Everyone’s grief is individual and at the same time so very similar. It’s odd isn’t it.
That wait for the coroner report is hard. I had to wait 26 months for Neal’s inquest.
It was ghastly.
My counsellor says lean into the bad days. This will help the process.
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I was 59 when my husband of 35 years died suddently a few months ago, thanks for starting this thread @KatyG - time travel,yes , at least to say goodbye to him andhug him one last time 
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Hi everyone. I am too old to join your club. That is one thing I can be grateful for. I felt cheated losing my David when he was 66 and I was 64 2 years ago. I’m already in the one club no one wants to be in. My heart goes out to all of you juggling work and children. My boys are in their 30s and 40s and they have been a great support. Having to support grieving youngsters while your heart is breaking must be hard. No one knows their future. We all know our lives can change dramatically in the blink of an eye. But change for the good can also come unexpectedly too. Just buckle up and wait for the roller coaster to climb back up. 
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Thanks, i’ll be in Notts for a couple of days, but still reading/posting on my phone.
Make sure you take some good weather for tomorrow as my daughter and I will be watching rugby.
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Seems to be raining for the next 2 days solid, oh well, the match will still happen no doubt, enjoy the game. But take an umbrella!
What a shock for you.
I was lucky enough to have time with him but he was unable to speak and I arranged for everyone to come and visit and I am not sure I said the right things to him.
I relive that morning over and over trying to change what happened. Talking to myself and him and the doctors.
I do it less now. At one point it was all day every day but now it’s once in a while.
And my brain mostly now knows it will never change anything but that’s taken a very long time!
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Morning everyone
I hope you have found some purpose for your day today.
I am doing boring house chores and preparing to go away.
My neighbour is popping round to find out about feeding the cat and the turtle.
And I have counselling.
It’s raining a lot here today but I guess we need it as apparently we still have a hosepipe ban!
xxx
Many thanks @KatyG - I keep reliving my husband’s last hours and thinking and re thinking what we could have done different, what if…. what if… but he’s dead and my world stopped that day. t is horrible at any age, but when you think you still have 10-20 good years in front of you it is truly traumatic. Wishing you all the best!
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@KatyG I cried and cried today. Funeral director advised me not to see my husband in the coffin as he doesn’t look like himself anymore. Then I found some video of my husband playing with our sister-in-law dog and it set me off again. Life will suck for the rest of my existence here
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@Anita_66 I am with you on it. Many years more like that, with this emptiness. My mum told me that if I keep crying like that for much longer my life will be shorter and than I thought “yay, I wouldn’t mind”
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Life will suck for sure.
I visited my husband- I felt I needed to for me. Then. I would know what he was like in the coffin so I could imagine him in the ground. It made sense for me. I sent him like an Anglo Saxon warrior with special things linked to his life.
I’ve watched tiny snippets of videos over and over again. I wish I had more. The thing I am most frightened of is loosing the sound of his voice.
I cried non stop for 3-4 months.
I’m sorry your Mum said that.
Cry and keep crying.
It’s good for your mental health to process what is happening.
Not real yet.
Poor you - 1 week in.
Such shock
Sending hugs and thoughts xxx
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Good morning Zani, (just, as it’s 11.55 after a very late night.
I don’t know more about your journey than on this post. I was very much into cars and customising them back in the 70’s (working in a garage and a car accessory shop, and later did a refit on a VW Caravanette for the family and friends to enjoy together on holiday). I’d love to do it again but not at 77!
7 weeks is so recent but for me around that time there was a bit of a turning point. I’d got through Christmas 2024 and New Year 2025 with amazing help from family, and friends on here and at home. (There are 19 in my immediate family of children and grandchildren). I started writing poetry and that became almost an obsession for the next 21 months to date.
Less than 36 hours before my wife Mary died, she was texting people apologising for not having done things and we were sending WhatsApp jokes between me and my children, with a laughing emoji because the priest had given her the last rites in case she died. At the time we thought that was farcical, but sadly it wasn’t. Mary was so used to having chest infections that it was just a precaution for us to call 111 after which she was admitted to hospital. We’d been together since 1985 and married since 1989.
The shock was immense, and despite all the family living close (even some next door) I also have times of extreme sadness and loneliness. That’s when I turn to my friends here as family is just too close.
It was so good to be here chatting with people who genuinely understood how I was feeling - no judgement, just love and kindness, and a lot of good advice and help too. We do all understand each other - sometimes more than we realise I think.
Big hugs to you Zani - it’s a hard road we are on and have no choice but to walk it. It’s made a little easier by walking it together though.
My friend Katy let me know that you are having a bit of a struggle knowing what to do with material. I’m not in the “age group” of this post at age 77, but the pains and struggles everyone here is feeling, are every bit as real to me.
Mary had so much stuff I didn’t know where to start but materials were less ‘personal items’ than her clothes etc. and I decided to deal with that early on. There were materials in every drawer. Little of it was labelled and I had little idea what any of it was - so how would I know what I was selling? It was a nightmare scenario. In the end I gave up the selling idea and donated it to a local school that three generations of my family had attended, including Mary. They ran GCSE courses in design, using material, and were so bowled over with the donation. I gave them huge amounts in 5 or 6 of those large multi coloured laundry bags. It was such a relief to have done that all in one go and to not have to try to sell pieces on eBay etc. It will all be put to good use. I know Mary would have approved.
Looking back it was totally the best way to handle the amount there was. I would still be dealing with it nearly 2 years on if I had tried to sell it. I am in that situation with nearly the same weight of knitting yarn.
I know how very hard it is even to sell these things. Our wives treasured what we now have to deal with. If you are ready to let it go, and don’t really know what you actually have, I would really recommend doing what I did. It was such a relief when it was done.
Apologies for the post being so long Zani - I’m afraid I am known for that!
I truly wish you the best both in dealing with the material and just the day to day things we all now have to do by ourselves. Take care of yourself and you will get through these most difficult times. I’m sure many of the others here are proof that we can do that.
I hope the above helps and is encouraging?
Best wishes.
Nigel
xxxx
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Dear @Heartbroken501 It’s been 7.5 months since my beautiful husband died, there hasn’t been a single day that I haven’t cried my eyes out. And yes, when I read of someone who “died in their sleep” or has a diagnosis that they have only a few years to live I think “why not me?? ” but of course we’re supposed to say that we keep on going and are “surviving” otherwise the mental health brigade get on our case and give us a hard time.
The one thing I will tell you is that the unbearable anxiety and pain do get less difficult after 3 or 4 months. You will start having moments of peace, maybe a very sad calm, but the harrowing intense agony does lift a little bit. Sending you a big hug!
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Hi Nightwish1,
i have been thinking of you today.I think it was your dear Sues birthday.I hope i have got that right, please forgive me if i havent.I hope you have managed the day the best you can.I found my wifes birthday in May very hard but i made a donation to her favourite charity as i wanted to do something to honour her.It was still a hard day with many tears, it was her second birthday without her.All these trigger days are so hard.Where once we would have had a lovely happy day together now like every day its just sadness but even more so on these days.We can only do our best.I have relied on this thread as the “Hows your day going “ thread to be honest i get lost on with all the posts.I do hope you are still able to get out to a coffee morning.I am trying on a saturday now to call in at a church cafe my wife and i used to go to.Its so hard without her by my side but its a nice cafe with nice people who run it.We have to try and find even small things to ease our pain and upset where we can.I think what i find so hard is having no one , no children, no brothers and sisters just me and my wifes disabled sister who to be fair is the only one who phones me now.I do hope you are looking after yourself too.As i say to my wife each night, “i am trying my best”.Thats really all we can do on this crap path we find ourselves on.
Take care.
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Hi brummy,
Thank you, I went out for a meal alone at one of her favourite restaurants ( I had a picture of her on my table)and a walk around a gardens. This was my 2nd one with out her. Yes I still miss her, but I think at the moment, I am finding some peace in myself and hopefully a purpose again. Yes bad days and crap days, and days where you feel like you are going backwards. This is all part of the crap path we are now on. Even on the days we feel like we are going backwards, we have to remember we went forwards.
This new life is horrible and hard, none of us expected it. Them early days were you feel like you aren’t or don’t want to wake-up. Yet we do, it really is one step at a time, or one minute at a time. The loneliness is hard, especially when you don’t have someone to talk to I know. I’m sorry have you tried counselling ? I know it’s not for everyone and doesn’t always work. They might have someone called a active listener’s, who you just talk to in a safe space. Please look after yourself.
Take care.
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Hi Nightwish1, thank you for your kind message.I did have councelling in the early stages, it was over the phone.to be honest i didnt find it helped that much.The best i found was talking to a vicar at a church in town.i am not deeply religious like going to church every week although strangely i now find myself in a church most saturdays either the Cathedral or the village church where my dear wife is in the churchyard.Talikng to the vicar really helped me because he listened and did not preach religion at me, he just listened, asked about how we met, her name, how long we were married, it was having someone sat opposite me listening that so helped me and brought me comfort, then at the end he prayed for my wife and i.Talking about how we are feeling is so important thats where this site is a Godsend, it may not be physically talking but there is always someone here who listens and really understands how we are feeling because we have all been there.I think a lot of my issues are with having a full time relentless physical job then shopping saturdays, just leaving sundays to try and wind down but sundays brings its own upset but gradually i am trying to sort of adjust to this crap life if thats the right word?Sort of move forward rather than move on , if that makes any sense.Nightimes are the worse and bedtime, sometimes mornings.I try to find some peace and solace.I read a lot which at first i found really hard to concentrate, i still do at times depending on how i am feeling.I “talk “to my wife all the time i find that helps too, i just wish she was here to reply.Its finding that purpose that is so hard but i think we must all have a purpose, a reason for everything, a reason why we are still here and our dear loved ones gone.I still keep asking WHY? no real answers.Some books i read offer possibilities but no real answers, maybe thats all part of our life on this earth to meet challenges and problems and worries.I do have crap days more crap days than less crap days and like yourself days i feel i have gone backwards, but i have got this far, somehow, thanks to your good self and so many kind people on this site which i think has literally saved me from i dread to think what fate,its been a Godsend to me being on my own.Its really strange how life has been since losing my wife so sad, so empty, so lonely bt without being deeply religious i find myself in a church most saturdays.Often to find refuge from the mad world outside, to find some peace and try to be at one with myself and my thoughts, but its all part of this journey we find ourselves on.At times it feels like i am lost in a wilderness without a map or compass trying to find my way.This new life as you say is horrible and hard.Its full of twists and turns a real rollercoaster ride.It really is one step at a time, one moment at a time.
I hope you managed to find some peace when you went out for a meal.I think you did the right thing, having a picture of your dear wife too was a lovely thing to do.
I am glad you have managed today ok.my next “trigger “day, is my birthday next month.That will be my second too.Look after yourself, thank you for your kindness and understanding.
Take care.
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Brummy,
I know like me you rely on public transport, but it might be worth trying face to face counselling. As I found the phone ones impersonal. Like I said the choice is yours.
The what ifs and whys affect us all in some way. I have said before we are not doctors or trained specialist’s. At the time we did the best we could with the knowledge we had. We have to try and not beat ourselves up. I know I still carry some guilt about that night, but I did my best for Sue, and made the right decision.
I hope you find some peace Brummy.
Take care.
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Hi Nigel, thanks for the post and kind regards. Mandy had a similar quantity of fabric, all new. I suppose I could give it away, or sell it as a job lot, I’m not sure, it’ll probably sit in the way for some time until I decide what to do with it.
Losing your wife must have been awful, it’s such a long time to be with someone.
I always thought I’d pass away before Mandy, I’m not sure why. But not till at least age 70. I just don’t want this new life that has been thrown on me.
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