Hi walan.you could put it much better. It will 3 years on the 1st February 2023.so I can sympathise with you on this. Good luck
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Morning and a happy ā78thā birthday and I hope itās a day you enjoy and reflect on how far you have come and keep on your happy pathā¦. 
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Just wanted to say thank you @Walan and others for sharing your stories. As someone who has just passed 2 years since losing my Mum, (and being warned that year 2 would be worse than year 1) Im struggling with just how completely hopeless I still feel at the start of year 3, with absolutely no interest in doing anything. I love how you describe seeing your wife with such clarity, defined and whole 
I really hope I get this with my mum as the separation just feels unbearable 
And yes, the constant unanswered questions that my mind is still trying to make sense of. Thank you for checking back into the site and sharing how you are doing - it does make a difference 
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@Ally6 Iām glad youāve found my ramblings of any use, itās a hard path to walk and being able to help others along lightens the load. Like you I found the second year a different beast, the āfirstsā were all over and so my focus had the space to realign and land on my solitude, it really all came home to me that I was alone. Like you I floundered, and then decided to seek help with therapy, I can only speak from my experience but it certainly helped me to gain perspective, allowed me to realise that I had no way of altering the past, that I should look to myself for both forgiveness and encouragement. That was some time ago now and Iāve taken what I learned about myself in those sessions and apply them now to how I relate to myself in the present. For me this has given me a set of tools to interpret my emotional situation and allow myself space to validate and understand what I am feeling. Itās very much as others have said, it takes time and effort and a willingness to be open, to strip things back to basics and start to rebuild again. Perhaps there are other ways to go about this and Iām sure there are but for me therapy played a core part in moving beyond treading water.
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Itās ok to feel hopeless, lost and unmotivated. I am a spiritual person and I believe bereavement/death/loss is ātraumaā and we have to heal from it all. It takes itās toll, physically, mentally and emotionally. Healing is ātimeā patience, kindness, understanding and compassion and learning a different perspective on everything. Everyoneās journey is different but the āwoundsā are the same. I have always been an adventurer and risk taker and have had to learn to become more grounded and stable. Gosh I have made mistakes along my own grief journey, had an op and cancer diagnosis, (thankfully now all clear), up and moved to live by the sea, came back and had finally had my crossroads moment, where I realised since the day my soulmate died, I have actually been running away from myself, afraid of everything , dealt with it with constant ādistractionsā thankfully I am finally at peace. This journey is a work progress. I am sure your mum is proud of you getting this far and she will always be with you
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One thing I wish I would have done like you which I didnāt do was have therapyā¦I didnāt have trust in the process at the time , as in, I thought it would make me worse (never been good at asking for help either)ā¦you hit the nail on the head for me about validating and for me (regulating) emotions and accepting understanding them, I could have done with a set of those tools from a therapist lolā¦my only therapy has been my football teamā¦.
@Ditom64 Tbh it was never something I envisaged doing but things just got to the point where I was chasing my tail over āwhat ifsā and could feel the world slipping away into a never ending internal meandering around the ruins of the past. Like you I had the desire to run for the hills, I had many far flung and exotic escapes and even got the point where Iād drawn up comprehensive plans to refurbish a van and live in it in the Scottish highlands whilst I retrained to be an electrician via remote learning, but then Iād notice my elderly cat eyeing me up muttering āyeah fuck that mateā and so it ended up as therapy for me.
I had my misgivings with therapy beforehand but I just did the old - you can cancel - go once - go again, and it got me there and turned out it was just me sitting in a room talking to a very nice person who just sat and listened, interjected to clarify or draw my attention to things, and most importantly, as it turned out, never knew my wife. It gave me space to talk without fear of upsetting, fear of being judged, fear of being coddled, I could get the internal me out and have a chat. It helped me to move on from that crossroads, more of a compass than a map.
And as for football, my only real interest is the Scottish national team and the recent psychedelic event aside theyāre not really to be relied on for any meaningful therapeutic value 
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Sorry walan I meant to say that you couldnāt have put it better in my reply to your post .sorry about this
You have made me laugh, I have visions of your elderly cat telling you to get a grip maybe I needed a catā¦. I love the idea of living off grid in the Highlandsā¦well maybe I would have to have some luxuryā¦I get it though, then you look in the mirror at yourself and realise you have to face this person you have now become, no matter where you live, where you go or what you do, itās like dragging around a half empty person that was once part of whole complete one. I often wonder (Iām such a deep thinker which drives me mad lol) , how loving someone for most of your life and losing them can end up breaking us like this?. If a relationship ended, we deal with it, we let go and move onā¦ if we lose a job, we get another oneā¦ why does grief cause this much damageā¦another one of those unanswerable questions.
Not sure what to say about Scottish football again your quirky writing made me laugh
Iām waffling now so time for a G&T. Nice chatting to you and keep on sharing your experiences
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@Martyn2 sorry, I did see your post this morning and I knew what you meant, yes 3 years, definitely plural now, somehow a lot more than last year, thanks for your words and encouragement, always goes a long way. Been a busy day and I meant to reply earlier, many thanks.
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Yes three years for me 11 days ago and today want all but two of his clothes gone now. I want to claim the space and not see them there. So my son will wear a lot of them I hope. Age UK will receive ones the ones he doesnāt and who knows? I decided a long time ago I want to draw a line under it.
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@Ditom64 yes that person in the mirror, half empty, looking at you to sort this out. And no you definitely canāt run away from them. Thereās literally nowhere to go and, letās be honest, you no longer know who they are anyway, at least not at the start. And yes the damage, once there was enduring certainty and then overnight ā¦ chaos, they are gone, you are gone. But what we think of as damage, is it really? That half empty person, they are also half full now where once they were a husk. The damage that is let loose levels the ground I guess, prepares us for the phase of regrowth that always comes. I just wish it hadnāt hurt so much, but then again perhaps itās just the nature of things that it does.
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We are phoenixās rising from the ashesā¦.
Yes we are half full now and isnāt that a wonderful analogy. We just need topping up occasionally. As Meghan Markle once said āitās not enough to survive we should thriveā Iām not her greatest fan I admit, however, I loved that quote. Hopefully year 4 will see us thriving 
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