Having got through Christmas which was predictably awful I feel so fragile again. I know 3 months is very little time to have been bereaved but after the worst two years of my life with my husband so ill I can’t seem to face 2019. I don’t have any family and in my 71 years have only lived alone for a year as a student and the last year while he was in Hospice and nursing home. I had a good career and interests and have no problem with paperwork, admin etc after he died. But he was everything to me for 41 years and I know that’s not unique. I just can’t bear The aloneness. I do have friends and even counselling but I can’t see what future there is for me. I know theoretically I have plenty of skills to offer and interests I could follow but I don’t want anything except what I can’t have…my wonderful husband and our life together. Everything else seems pointless. How does anyone get through this? Or even want to get through it?
Hi Dido
Just read your post like you only been 3 months since I lost my husband to lung cancer he just took ill, in July discover lung cancer and was gone in 3 months after 47 years of marriage. He lost his eyesight use of one of his arms and the last week of his life his speech. I work and am still working and have a supportive family but Xmas was hard and I know how it feels as I too wake up each day just wanting him back and struggling with the guilt of trying to hold down a job and be there for him. When he passed away I just thought as you say what is the point of it all. All we can do is try and get through each day the best we can. All my love Bernie
Hello Dido, so sorry to read about the loss of your wonderful husband. Just wanted to add that I too can’t bear the aloneness. My circumstances so very similar to yours, just I lost my husband fourteen months ago…I still feel fragile and live without real purpose. I fill my days as best I can…much harder to do in the winter months. I don’t think too much about my future life; just one day at a time, for now. I’m receiving therapy and will be looking to set some goals for myself, in the near future. There’s a lot of kindness and support right here, keep posting, kind wishes, x
I am so sad for you and I suppose at this stage it’s best to just take one day at a time. I lost my beloved husband three years ago And although I seem to cope the first two years fairly well, I am now not coping at all well. I know what I should be doing and I am capable of so much but at the moment there seems no point.
Thank you for your kind reply. I have cried all evening and it was good to see a reply waiting. People say What would he want for you? I know he would want me to get the best out of my life but I guess he would understand my anguish at losing him and my inability to imagine the future alone. There will be a point for us .Maybe it has to find us. Thinking of you too.
Thank you so much. I find the therapy good but still feel so alone…no way round that bit.
Thank you for your kind reply. I feel supported by the love and shared situations of others in these postings but sad for us all. Lots of brave women out there bearing huge pain.
You’re right, no matter how we feel during or just after therapy, coming back into our own world, all alone, is unavoidable.
When I’ve been asked what would your husband want you to do, well it just floors me. Before my husband became ill, I was still grieving for my Mam, preparing for her house to be sold and working full time. One day I was at work, next I was at the hospital with him for as long as I was allowed, every day for seven weeks. When he came home I became his carer 24/7. I didn’t return to work and just managed to get early retirement. As his illness progressed, we couldn’t have meaningful conversations. I was lost in the world of dealing with medical professionals on his behalf for two and a half years. He’s not been in our home for over two years. I can say what I know; he would be devastated to see how his illness and untimely death has affected my overall wellbeing. The hours I spend in anguish and crying unconsolably cannot be controlled. We never planned or even gave consideration to life when we would be parted. Learning to live alongside all of this, is taking time; I’ve plenty of that now.
Hoping you get through today as best you can, kind regards, xx
Men too
Morning Edwin, yes and men too. How are you? Are you back into your daily routine today? Best regards, x
Sorry Edwin. I know it’s men too. My husband’s best friend lost his wife a few weeks before I lost my husband and bravely came to stay for the funeral and escorted me into church as I have no family.
Your situation so like mine. My lovely husband who never wanted anything except to make me happy and protect me developed severe dementia and lost all mobility. I cared for him for a year but as things got worse we got to crisis and I had to accept his need to be cared for in Hospice and nursing home. I fought and fought to keep him at home but it was impossible because he became so nursing high dependency. I became the wife who couldn’t console him, couldn’t save him, tried to calm his terrors and he never understood why I couldn’t take him away from it all. I had that last terrible phase for nearly a year with him for hours every day trying so hard to help but I couldn’t. It was like loss after loss and then the final one. I want to remember the 40 good years when we were soul mates but I still have the awful suffering of the last 18 months in my head. Like you I spent two years of dealing with medics and nurses and carers some wonderful some unsatisfactory. It leaves you exhausted from the whole thing. I’m thinking of you too today
Thank you Dido, much appreciated. So many similarities; it’s just heartbreaking, x
I am terribly sorry to read of the circumstances of your husbands’ illnesses and deaths, Dido and Rainbow.
We express sorrow and sympathy so often on this forum, and whilst the writer must often feel that they are inadequate to the task of communicating the true and genuine depth of feeling, I’m sure that the fellowship of grief gives each of us a comforting assurance of certainty in what we read, each and every time. I hope you feel that from my first sentence above.
I haven’t posted for about ten days now, but I have been following the forum quite closely during that time. Writing a post and then deleting it before sending is something I have written about before, and I have done that a couple of times over this period. There have been several posts and threads which I have felt moved to respond to, but then I delete in despair as I feel my words to be superfluous or perhaps unclear.
Edwin, thank you for your well chosen words, bringing comfort and assurance.
Over the last week or so, this forum has become so much a part of my daily routine. I feel I am able to contribute now rather than just read. Sometimes, I’ve cancelled my post and said to myself, not good enough. Through therapy, I’m learning that sometimes I have to try and accept that what I’m doing, is good enough. It’s the accepting that I’m working on, x
Thank you Edwin. I know just what you mean about words feeling superfluous. The trouble is no one can bear our own grief for us. I am not sure what posting does for me yet but it helps to express things a bit and to know there is sadly nothing unusual about how it feels to be so grief stricken.