To open, please do not feel the need to reply to this post. It’s a way for me to ‘vent’ I think, and you all have your own grief to contend with.
My partner/best-friend/lover/the centre of my world passed away 4 weeks ago yesterday, just a short time after our beloved little dog. She had faced her metastatic breast cancer with courage and fought hard for well over three years.
Her funeral was on Saturday: I had some really tough times between Deb leaving us and the service, but the sense of grief now seems all-consuming.
I’ve always been a ‘just get on with it’ type of person but right now I am exhausted, literally. Every muscle aches, I am foggy-headed, and I feel wrung-out, both physically and emotionally.
I’m going away for a few days shortly: I really don’t feel like it but I have been encouraged by family and friends, and I am assured that it will be helpful. Once back, like many of you I face the prospect of the ‘festive season’ alone: we had no family and we chose to enjoy quiet Christmases away in recent years.
We had so many plans for 2025 and I suppose that like many of you I feel that something has been stolen. We should have been looking forward to early retirement - Deb turned 60 a short time ago and I’m 57.
That’s it really I guess. I just wanted to ‘talk’.
I wish every one of you (us!) well - none of us wish to be in this situation , but we are.
Stay strong. I’m trying and it’s so hard, but we kind of have to do it for those we love.
I think our stories are similar.
My partner was diagnosed with bile duct cancer nearly 4 years ago, we’re similar in age. He passed away three days before Christmas last year, so I’m now a year on.
The best thing you can do right now is just do what feels right for you.
People will offer advice, and it will be from a place of love and concern for you, but unless they’ve been there, it’s impossible to imagine how you’re feeling right now.
Make the time and the space you need for yourself and your thoughts, look after yourself as best you can.
If that means being alone, be alone. If you feel the need to surround yourself with family, then do that but don’t be persuaded to do anything that feels uncomfortable right now. It’s too soon.
Hugs
Richard, numb, foggy, confused, and exhausted is exactly how we all feel, especially during the first weeks. I am 10 weeks in and my advice is to live in the moment, take each day hour by hour and do not think of the lost future. You have one, it is just not the one you envisioned. It does no good to grieve the future now, we will grieve it as it happens, in real time.
I make a list of 5 things to accomplish each day, do them, mark them off and have a visual reminder that I am not standing still in the fog. I am in the fog, but functioning better than at 4 weeks.
@Richard67 I have a bit more balance in my life now.
The sadness and sense of loss sometimes catches me unawares, it’s still there, but it’s no longer my main focus.
I am my main focus. N wouldn’t want me to spend all my time grieving. He would want me to carry on doing the things we enjoyed together, and for me to find new things to do, just as I would have wanted for him… but it’s been a long, dark, lonely path and I’ve taken it in my own time, as should you.
And don’t ever think you’re being selfish because for now, this all about you.
Its crazy …the whole massive bereavement thing im lost kev 16 months ago i was 58 young crazey .
How do we ever manage this whole thing we just do hour by hour step by step and days move to month’s now months to a year and half wow
