Thank you so much for all your support, its been good to chat with people who are going through or gone through the same emotions.
Your all so brave and strong . even in the depths of your own heartache and upset you have taken the time to give me advice and comfort …ut really does mean alot. I don’t have parents any longer and I lost my mum at 16…I don’t come from a big family so can be difficult finding people to talk with .
Todays we picked hubbys ashes up…shocked at how heavy the box was, son drove me in his van , good job as I don’t think I coukd if drove myself back home.
we had a little chuckl on the way home at how Keith would be chuckling at us as we sat him on the middle seat and placed the seat belt around the box. then drove for a Costa and orderd hubby one to.
yesterday my daughter and me and my son went to the garden centre and bought a cherry blossom tree for the garden and this evening we have all had a long chat and all decided we are definitely keeping him at home…in his posh oak casket that sons making for him…I had this design in my head of a oak box but on the sides we could interchange photos… ie at Christmas and birthdays etc then a piece of hubbys favourite Welsh slate with his name etc ingraved on top…hubby woukd of loved it as our son would iof hand made it and he loved anything oak and slate. so he will sit on top of the unit making sure we are all behaving.
the garden we are going to make a memorial garden for him and incorporate things he liked and plants and flowers he liked with a water feature and a slate sign . so it becomes a relaxing place to sit and think of him and all our happy times with him.
we will place some ashes in the scatter tube for his mum and we have a scatter tube also for us to take to his favourite campsite in Wales overlooking the most amazing beach where we used to have family campfires watching amazing sunsets…the owners who have become good friends have said we can place a bench there to with a plaque on.
I was so wrapped up in how family was reacting and feeling like I should do the right thing of having his ashes in a ashes grave with headstone etc as I guess I also felt that was the done thing…but I want to be with him when I pass so when the time comes the kids can put us together where ever. at the moment it feels right to have him home…its the only instruction he didn’t leave …about what to do with his ashes but I think 1. he woukdnt want us to get onto financial crisis over grave plots etc and 2 mire important…we think he would prefer to stay with us at home.
Yes its a financial reasons to…you know what it can be like after paying for a funeral etc then whatever is left in the estate gets clawed back by the tax man/ goverment etc to…plus with covid our council who runs the cemeterys arnt doing any memorials or headstones or ashes burials etc due to covid etc so it would of been a long wait.
I feel clearer in what I want to do and what the kids want to.
love to you all and hope you all mange to get a good night’s sleep tonight. xxx
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Dear LindaT
I too am want to feel my husband’s presence but it is just not there. I cry and beg every night just for one little sign but nothing.
I call our little bungalow the waiting room. Just ticking over until my time is up. Watching crap TV programmes does not tax my brain. I am incapable of doing much else. The only time that I can marginally function is when I have the grandson. He keeps me on my toes.
Take care
Sheila xxxx
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Oh Sheila. didn’t know whether to laugh or cry at your waiting room comment and am hoping this is a bit tongue in cheek as you clearly have a loving family who would be devastated. Good for your grandson keeping you on your toes and glad someone is.
I feel utterly abandoned and desperate for some kind of sign that my partner is looking out for me and am sick asking " Where are you" with varying degrees of emotion and politeness. I am becoming less likely to sit here and talk to the point where he might be begging me to shut up as it feels a bit pointless but still still hoping for something. Take care x
Dear LindaT
Your right I do have a loving family. That and my beliefs are the only things that keep me here. Since my husband died I have been alone every night and feel as if I am in a waiting room. So many people sent cards and said to me ‘just let us know if you need anything’ but they have all but disappeared and if I ring they have now clearly gone deaf because they never answer their phones. And I have needed help for things that I could not answer, particularly queries from the police regarding my husband’s motorbikes. Was never interested in them and hate them even more since my husband’s death. I sometimes wonder if that is why he doesn’t show me any signs, he would know that I would be angry at his chosen hobby.
Spent most of the morning on the phone to HMRC. I cannot use the ‘Tell us Once’ service as I have no death certificate and to be honest as he had not been receiving any benefits or other income did not give them a thought. So many different things to navigate when also trying to keep my head above water.
No doubt I will spend the night shouting for/at him. I just so desperately need him at my side. I am trying to summons up the courage to get our wedding photos down. The box has some of the leaves from our wedding cake - as our anniversary approaches I feel the need to go to one of our favourite spots and bury these and a few other items. Hoping to scatter his ashes close to the same spot later in the year when our daughter can join me and my son - just need some special time alone with my thoughts on the anniversary.
I note you work as a charge nurse in a care home. A very challenging job for sure and especially difficult at this time. I gave up my job in February - it was something we had discussed before my husband died and the only plan that I could now fulfil.
Will continue to take it one day at a time - have no energy or motivation for much else.
Take care.
Sheila
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Thanks for your reply Sheila
Work is demanding especially such long days but also a bit of a godsend in the current climate being able to meet people and have conversations. I do have this notion that I would like to take early retirement but would want to ba a lady who lunches and cruises so even if I could afford to couldn’t do either at the moment so probably just as well.
Hope you don’t mind me asking if you believe in the spirit world? I did and have had experience of my grandparents coming through many years ago but apart from one experience of feeling my husband cuddling me and asking me to stop crying and a few years of footsteps walking around upstairs there’s been nothing else. But I do think if we weren’t in lockdown I would be trying to set up a private reading with someone recommended by others. Can’t help thinking if I was lucky enough there could be a ruddy great queue having lost 6 other key people between my husband and partner.
I share your desperation and hope that we find some comfort no matter how
Stay sane
Linda
Hi Sheila. The paperwork is the worst thing and having to repeat your story every 5 minutes is both draining and upsetting. There is a forum (can’t remember the name just of hand) which is raising in the Houses of Parliament the need to make it easier for spouses etc to inform everyone. They have asked me for my experiences and I have told them so I really hope something is done to make it easier. To change my Virgin media account from Mr to Mrs took 9 phone calls,6 demanding letters from them and eventually 2 emails to the CEO before I got a phone call to try and sort it out. People who have lost a loved one do not need that. Xx
Hi Shonzie your comments resonate with me and many others I’m sure. There is so much to think about when your mind is grief stricken and unfocussed and the brain is slow and fuzzy. Still dealing with 2 solicitors one for the estate and another for clinical negligence case. Reduced to tears today after spending an hour and a quarter trying to get the printer ink account transferred to my own account and get the printer back up and running. Felt like a numty dinosaur as young people trying to help told me to click here and there and completely overwhelmed as before my partner would have dealt with such things.
Could go on forever but working 27 hours over the next 2 days so better get to bed.
Goodnight all
Linda
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Don’t mind you asking. I believe in God and I pray every night that God will allow my husband to be by my side so I can tell him how much I love him and to give me strength each day - perhaps that is a conflict of faith I just do not know anymore. I never got to say goodbye to my husband. As he was involved in a RTA I could not bear to do the formal ID required. Feel very guilty that my son had to step up and do it but afterwards he said it was for the best.
My dad passed away in 2010 and my mother-in-law in 2008, so if my husband has made it up to heaven there are at least two people kicking his backside for leaving us.
Sheila
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Hi Shonzie and LindaT
There definitely needs to be changes. DVLA requires two separate letters if you are unable to use the Tell-us-Once. Virgin Media must have making our lives hell to an art - no empathy. Had so many requests to send ‘copies’ of documents and when I asked how in the middle of lockdown they all assume you have the latest Apple or Samsung iphones - which I do not. Made me feel even more pathetic.
Sheila
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It was a Vicki from the “bereavement standard public push” The had there 30mins in the Houses of Parliament last week. They are also trying to develop a tool to help as well. Found this link on the Cruse sight about it https://www.cruse.org.uk/blog/bereavement-standard-campaign
Shona x
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