Prof, Thank you for a beautiful post. Your situation so closely matches my own that I was weeping by the time I was halfway through reading your thoughts. Gill and I were together for 51 years - how quickly they have flown by! We had no children so Flora (beagle) and I have agreed to treat Christmas as just another lonely and sad day. Gill loved Christmas, our kitchen was a hive of activity after breakfast, though not this year. I also derive some small comfort from the fact that were I not going through this absolute hell then Gill would have had to do so instead - my last gift to her perhaps?
I canāt face the future, its emptiness is frightening so I try not to think about it.
As you yourself wished, Prof, perhaps God will help us get through it all but I have yet to forgive Him for my darlingās cancer.
Love to you all, Peter
Dear Peter, Marc, Butterfly all of you
I wished I could say magical words to you and I wished o could say it will get better .
It doesnāt get better - we just get used to it
This will be my 3rd Christmas without Jack - I go though it and I enjoy it but I donāt get excited as I used to be -
The thing is we survive! And I think is important to survive well , by surviving well I am honouring Jackās life , by surviving well I can keep talking about him and what a nice person he was
Sadie xx
Prof, Sadie and Peterā¦Thank you for the kind wordsā¦
Prof, so lovely what you wrote
Sadie x
Dear @Prof,
Your post is one of the most beautiful and touching I have read for some time. So many things you say and I think to myself āThatās exactly how I feel too!ā. My wife Nicki and I were together for 31 years and married for 24. She too was the centre of my universe, and I miss her every minute of every day. We had no children (by choice), Nicki had no relatives (she was adopted) and my relatives live 150 miles away. Each day I wake without her, I tell her I miss her, and drag myself out of bed for another long tortuous day. Nicki used to make dinner on Christmas day, despite the pain she suffered from her disability, and it was a special time of year for her. I find I cannot muster the energy and strength to do more than the basic daily tasks, especially at this time of year, and I worry that my mood will never improve.
I received a Christmas card today from one of Nickiās cross-stitch friends in the USA, addressed to me only, and the lovely message it contained just made me cry. Nicki and I used to keep our old Christmas, birthday and anniversary cards for her craft projects, and I found a Christmas card from her to me in our spare room which was to my āwonderful husbandā - that made my heart ache too. Nicki used to write the most loving messages to me in all the cards she sent me, and I was never as good at putting my feelings into words - something I so regret now.
Over the last week I find myself crying less compared to the previous couple of weeks where I simply couldnāt stop crying. I think I am just feeling more numb, trying to forget certain things yet trying to remember so many others. I donāt want to forget, yet some memories still hurt so much. Thank you so much for your post and God bless.
@PeterL, I find I have such an affinity with your posts too, and this one is no exception. Nicki and I lost our last dog Neko, a black Lab (my avatar), on Christmas Day 2016, and it broke both our hearts so much that we were only recently considering getting another black Lab pup, but now never to be. I was never a dog owner until I met my wife, and we had 4 dogs over a period of 21 years, so dog ownership is something we always did together. For this reason, and because I know I couldnāt look after a dog at present, I doubt I will ever have another. I am so pleased that you still have Flora for company, dogs are such affectionate and loving animals and they can sense our emotions and feelings. My kitchen will be quiet this Christmas Day too, so unlike previous years, and I will likely only have a snack sat in front of the TV on the day. I share your fear of the future too, the emptiness, loneliness and silence are mentally crippling. I only hope Christmas passes soon. Take care.
I wish I could offer great words of wisdom to get through this awful time. I lost my husband Tony 6 weeks ago he was 58 I found him and that last memory is so distressing I try to blank it out and try to carry on but the waves of pain can be so consuming. Christmas is something I donāt want but my daughters want me with them and the grandchildren I will try to put on a brave face but feel that I want to run away and have nothing to do with Christmas maybe Iām being selfish? Friday I start counselling Im praying that will ease the pain a little. We just have to plough through as best we can and hope for brighter days which Im sure will eventually come. x
Hello, Anne,
I have to blot the memory out too. I try not to think about it and it is so awful that I darenāt write about it for fear of upsetting anyone. It will be nine months on Christmas Day that my beloved Richard died. I am an only child, our son and his family are the other side of the Atlantic and I cannot go to either of my husbandās brothers as there are restrictions. I live in London. Iāll manage Christmas as Iāve managed so far. I hope your counselling goes well. At the moment I go to a bereavement cafe online once a week. It is helpful but I need more than that. This is not a good time and i am hopeful of the vaccine which will allow me to have a more ānormalā life. In the scheme of things, I am doing well but I know it takes a long time. Your daughters and grandchildren will be grieving too. I donāt feel Iām being very helpful. I know all about the waves of pain.
Jan
Thank you for your reply itās means a lot to me. I too live in London but since my husband passed I have been staying with my daughter in Surrey trying to brace myself to return to our flat. I need to try to make that leap of being on my own. Definitely, the only people who have suffered this loss fully understand the pain thatI wouldnāt wish on anyone but it is part of life Iām afraid.
Will let you know how the counselling goes fingers crossed I will benefit from it.
Hi @Anne2, I am so sorry you lost your husband at such a young age. Mine was only 64 when he died in February and he still had so much living to do. I can relate about last memory as I have had flashbacks which are horrible. You want to remember the happy times but somehow the bad memories seem to overtake them. Iām sure they will reverse for us one day.
My daughter wants me to spend Christmas Eve with them (no kids) but like you I just want to run as far away from it as possible but I know I wonāt be āallowedā and I will try and put on a smile so as not to spoil it for them (my husband was her stepdad).
I will then have to drive 60miles to relieve my sister and I will have Christmas dinner with my elderly parents (88 & 90) as mum is going through chemo. Sometimes I think I canāt do it all but I will and just like we all will get through it. As my counsellor says itās only 24hrs and itās just another day and we have got through the rest havenāt we? Sending hugs to everyone struggling with Christmas. Xxx
Thank you your right itās only 24 hours but I still canāt wait for it to be over along with New Years Eve which we enjoyed on own own.
Itās all so hard but Iām positive thereās a light at the end of the tunnel and the good memories will overtake the bad memory eventually. Christmas will be hard but I will put a smile on and plough through. x
Sorry forgot to say safe driving to your Mothers and I hope all goes well.
Hi Anne, Shonzie and Janmezzo
This is my 3 rd Christmas without Jack - I find difficult but I wouldnāt like to spend all by myself !! If I were alive I would be really depressed.
What I do is that I have a strategy to leave the place whenever I want - after the Christmas meal disappear! Go home or if staying with your children go to a room and say you need to be quiet ! Arrive late and leave early
We always celebrate Christmas Eve - as we do where I come from and Christmas Day . Both days will be at my house this year - but I know that I will disappear for a little while just to energise myself
I like the idea of the grief cafe - as I went for my walk today I stopped at the church graveyard and had a good cry ! I miss Jack - time has made my emotions less raw but I donāt miss him any less
As I plan my days I also plan Christmas, to make sure I can survive it!
I hope it helps girls
Sending you love
Sadie xx
Will take you lead and hope for the best just donāt want to put a dampener on Christmas for the grandchildren 
hereās to a little less pain x
Hi @Sadsadie, Thank you for the tips. Timeout sounds like a good idea especially when at mums as itās very intense and they are old school where you donāt cry 9mths later as you āshould be over a t by nowā 
.
I hope you manage to have as good a day as possible and everyone else.
Shona xx
Hello,
The thing is you donāt get over it. That is one thing Iāve learned in the last nine months. You get better at dealing with it. Iām not looking forward to Christmas because I shall be on my own. Iād be very welcome to join either of Richardās brothers and their families but I canāt because household numbers are restricted. They wouldnāt mind at all if I was sad or went away to cry. I have an invitation to join friends in their garden with their fire pit on the evening of Christmas Day. They will have spent the day with a close relative wing dementia and will have to visit another on Boxing Day so I hope it will work out. I am planning a walk with another friend on Boxing Day. I have sent all my cards, enclosing a letter for those who did not know about Richardās death. I have found that needing to concentrate helps me enormously. I wrote an obituary for my husband for his college and I did not cry at all. It took me forty-five minutes to write it and a whole morning to edit and prune it to the right number of words. Richardās death has come as a shock to people just as it was to me but he was mine. I started this crying and I can see that I have stopped as I neaten and review. The counsellor at the bereavement cafe recommends writing as a help. I have quite a lot to do now so Iāll finish.
Jan x
I know most of you wonāt identify with this but my husband and I played computer games together and 20 years ago we met through a computer game.
We had computer desks side by side and each with our own PC we would play the same game together with other people (a game that is open world and you can do all kinds of things, you can never finish a game like this as it is like life). Every day we would play this game (probably when other couples would watch telly), our little avatars running around in the other world together.
This game is what he was doing 10 minutes before he died whilst I was working next to him as Iād asked him to please relax as the day before during our long walk on the Sunday he got some back pain and didnāt feel right (obviously now I know that was the start or something to do with his fatal heart attack) so I wanted him to take it easy and do something fun but easy on his body and that is what he chose to do,
I tried to play the game these last days to pass the time and even this has Christmas events that we always looked forward to playing together. It feels like I just canāt catch a break, Even when literally trying to escape the real world. I keep trying to be human again and not think but every area of my life is interlinked with him. I miss him when I see Christmas lights and when I donāt. When I play a game and when I donāt. I donāt know what I am doing for Christmas but Christmas Eve is his birthday. My mum had bought me an advent calendar and now i started to open it as i just really cannot wait for it to be over. I donāt know why I think it will be be better at all then but this is just such an overload of sadness.
The only Christmassy thing I can think of saying is peace and goodwill to you allā¦ how we can ever find peace though I do not know.
@FleurDeLis. thinking of you my lovely friend 
@FleurDeLis Iām hoping that things improve once we get Christmas and New Year out of the way. All the joviality with families and couples making festive plans. I long for it to be over. Additionally we also will be past the shortest day and slowly the daylight hours will increase.
Hang on in there
I have a current problem and I would be grateful for the advice of all my friends here on SR . As you will have gathered from my post I am having considerable problems coping with my new situation, Either the District Nurse who changes my leg dressing twice daily or the physiotherapist who also visits twice a week to try to maintain mobility in my leg has reported her concern about my mental state to my GP. Quite understandably because I am in total despair and find life difficult and both ladies are very caring - a credit to our NHS, My GP did call and this resulted my receiving a prescription for an anti depression drug. I have read the leaflet inside the pill package and it warns that the drug should not be taken with alcohol. I have two aiming points that help get me through my miserable days the first is a stiff gin before supper ( an enjoyable habit Gill and I shared for 50 years!) The other is bedtime itself at exactly 2200hrs when Flora and I enjoy a few hours of torment free sleep - until I turn over when she gets rather a cross!
So there is my problem, do I take a pill that might ease my daytime misery a little and forfeit my traditional evening drink or continue a routine that includes a little pleasure and continuation of a long standing routine much enjoyed by Gill and I. I still raise my glass to her chair and call āCheers Poppetā Perhaps one of you may have had to face the same choice? Whatever, Love and blessing to you all, Peter
Hi Peter,.
What a quandary. I was in the same boat, and my solution was to have my drink one night, then take the pill the next night without a drink, and so on. I think the alcohol dilutes the effect of the pill. This works for me, and at the moment, I am managing to have a drink once every three days, and hope to make this less as time goes on.