Hi Sadie
I did have some Christmas plans. My lovely daughter wanted to come and stay with me for Christmas Eve and Christmas Day. I told her I would rather spend it on my own as I didn’t think I would be much company for anyone but she wasn’t having any of it. It was lovely to be able to look forward to that for a while but now with the 2nd Covid lockdown I’m worried it may be extended over the Christmas period and this has hit me very hard.
I was always such a positive, glass half full person. I’m sure that was because I had the unconditional love and support of my husband. Now I feel I have very little control of my life and that makes me angry. I coped with the first lockdown because my days were consumed with the unbearable grief of losing my husband and with sorting out his estate and the bills etc. Now the anaesthetic of shock has worn off and I’m left with the stark reality that this is the way it is now and will be for probably the rest of my life.
Maybe I should turn to the books you suggest. If they helped you they might help me. Was there any particular one that helped you the most?
x
Hi --A few of you have mentioned planning helps --do you mean you plan each week out with activities to keep busy and to give direction ? I think I need to be more organized .
@Ellie1. You should still be allowed your daughter to stay as single people are allowed to be in a bubble. I am in my daughters bubble and she is allowed in my house and vice versa. I do live in Scotland but if live in UK I think it is the same.
Trac - I tell you what I do - I find it helps me and maybe it can help you
1 I have a list of things that I enjoy but if I feel low I don’t remember - whatever it is : going to gym, swim, things that need be done etc So when I am low I can look at them and decide what to do
2 I plan things like meet a friend, go for a walk by my self etc with lockdown I did a lot of cross stitch which I love - when I am doing it I just don’t think. You may choose garden, painting etc anything that you enjoy and occupies your time
I am very careful to plan things I can do for myself because friends and kids are not always available
Been without our husbands/wives is difficult
The other thing I am doing is listening to Audible because it is nice to have another human speaking to me - I have been listening to lots of books about grief and they did help me - I cried a lot listening to the them and at the same time it was wonderful having others sharing what they are going through
I hope this helps you - this is a long long journey where we spend so much effort to survive a life that we don’t want
Sending you love
Sadie xx
I know me - and I know
Hi Ellie
It has surprised me how so much of my identity was been a wife
I realised after loosing Jack of my joy , enthusiasm for life came because he was here - I felt secure, I felt safe - now I feel quite vulnerable, I was a strong woman but now…
I am so glad I had the opportunity to tell Jack that I realised that my strength came from him - knowing he was here beside me - saying this I feel his presence
Here are some of the books I listened to:
1 there is a guy called Gary Roe - he has written lots of books and I like them
2 it is ok you are not ok - Megan Divine
3 Languages of loss - Sasha Bates
Once you start looking you will find lots more
Much love
Sadie xx
Thanks Shonzie
I’ll check with the government website.
I would be mortified if my daughter was stopped and fined.
x
Many thanks Sadie.
I had my first session with Cruse Monday evening. True to form I just lost it and sobbed most of the way through it. I’m hoping the next session will be more helpful. The counsellor was really lovely though.
Take care
x
Hi Trac
You ask about planning your time and I can confirm that this is the way I cope, so I certainly agree with Sadie, SanW and other planners.
I work out my week so that I have something to do everyday. I have hobbies and interests which I work into my week. I keep my eye on the weather as most of my hobbies are outdoors. If I have a bad day or can’t do much outdoors I fit in something else to keep me occupied. If the weather is bad I do something around the house that needs doing. Recently I cleaned out cupboards and had a tidy up in the greenhouse. Not that exciting I admit but it is something to keep me occupied. If all else fails there is always this forum and it has saved me many a time when I am feeling low.
xxx
Hi Sadie -I am going to write up a weekly or monthly plan this weekend as I see that it will help. I seem to have brain fog and I’m not getting anything done efficiently so I will start planning my plan! I find the weekends are the worst time so will try and get some activities planned on these days. I really want my old life back-I know there;s no point saying that cause its gone but you know ! Anyway Im sure the plan will help–thanks for your ideas x
Hi Pat
My plan is on the way! I do have things I like to do but haven’t been doing them much lately and I especially need to plan the weekends better as I hate them now. I can see that a plan will give me direction which I am lacking at the moment and momentum perhaps. This forum has helped me so much with other peoples ideas that have helped me come up with strategies to cope so thanks for your ideas x
Hi Trac
Well done girl!!!
Weekends are hard - I find Fridays very difficult, it has got a bit better May moly because I used to plan go for a swim around 5:30 so by the time I left I felt better
I think trac that will always be a challenge but we become more efficient to keep things hat feeling of dread away
Take care
Sadie x
Hi everyone.This will be my 3rd Christmas without Ron.The first year I was woken by a phone call at 6am.My diabetic daughter had decided to burn some rubbish in the garden (why Christmas I don’t know.) Then she had an hypo and was unconscious in the house.The fire spread and damaged her fencing and conservatory.I spent the whole of Christmas day and boxing day helping her to sort it out. The second year I was hoping to visit one of my daughters but they had both invited my ex husband and thought it would be embarrassing for him if I turned up. They thought I had made arrangements with friends. So you see it hasn’t been very good for me but this year I have met someone and Christmas should be better. I am by no means over my grief and will find it so hard again at this time of year but at least I will not be alone.Ron was never a fan of Christmas and 2017 was his last. Ironically that year he decorated the tree and put all the decor up around October. Everything was glistening when I arrived home from work.It was as though he knew he would not be with me the following year. I now feel flat and don’t want to decorate my house anymore but this year I have enjoyed buying presents for my grand children and daughters. I am not looking forward to Christmas although the initial grief has softened a little.I have learned that I can live alone but I am still lonely.I hate New Years Eve though and cannot bear to hear Auld Lang syne because when we went out Ron always asked the pub or restaurant to play it and I just don’t want to hear it without my husband by my side. I wish everyone a very happy and peaceful Christmas and I will be thinking of you all
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My husband and I really loved Christmas. It was something we did to the max and our favourite time of year. Even though we have a small house with only 2 bedrooms we had at least 4 Christmas trees and decorations in every room. On Christmas eve since he’d built us a wooden large gazebo around 4 yrs ago we had a big party in there that was the highlight of our garden year. He had made all kinds of Christmas decorations and a projector that are there all year along with some lights in the house that all come on through home automation playing clips from national lampoon Xmas vacation and some other funny things with a drumroll each day in December at sunset when they were programmed to turn on. He has already started programming the home automation for this Christmas and for all I know something unexpected will happen for me as he loved to make me laugh with these things.
He died in October and normally that week would have been our first Christmas outing to our local Christmas Market for some drinks and treat food then to look around the decorations and buy one new thing for our collection.
Then we always watched all the Xmas movies through November and December and listened to Christmas music, I even contemplated having a Christmas song in his funeral but I could only pick three songs and thought it would send me over the edge. I can’t imagine ever enjoying the songs music or anything about Christmas again.
I still don’t really believe he is gone so haven’t thought too much about this topic but I feel repulsed and queasy at the thought. I identify with what people like Herb said. I don’t want any of it anymore.
Dear FleurDeLis,
I am aching for you. It is so fresh and raw and the pain of even the word, “Christmas” is seering.
People constantly harping on that they can’t have their parties and big family Christmas dinners just makes me want to scream at them to value the precious gift of actually HAVING a family. My husband and I were everything to one another. Like you, we decorated the house so that we were living inside a Dickensian Christmas card. It didn’t matter if no-one came because we did it for us to celebrate the joyous season. Presents were not important but a quiet, holy Christmas Day, just the two of us after church, eating a meal together at our Christmas table, was.
Like you, I feel sick at the thought of it all. I keep trying to watch the old Christmas films but then, in tears, have to turn off the television after a few minutes.
How do we get through this? It was my husband’s birthday this week, another special time. Because of the dismal season of the year, we always made an extra celebration of his birthday week.
We have been together nearly 60 years, the whole of my adult life. Yes, I know how blessed I have been bit the pain of separation is indescribable. Only you on this site, who are suffering too, can come close to knowing what it is like.
Someone else has said that just opening the front door, let alone venturing out, is draining. On some days I just can’t do it, even to collect the post or take out the bins. Those weeks, the bins are not emptied.
My widowed friends are witness to the fact that it is still possible to carry on living after losing such a huge part of what makes me alive but do I really want to live this half life? What is it for? I have no family and am not in a bubble with anyone. My days are silent and empty.
Surely there must be some purpose for those of us in this situation? My one, sustaining, grateful thought is that I am the one suffering this and not my dear one. I am the one having to wake up each morning to nothing, not he and HE was spared waking up alone on his birthday. I do try to count my blessings but confess that they twist the knife in the wound with the realization that all those blessings are in the past. There is no happiness in the present and I cannot envisage a future.
I have no words of comfort but I can weep with you. God bless you.
Oh @Prof, I so agree with your words. I lost my wife in mid-July on my 64th birthday and she was everything to me. We spent every day together because her disability and medical problems meant she often needed to rest or sleep during the day.
As you say, even crossing the front door or or taking out the bins can seem like insurmountable tasks, and I too no longer take them out every week. I’ve found these last few weeks that I just want to lock myself away at home each day.
And yes, it’s now half a life we’re living, and when we’re on our own with no family, the long, silent, empty days are so difficult to endure.
I too am so, so glad it wasn’t my wife left alone, her mobility problems and medical conditions would have made her life virtually impossible. For that, I am so grateful. I struggle to get out of bed every morning, and my first words are usually telling my wife how much I miss her. I see so many practical and financial problems ahead of me that I feel as though I’m living on borrowed time. I agree there is no happiness nor can I envisage a future. Each night I go to bed, I hope it will be my last, I simply want to be back at my wife’s side.
A couple of friends and my parents have told me they think I’m doing a little better each day, but if they only knew how difficult it is to get through each day.
As for Christmas Day, I dread the thought of it without my wife, and she was always so organized sorting presents and food. Now this year Christmas dinner will simply be a snack as I grit my teeth and pray for it to pass quickly.
God bless you too and everyone in a similar position.
Dear Prof, Fleur De Lis
I am so sorry that you are finding things so difficult. It is quite early days for you so please don’t beat yourselves up…learning to “live” with the most important part of ourselves missing is probably life’s cruellest challenge but somehow we manage to get through the days apportioned to us. I would love to be able to tell you that it all goes away but, for most of us, we just learn to cope. Daily issues do get easier with time and when the really bad times resurface at intervals we manage to navigate them knowing that soon we will be cheered by hearing the birds sing or feeling the sun…even the rain!..on our faces. I believe that those of us who are left behind still have a purpose even if we can’t see it…we have to learn to accept that we now travel on an unknown road with many twists and turns but our destination is in God’s hands.
All anniversaries are difficult and Christmas is no exception… but the true meaning of Christmas is to remind us that light shines through the darkness…please join us lighting a candle on Christmas Eve and know that love will sustain us all.
God Bless…Take care x
Update after saying we are having Christmas at my mum she was rushed to hospital this weekend and has been kept in so please god that she comes home soon. This year has been so horrendous I cannot face anything happening to her too.
I am so sorry. Please hang in there and hopefully things will turn around for you and your family. Thinking of you x
Thank you AnnR I wish you peace too and also happiness where it can be found. xx
Thinking of you and your mum x