It has been over four months now.
I have had the privilege to share my journey with you and to share everyone else’s.
We empathise with each other and offer support when it’s needed. We understand grief and sorrow and we all experience the punch in the face when we wake up in the mornings.
We tell each other to take baby steps and just get through the next hour.
Sometimes we manage to laugh in the face of adversity and stick two fingers up to the Grim Reaper.
If my husband is still around, he won’t be sitting on a cloud watching me cry and thinking “Jane is so miserable, she must REALLY love me, she can’t be happy without me”.
I know that if my husband can see me, he will be saying “Go for it, Girl, Be happy”.
I suspect that all our lost loved ones would wish the same for us.
They made us happy. We were their “Happy Ever After”.
We owe it to them. Let’s Get Better.
Xx
Very wise words although I have to make a conscious effect on a daily basis to make good choices which will benefit me and slowly move forwards. I’ve joined the U3a (university of the 3rd age), go to at least one exercise class each week day, and have started volunteering at our local small zoo at weekends. It doesn’t make me miss my wonderful husband any less but I know, like you, he would be my loudest cheerleader xx
After my wife passed I was a slobbering wreck,over the passed few weeks I have seen a little improvement,a smile,a laugh eating properly again,at home I was an impulsive spur of the moment type of person,all that was gone after she died,after yesterdays trip I feel some of that returning,I don’t make plans or set goals and I don’t have patience or a need to do new things but that may change.
You are a slobbering wreck because of that cheap gin you make.
I do make plans, I try to go out or have friends round as much as possible.
I keep as busy as possible. Some people call it distraction, it works for me. When I sit around on my own I feel the swamp pulling me under.
And that will never do.
Xx
Missed out the “long term” before plans,cack handed as usual,most family and friends are busy during the day and widowers are thin on the ground in my neck of the woods,like you though I do keep busy,have dinners with family etc,probably made it sound as though I was curled up on the sofa every day.
I used to just have the wicked old lady living here, the one that stands in front of the mirror, obstructing the view of myself. Now I also have to contend with a wicked old man that steals my chocolate cake and uses a hot iron on all my silk.
Life sucks sometimes. 
Please a wicked old man with a beard and a toadstool.
This toadstool you’ve got, did the toad mind you taking it?
I have toads in my garden. No pond, just the Buddha water feature that I had put together in order to get serendipity. I think the toads and frogs use my garden as a short cut to the ponds up the lane.
One day my cat caught a frog and brought it into the house. I have honestly never heard screaming like it. My cat never killed anything, she just brought things in and licked them. Birds, mice, a bat, moles, shrews, but frogs were her favourite. Maybe because they are bald and more lickable. Anyway, I took it off her and let it go. She sulked all evening.
Xx
No the toad didn’t mind at all,in fact him and his friends were quite delicious(joke)
You made a joke!
How quaint.
Toad in the hole?
Xx
You got it great.
It was……………
Erm………….
Predictable.
That’s it.
What do you get when you have got a Yorkshireman and mention of a toad.
I knew it would be irresistible. All that Yorkshire pudding, and nowhere to go.
Mushy peas, anyone?
Aye, and a pint of your best bitter, landlord.
Eh-up, lad.
Xx
You’re absolutely right Willow - my husband would have made the most out of every day. It’s what spurs me on but grief is hard going and lonely. It’s learning to live alone and I haven’t done that for a very long time! Great you’ve planted a tree, my friend gave me a rose to plant in my husbands memory but the muntjac has had a good ole munch on it! Best laid plans!
I think we have all had a difficult day today. I certainly have. It has been one of those where I have had to get through one hour at a time. I have missed my husband so much that I have had to leave the room to have a bit of a cry, despite having my daughter at home and a friend coming for lunch.
I don’t know why today has been so hard, I do know that I have had days like this before, and will undoubtedly have more in the future. But these sad times are getting further apart. I am getting stronger. I have learned how to do some things for myself, still more to learn. I don’t like this new life, but it’s the only one I have got, so I have to make the best of it.
Hoping that tomorrow will be better for all of us.
Xx
Forgot to add about the rose bush. We have those hungry little muntjac deer as well. Someone told me to try growing garlic among the roses, just buying a whole one from a supermarket, breaking into cloves and burying them. Or growing foxgloves. I did both and have less of a problem with them now. It could be that, or it might be that whenever I see one in my garden I throw used teabags at them. They don’t like that, and it doesn’t hurt them either. Of course it could be that I swear at them at the same time!
Maybe they just object to my language?
It’s surprising that they want to eat prickly roses, but they seem to love them.
Pesky things, but they are pretty.
Xx