Dear Jane…people want to see you feeling better but that can lead to hiding your grief which in itself is unhelpful. I’m four years down the line and still feel I am paddling madly underneath the surface sometime. I don’t want to upset others or embarrass them and they probably feel the same. If they make unhelpful suggestions they may have no experience of grief on the scale that we have had. We’re all on different journeys and have to find the right way for us. It ‘s a tough call… especially in these challenging times.
So take care. Hazel M.
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Dear Hazel,
Thank you for your reply and kind words. Our grief journeys are tough to navigate and we must find our own best ways through. Some days are easier and some days are harder. I so appreciate this forum and all the kind and supportive people on it. It does provide help and comfort in so many ways. Wishing you all the best, Jane2
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Dear Shona, Sadie and Jane and all who have helped me with kindness and wise counsel,
Thank you. You are helping me and accompanying me on a journey I really do not want to travel but about which I have no choice.
Together, I think we can be stronger than if we try to take the steps on our own. At least we know that whatever we are feeling is normal.
For me this has been such a dreadful week with my husband’s birthday and anniversary if my beloved Father’s death just 5 days apart and Remembrance services alongside.
After the sustained emotional turmoil, suddenly the last two days have been empty of feeling - not sad or happy or tranquil or agitated, just completely neutral. It has been a rest for my spirit but I fear it may just be the eye of the storm before everything crashes in on me again. For now, I am thankful and trying to put this feeling into storage to call on during the next terrible grieving episode.
If you are crying today, please believe that days will come without tears to give your nerves and sorrowing spirit a rest. No memories and no feelings will be lost. It is just that the pain will be dulled for a while. I am grateful for these times, which I can explain to no-one else who has not experienced what we on this site have gone, and are going through. “The shadow of the valley of death” sums it up. I am doing my best not to fear the evil.
God bless all of us.
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Dear @Prof, You have described to a tee what I feel sometimes but thought it was just me. Some days numb with no emotion at all. You just drag yourself through these days with no crying, screaming or sadness. They do give you a rest but unfortunately for me anyway, they don’t last for too long, maybe a few days or a week at most. Rest when you have the opportunity.
Shona xx
Hi Shona and Prof
One of the books I listen to describes this feeling of feeling nothing - what the book claims that is not only an emotional process but it is also physical. It is our body shutting down to give us time to rest to have a break from the pain and sadness and also it gives our brain time to understand what has happened to us
Two years after loosing Jack I still have days when I am feel numb , some days I feel nothing: not good not bad but slowly I have felt some enthusiasm regarding the house I will be moving to
Today 2 of my children are here to help to clear the loft. I don’t know what is there. As a result my stomach is churning, my heart is fast, I have a headache and a knot in my throat!!
Take care
Sadie xx
Dear @Sadsadie, Thank you Sadie for that. At least we know we are not going mad. I still have all of Bills stuff in drawers, wardrobe & loft 9mths down the line. I have tried several times to start clearing it out but it just gets so overwhelming I stop. My sister-in -law and stepson keep saying to leave it and they will help me but Covid has stopped that and the thought I will have to wait until next year is not good as don’t want to relive this nightmare again. I am so glad you are moving to a nice new house. I have thought of that but everyone says not to make any decisions in the first 2yrs. I sometimes love the memories we have in this house but sometimes hate them as well if that makes sense. Hope your packing is not too upsetting and May your new home give you lots more happy memories.
Shona xx
Hi Shona
It is hard to throw things away - you will do when you are ready and maybe throw one thing away once in a while - maybe you can find a good home for them - I gave Jack’s turn table speakers etc etc to a friend who will make good use of them
I was not looking for a place to move when this house appeared just across from he street from one of my daughters. I think it was Jack that found the house for me even though he wasn’t physically with any more
People say many things and then you do what you want ! I told my family that I wasn’t going to make any big decisions before 1 year had passed but it wa my decision!! You do what you want and when you want !! Only you will know when will be the right time
Hope you have a good day
Sadie x
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Best of luck on your move! How wonderful to have found a house so near your daughter! You are further along on your journey than I am–my husband died just a few days short of eight months ago. But it is hopeful and helpful to hear your perspectives from further along. Thank you Sadie for all your kind words in past messages.
Will be thinking of you and wishing you all the best,
Jane2
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Hi Jane
I smiled when you wished me luck with my move because I am not going just yet - so much to sort out - a bunch of Barbie dolls , transformers etc W have 4 kids and now I know why I never became rich: all those toys they had!!
I must make a date to move and I am finding very difficult to fix a date.
Tomorrow I am going to the “new” house to take some stuff
Sending you love
Sadie xx
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Hi Sadie,
There is a lot to sort out in a house move, isn’t there. Through the years I kept meaning to declutter, but everytime I tried I got a little done and then got bogged down in getting sentimental over everything and spent time reminiscing and got very little done! The kids old toys–oh yes, so many of those and books and school papers and drawings.
I’m sure it is very hard to fix a date to move–so many emotions. Doing it at a pace you feel comfortable with sounds best. Whenever it happens, I wish you all the best with the move. I sometimes struggle with my replies here. There are days I just can’t muster the where with all to give an answer. But I always appreciate reading and hearing others experiences. It so helps to know we are not alone in this and that there are others who understand and can say, “Yes, I feel that too.” I am sending you love back, Jane2
Dear Jane, Sadie, Shona, Jean2, Herb, Alston and others seeking healing and understanding.
It is such a comfort to know that I am not losing mental capacity, that others suffering bereavement go through the same sorts of experiences. Before meeting all the lovely but suffering people on this site, I believed the extreme feelings I had were abnormal. Well intentioned friends and family members who love me in their own way, naturally do not want to think of this terrible dark place and do not want me to suffer an anguish they cannot understand. Widowed friends are entitled to tell me they do understand but, without exception, they have either children, step-children, grand children or large close families and all have a “bubble”. As a result, my solitary state is thrown in to stark relief and I endure, alone a repetitive cycle.
I have just watched one of those Christmas films where the heroine is forced to relive her perfect Christmas every day until she is desperate to escape. My days feel like that except that I am not reliving perfection but this unchanging reality of loss. I feel personally lost and also know that I have lost what is most precious to me - not mislaid but irrevocably gone. As all my adult life has been spent with my husband, what we became was one whole person, shaped by being together.
I identify with you who say you cannot throw things away . I try to make a start - open a drawer or cupboard and then cannot go any further. I don’t drive but have taxed and insured the car and just had to have a new battery for it because it has not moved for 5 months. I sometimes sit in the driver’s seat, adjusted to my husband’s preferences. I understand the sick feeling you have when kind people are in your loft getting rid of who knows what? How can they know what might be precious to us, however shabby and worthless it may seem? I was the same when my brother spent some days in the garage. As fast as he was putting things in the “discard” area, I was retrieving them. Understandably he became irritated. “What do you want with all these … hinges, screws, scraps of wood, pencils, brushes etc. etc. etc.?” All I know is that David knew what he wanted them for, why he was keeping them and exactly for what they would be useful. He could fix anything, could make anything. I have so many beautiful things he made for me and now he will never again make or repair anything. Why am I keeping all the scraps destined to become something? There is no-one able to use them. There is no-one able to use the tools he made and held to bring his wonderful creations to life. Why is his music stand there with the Mozart Andante open and his flute lying on the ledge? If I open his Kindle, there is the book he was reading shortly before he died, the very chapter and page, just as he left it. All of you are hurting in exactly the same way but over different things, insignificant things to those kind people who want to help as soon as lock-down ends.
In a way, I welcome lock-down because it means I have a legitimate reason for putting off all that is waiting to be tackled. Is it good for me or not to be living like a hermit?
This is my third day of feeling nothing, except briefly when my cousin was urging me to prepare for Christmas. She is steadfastly refusing to allow me to be alone and wanted us to go out for a meal but I cannot face being in a restaurant full of families and couples with crackers and balloons and the staff all hiding their weariness to create a festive atmosphere. She said she understands and if I need to stay at home and cry she will cry with me. Do I accept gracefully and gratefully? How do I face a Christmas without the person who made every day special and Christmas so magical?
Someone has suggested that we should all light a candle and join our thoughts in fellowship and remembrance. We’d be creating a new tradition and I think it is something I’d like to do. If anyone else is of the same mind we need a time. May I suggest we do it immediately after the Queen’s speech on Christmas afternoon?
My aching heart is reaching out to you because I know how you need to feel that someone understands and cares. We are strangers but united as brothers and sisters in our sadness. God bless.
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Prof, it has already been decided that the candles are to be lit on Christmas Eve at 7pm .
If you look there is a thread about lighting a candle which gives the details.
Lighting a Christmas Eve Candle is the title 
Dear Prof
I could hear your pain and your sadnesses
I understand you wanting to be alive. A friend of mine gave m the best advice ever “ do not isolate yourself “ - it doesn’t mean you go out all the time but to go out is important. Go for a walk even if it is by yourself, send a message to a friend so this way you don’t have to talk etc
Regarding Christmas ask yourself what David would say if he knew I was alone sad crying on Christmas Day ? Maybe accept invitation for Christmas, arrive late and leave early and if at the last moment you decide not to go you just don’t go - it is always useful to have options
Like everyone I do have my days when I don’t to see or talk to anyone also I have my days where i crave for company.
I don’t think Christmas will ever be like it was - I used to be so excited, we used to have this most wonderful Christmas’trees since my lovely Jack died I have changed how things are done but I know that if I were alone I would be most miserable
Prof, it is all very strange very odd - we can’t take your sadness away but we all here in this forum will listen and will understand you
Love
Sadie xxx
Dear all. I feel your pain @Prof and it is so nice when you speak of your husband and you being a whole person. Bill and I were only together 12yrs but I felt that too. We finished each other’s sentences and loved when it was just the two of us even although we were very sociable. I too dread Christmas. We used to have all my family 14 of us. Bill was a chef in the RN and feeding 14 was nothing to him so he did most of the meal and I was washer upper 
. My mum 88 is going through chemo and her last session won’t be until January and I doubt the restrictions will allow my family and my sisters get together. So I don’t know what I am doing but no doubt about it I will not get away with being on my own. I told my daughter I was not putting up a tree and got a 10 minute lecture on how Bill would want me to be happy and enjoy Christmas. How does she know what he’d want. I dread having to put on a face and try my best not to upset people by crying. They have no idea. Mum & Dad are married 63yrs and although Dad’s over 90 he still manages to do most things but they have each other. @Prof you do what you feel you want to but as Sadie says please don’t isolate yourself as one day you will need those friends and family. Go for walks on your own or with a friend, just a walk to the shop for milk but get out. We are all here for you and as you said it’s not abnormal just grief. Take care
Shona x
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Dear Prof, You describe your pain and anguish so eloquently, it is heart wrenching. This is a good place to pour your heart out-- among those of us who are on this same painful journey. I don’t know what else I could add to the wise and kind words of Sadie and Shonzie. But I want you to know that I send you love and good thoughts and hope that you will continue to post here–to give and receive comfort. I also think it is so wonderful that you have a relative who is willing to go out with you or stay home and cry with you. What a wonderful person to have in your life. Jane2
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Dear Mrs. Colt, Thank you for the candle information. I haven’t found it on the site but now I know that it is at 7 p.m. on Christmas Eve I shall light a candle then. Thank you, Shona and Sadie, for your understanding. You will be treading on eggshells, trying to navigate a way through this, once joyous time, balancing your needs with the expectations of others. As we hardly know what we want ourselves, it is hard to justify it to anyone else. I shall also light a candle immediately after the Queens speech because that is the time David and I felt ourselves to be right in the middle of Christmas. The morning was a quick breakfast before church, preparation of lunch and after lunch, opening presents. There were very few because neither of us wanted “things” but we liked to have something to give to one another. David always gave me my favourite perfume and a new diary - always the right sort. We would sit awhile by the fire in the dining room, which resembled a Dickensian Christmas card, before moving into the sitting room to turn on the television. After the Queen’s speech we settled down to a film, chocolates, Scrabble and so on, knowing we were happy and counting our blessings. It was all beautiful and peaceful, however simple it may have seemed to those who prefer noise and parties.
My cousin is wonderful as you have noted and her family agrees wholeheartedly with her decision to be with me. She has decided to come on Christmas Eve and leave on Boxing Day. She has known David almost as long as I and was chief bridesmaid at our wedding. It will be a sad time for her too as she reflects on the deaths of her husband and parents.
How splendid to have your parents celebrating 63 years if marriage but, bitter too as it can’t be for you. David and I were so confident about celebrating our Diamond wedding that we had already made some progress with our plans. It takes my feet from under me to realize that my fit, healthy, strong, athletic, handsome husband is no longer by my side.
So many people tell me to get outside but I suffer from a mild form of agoraphobia and until his death, whenever we walked, my hand was in his. I was fine with that although always happier when safely back home. Now there are days I can’t go through the door, especially into our beautiful but sadly neglected garden.
Thank you all for your loving messages. I know how much you are hurting and wish I had words to help. The storms of dreadful weeping, although exhausting, are cathartic I think. Tears are God’s Savlon for the soul. Well that’s how I regard them . We were given them for a reason, but what about this empty, detached feeling? This is the fourth day of feeling nothing. Has anyone else experienced it? Have I become so good at blocking and disguising my feelings that I am losing touch with them all together?
Where ever you are on this hateful, lonely road, I am reaching out to you and would take your hand if I could. God bless.
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