood swings are awful..

Michael,

After 7 years I still remain lost and I know I will be until my Husband and I are together once again. As in the Serenity Prayer, God can not grant me serenity to accept things I cannot change. I just try to live each day.

yep

linda

senetty of prey 

i get

or a versee i herd it a funrell im in nxt room waitin for u

or god willget room reddy fro u 

to day had bit of wobllcry to day but neededd to cry 

Michael, just wondered if you would ever be interested in something like a book club?  A friend of mine who is a widow joined one recently and getting together with people to talk about what they’ve all read seems to be helping her, not just the engagement in the book but meeting the people in the club.  Not that she is looking for a new husband but just connecting with people is helping her loneliness.  It is not a grief book club or anything like that, and I don’t think people there even know that she is bereaved, but it seems to be good for her.  She had been like me, having trouble focusing on reading after her husband’s death, but Now seems improved enough to read and discuss.  Don’t know if it would help you, but thought I’d mention it.

JO,

I read this each morning but it does not help. I just struggle through each day.

Michael,  

Wish I had an answer to: "just how are we Widows and Widowers supposed to pick up the pieces. ? I am battling my emotions every day, the mood swings are awful.."

I am not sure if I am really picking up the pieces.  What I have done is practiced staying really really busy when my energy allows it.  For five plus years it was a daily if not hourly struggle. Crying every day sometimes several times a day.  Stumbling, fumbling my way through the necessary stuff I had to do.  Now I am in the sixth year and in the last couple months I have gotten better at functioning through a whole day without crying.  That now extends into a second day and once in a great while into a third.  I feel like my brain has become numbed by some drug it created internally to keep me alive because the crying was destroying me.  Its like my vision doesn't focus on the reality in front of me because my heart just wants release but because I am still breathing it is insisting that I do something to avoid thinking of him.  

I hate it.  As I work along I will then remember that I am alone and in that moment I know the only option to ever feel better is to die, because the other moments while I work I am figuratively unconscious.....  in outer space.....And in that moment I get angry that I am being forced to live longer.  I don't know why I am living longer and I really don't care about the reason because it doesn't make it any easier to keep living.  I pretend alot, I isolate alot and I still cry routinely.  Its how I cope.  And the isolation adds to my loneliness but I choose that over having to explain how devastated I am because inevitably the conversation leads to the big question.  Why are you doing what you are doing?  I can't talk about his death to this day.  When I have to, it makes me cry uncontrollably and that is in addition to to the times I cry because I miss him.  Its been very destructive.

Life is just not necessary for me to live anymore.  I hate being left behind. 

Today is Julian's birthday. I miss him so much

Thanks for your post Morgan. You put into words what I have a hard time expressing.

Linda, hope your day is uplifted by beautiful memories of celebrations you shared with Julian.  Do you have any special ritual or observance for his birthday?  Acknowledging such days is challenging for me, yet I do want to honour them.  

Hi M Adams,

Thank you for your kindness. Each year on his birthday I plant a tree or bush in his memory. Yesterday I bought this plague for my garden.

i do not luv bigc

now iv fw mro frinds its got termil big c sum few yrs oldr thnme just undr 50 

few peppel weari livs gotbig c'

wish i cud shoot big c lk dem/ALZ in to md of nowear sp no 1 cud get it'

i hateeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee

bigc

i hateeeeeeeeeeeeee lozzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz coz of big c

im 44 sean somushh siffin sorry if im rantin justt i need 2 let go coz of big c lpluss othr illness 2 i do 

Hi Dream Moon,

I hate the big C also.

hi

evry

1

still

hatee

big

c

now

hate

ths

evil

viris

we

got

now

I just finished up everything with my once in a lifetime's friends estate. I spent two and half months in TX, a thousand miles away from friends and family dealing with it. Now, paperwork filed away, estate lawyer paid, bills taken care, it and his life is over. It is so final I couldn't be more devastated and alone. I try to call him several times a day like we always talked, but since I have his phone, all I hear is empty ringing across the house. Impossible to bear sometimes that he isn't going to call back.

I write in a small notebook my thoughts when I have them, my feelings when I feel them, but nothing has been coming to me in the past five days but pure utter despair. It is the worst it has been since I sent him off on Dec. 20th. I expected this to be harder when I got home than it was in his house in Texas but couldn't have anticipated this.

Now with the COVID-19 going around, the people I could turn to a month ago are now in such panic, such pain, such grief for the change in the world, that I have no one to turn to. Even my therapist can only talk about the virus. I am lost and alone. I think to call David who I didn't see for 13 years until I saw him in the ICU dying and sometimes I do call; since I have his cell here up and running for bill contacts, I will it hear it ring on the kitchen table and then I remember..Our twice or thrice a day phone chats are over and I can only hear his voice in my head.

I feel so alone. So sad. So empty. So lost.

St. Brigid,

Sorry for your loss.  I too feel so alone, sad, empty and lost.  I lost my darling wife over two years ago and as time goes by, I get worse.  I wait for death to be reunited with her in her realm and the sooner the better.  We spent all but the first 15 years of our life together, married at 19 for 48 years.  She gave me the most wonderful life a man can have.  I live in HELL now waiting.  We have 4 children and 8 grands and with this virus, I can't even visit for fear of getting them sick.  Our cemetery closed to visitors on March 21st. I had been going there every day since she passed over.  So here I sit alone with only calls from my children.  I'm grateful for the 17 years we spent as empty nesters and the last 8 years retired, together 24/7/365 joined at the hip.  We traveled a lot, golfed together often, and were like teen aged lovers.  All I do is suffer and wait for the cancer I think I have or this virus to come and get me and take me to her.

I'm sorry you had to find your way here but know you are not alone here.  We all feel the pain and share our feelings (mostly despair), so post often.  We don't judge here; we identify with each others feelings.

Joe   

Thanks so much, St Brigid, for putting Surprised by Joy here, good to read it again, it’s really evocative of a particular kind of intensely passionate grief.  

Title made me think of a very different work by C.S. Lewis, also called Surprised by Joy, and that led me to recall another of his books, A Grief Observed, which he wrote after losing his beloved wife.  That book might be of interest to you, if you’re up to reading that sort of material — I found it helpful in my bereavement.  

hi

joel ther is a few gay gropups on hear 

for

lgbs

thy is 

but evry 1 is welcim on hear 

sorry on yore loss

all u need to do is look it diffrnt foremss on hear it will lead u 2 stuff it will hlp u it will

Rilke%20on%20sadness%20and%20solitude.html

I came across this online today. I find some of my days are best spent in this kind of quiet, sometimes sad and painful, but reflective thought. The pain reminds me that I loved--and that I still love--and I won't trade that love for even my darkest suffering. The whole experience of loss is teaching me how to grow as a human being; that's what David would want for me and the times I have to ask him for forgiveness for times I hurt him, his answer is for me to correct my errors and love on.

i hate big c i do iv frindss had tretmnt delayd cpz of cov 19

coz of cov 19 thy will probly not evn mak it 

cnt evnhav a desent sendd off lk my nbor i cud not say gud by 2 coz of rstrisn 

loss frind 2 cov 19 cud not say gud by to her 

coz of restrisn

peppl dt

peppl dyin in hoplts or hospis alon coz vistrs reltivs not alod 2 go sea thm or say finall gud bys 

 i no im gona lozz lotss of frindss 2 big c coz of cov 19 delin tretment wish cud of beam savd

sorry if im rantin on i am 

Getting to reality that your loved one is sick, and ain't gonna be here long . when you never thought it would ever happen to your parent. well i guessed wrong on that it hit me like a bombshell went off. she was a great mother .

Hello everyone. I just lost my dad, not even two weeks ago, and I feel like I can't breathe. He was my favorite person in the world and I sometimes question if I can even function without him. Other times, I still find it hard to believe that he is gone, and then it hits me all over again.

I never got to say goodbye.

He started declining earlier this year so we started getting him treatment and therapy so that he would get better. I haven't physically seen or hugged my dad since I dropped him off at the hospital (due to the virus) over three months ago, and now I never will again. That's the toughest part I guess, all of those missed months that I could have had with him. Now he's gone and I miss him so much it physically hurts.

Has anyone else had a similar experience?

When will it get any better? Can it even get better?

Will I be able to recover?

so soorry for yore loss liv mandy 

i no its lk hell 

@mandy wilinski. 

I remember when I first got the news. It was a big shock, everyone in my family was surprised, but you have hope, because all you have is hope that they get better. Then as time passes and they gradually decline, you come to the reality you never thought was possible, the worst-case scenario that you thought would never happen and then it happens and really it just feels like you've hit rock bottom and everything that could have gone wrong HAS gone wrong. 

That feeling is just devastating. Its compounded when you don't have anyone you know that you can talk to about it because nobody has gone through the experience. 

I'm sorry for your loss. 

True Love never dies.  Hope is Eternal.  Three years ago, the nightmare began and continues to this day.  The Hope now is going where She went which is the first thought I had when She passed in my arms.  I wait for that day to come.  I'll never give that Hope up because I Believe it will happen.

i'm having such a hard time.  I lost my husband of 33 years to non-small cell lung cancer after battling other cancers since Nov. 2011 diagnosis for Cancer of the esophagus. I don't think I can go on anymore.  He was my whole world and now I am lost. I thought I was doing so well but now I a not It happened last Sept. 2019 but I took care of him for those many years and its taken a toll on me because he didn't want anyone to know so I isolated with him. I desperately need support right now. Thank you. 

I miss my late boyfriend. He has been gone for two years. He died from colon cancer. I want to get on with life without him and start dating again. But it is hard. Mentally I am ready but emotionally not so sure.

My wife died on March 2nd at 6:09pm. She died 1 day after giving birth to our son who was born on March 1, and was only 25 weeks old. She had breast cancer that took her at 31 years old, leaving me with two infants to raise. I don’t want to do this without her, my kids need a mother not a father. I hope I see her soon. 

so sorry on yor loss adam iv juts loss my mom 2 day i hav juts begin 2 feal numness setin in i do

We were together just under a year.  We planned a future together, we were crazy in love.  I have significant heart problems & he was in remission w/ stage 4 colon cancer.  Six months after we met, he started chemo.  I was with him through it all.  He had been fighting it on/off for eight years.  We were told there were no more options.  His body was so tired from fighting the cancer & it had gone to his lungs & was aggressive in how quickly it spread.  He died 6wks later.  That was 3 months ago.  I’m struggling.  I had lost one of my best friends to breast cancer4yrs ago, my Dad to heart disease, 3yrs ago.  I’ve been told countless times I may not make it through something & truly try & live each day.  I thought I was prepared for him to be gone, but I’ve been a mess.  Many tell me I shouldn’t be so upset b/c we weren’t married or b/c we were together less than a year.  But, we had been through love & loss before & knew what we had was so very special.  Just feels like I will never be happy again.  Can’t someone grieve such a loss, even if the relationship wasn’t that long?

Love isn’t measured in weeks or years — you found each other, despite all the obstacles of illness and justified fears, now death has torn you apart, that is a terrible, brutal loss.  Three months is still so recent.  Very sorry for what you are going through after having the courage to give and receive love in such challenging circumstances, there is something heroic in that kind of courageous, passionate love.  

Thank you.  I felt the same; but have struggled in justifying my grief b/c our relationship wasn’t very long.  We had made plans for the future.  Some thought we were ridiculous to do so, but anyone could die tomorrow & I know how it feels to be abandoned b/c of a health condition.  I wasn’t going to leave him b/c he got sick & initially it looked promising that he would get through this latest round of chemo….  I just have no interest in anything & miss the future we had planned.  Just miss him so terribly much.

Jennifer, first of all my deepest condolences to you on the loss of your soulmate. This kind of loss is hard to overcome. 

I fully agree with M Adams that love isn't measured in weeks or years. Well said! True love is a gift that comes rarely; and I think you are one of those people who knew true love, however briefly.

I lost my beloved husband of 19 years more that seven years ago, and to this day I mourn his loss every single day. No matter how many more years go by, I will mourn the loss of the love of my life Joseph. 

People who are telling you that you shouldn't be so upset by the death of your beloved are not only downright cruel and insensitive, but they also have not known true love. Had they known true love that comes rarely, they would not have been so unkind to you. It's your loss and it is up to you to mourn your loss for as long as you need/want to and the way you want to. You own your loss; it's nobody else's business to tell you how how to feel, or to put a timeline to grief. 

You have my full empathy, and I wish you strength and fortitude in the weeks and months to come as you grapple with your loss.

You have both helped more than you can possibly know.  Despite knowing his time was near an end, we crammed in so many great moments.  My goodness, not minutes had passed after we were told at a large research hospital that there was nothing more that could be done, he wanted to check out a local baseball game.  That was us.  Despite it all, we made adjustments & enjoyed the moment.  Even if our “date” that day was in the chemo lab.  I think experiencing not only a deep live later in life, but then the trauma of watching them slowly die; it’s all so intense.  It’s just been hard as I’m old enough to know that I need time to grieve and that the longevity of our relationship doesn’t equate to the intensity…. Just the lack of support and understanding that my grief is mine & im struggling to now think of a future without him b/c it’s as if suddenly the sun came out in my life and then abruptly was gone.  I miss his sunshine & being happy…

& I am so terribly sorry for your loss.  I get it now.  I will always miss Michael.  He was one of a kind.