I want to find out from other people if you don’t want to let your grief to go away!
After 3 years my grief is not raw, maybe my tears aren’t so often but in my heart I remain numb I remain frozen
Jack and I had a close, loving, passionate relationship - we were married 42 years and now my life without Jack is flat !
I have a comfortable life, supportive family and friends and they all want me to be happier and more enthusiastic! And I don’t!
Not only that - I am ok feeling my grief, I am ok accepting this new woman I am now
I know I will never go back to how I was but I am ok with it! I have accepted this person I become!
I have accepted that joy will never be in my heart again!
I don’t want my grief to go away!!
I don’t want to live with the excitement I lived before Jack died!!
Sadie, thank you for putting into words a lot of how I feel. I was married for 45 years and yes I am happy but not in the same way. I have accepted that this is now how I am happy but not happy. I am ok and people don’t notice that this person is ‘play acting’ but that doesn’t bother me. Has the song says ’this is me’ take it or not but the one thing I know is that life goes on and we really do have to continue until our time comes to follow our soulmate.
Please don’t think it’s unhealthy because there’s lots of us who knows how our new life is normal.
Look after yourself and take care. S xxx
I think I understand and perhaps this is what I am trying to convey to others. Everyone keeps telling me that my ‘life’ is now our kids and grandsons. I have lost count of the number of times I have told these same people that my husband was responsible for being there and looking after me and whilst I will continue to play a role in looking after the grandsons, I simply cannot impose on our kids lives. They have a future whereas mine was taken away when my husband died and left me on my own. I struggle everyday with his loss and also my feelings of him abandoning me. I cannot accept when people tell me that my husband would not want me to feel this way but forgiveness regarding his continuation with the motorbike which ultimately took him from me is a long way off. The Counsellor’s suggestions to deal with this were of no use.
For me personally people need to accept that I will never be that person I once was. For our grandson’s I show joy at everything they achieve but that is also tinged with sadness that husband - the best granda - is not here for them.
Sheila, you said it!
Most of the time I pretend that I am really well, and to be fair I am well but at the same time it is lonely
My kids - 4 of them - are kind and helpful- but as you say they have their stuff to deal with and although they miss their dad ( Jack was a very good dad) their lives hadn’t changed !!
For the way you say it, your husband died because of an accident -who do you want to forgive ? Him because of the motorbike or you b cause you didn’t stop him?
It is no one’s fault - it is Sod’s law !!
In a very different way, Jack had lung cancer - he never smoked never even tried a cigarette! Sod’s law that this happened to him
The unexpected happens in life and it is painful
I wished I could go back in time ….
When was it that your husband died?
Sending you love
Sadie x
Hello Sheila
I’ve read all of your posts and I can hear the despair and sadness you carry every single day. My Marti caught COVID maybe through work as a bus driver, I asked him to not work, but money was first on his list, I feel I was second on his list, he was obsessed with money, I’m angry because everything was money money money with him, so I get how angry you feel because of your husbands obsession with his motorbike, but Sheila he didn’t go out that day thinking he would have an accident, it was just another day to him, anyone can go drive in their car and have an accident, my friend loss his wife on the way back from their holiday in a car crash few months back. Please don’t be angry with him, he wouldn’t of wanted to die.
My Marti was headstrong, so whenever I nagged him it was in one ear and out the other, a lot of the times my words didn’t matter, this is the kind of relationship we had, I was so in love with him and frustratingly put up with his carefree attitude.
Amy xx
Dear Sheila. I understand and have been trying to tell my children that although I appear ok now I am not and never will be. as you say they have their own lives and I don’t want to intrude I will look after my grandaughters and pick my youngest granddaughter up from school the other day when I got home from picking her up I cried because peter would have loved to have done that I have been angry with him as in the month or two before he died he was forever going out and chatting to people which was unlike him he was a very quite man im the opposite I keep thinking one of these people gave him covid and if only he had stayed in he would still be here for his grandkids our youngest son is going to be a daddy in Feb next year and it breaks my heart to know he will never see his new grandson. It is 18 months since he died and although I try to be this OK person my family want me too be inside I am lost and will be forever. Jennyxx
Yes it’s been two and four months for me and I still wake every morning. That is when I sleep hoping that I will smell the coffee and here him moving about the house this life we have been left with is just and empty num shell of what we had and nothing we do semes to change that the lonely Ness is overwhelming. We didn’t chose this. What ever I do doesn’t seem to make it any better I don’t seme to feel the way I use to everything is just num and meaningless but I Wark on noing I wons had something very special.
I hear what you say and like your Marti my husband just switched off to anything he didn’t want to hear or change. One of his friends has decided to give up his motorbike since my husband’s accident so perhaps he has saved one person. But for me the nightmare continues and I see no end.
Our second grandson was born in April 2021. We had only been told that our son’s partner was pregnant again on the Saturday and my husband died on the Monday. Eldest grandson was only 9 months and we visited him every day. If not for me I feel he should have given up the motorbike for the grandkids.
Once a week we would get up have a cuppa and then start a ‘deep’ sweep through each of the rooms whereas now I do the minimum of what needs to be done in the house. Dreams in which my husband is alive are increasing, probs as the date of what would have been my birthday celebration and Christmas approach. It makes waking and trying to get out of bed even harder each morning. I wish the days to speed past quickly each day only so that I am one day closer to seeing my husband again.
I am grateful for this forum. Our kids just do not understand that my grief is different to their own.
Hi Sadie i have read your post with interest and believe that you have answered all your own questions?
because although you mention many sad things elated with bereavement and grieving , you have completely given a positive answer to everything you have asked?
so my advice is to sit down and put down the negatives in 1 column and the positives in another and try going forwards from their? and do the good and fun things that bring you peace, affection, joy and other happy things as you do them?
i wish that there was a forum like this around when my wife died, because basically there wasnt anything or anyone who could offer me advice about my situation
but now there are lots of lovely caring people to support us in many forms and ways !!!
Mr Chipps
The negative comes out when the sadness feels too much
Because we try to live better and because sorrow is so exhausting we have the lighter moments!
Thank you for your response
Sadie
Hi, it has been 18 months for me, I feel totally numb. I can not settle, I go between my home and anywhere else I can find to go to. I can not settle anyway and have lived out of a suitcase for the last 18 months. My whole life has fallen apart, my daughter ‘ s life has fallen apart and I know it wouldn’t have if my husband was still here. I don’t seem to be able to feel anything at all, surely this can’t be normal. I am a different person and I certainly do not like who I have become, this is no life and none of us want to be going through this awful grief of which each one of us are going through and dealing with differently, I seem to be hurting so many people in my journey, I am normally such a caring person but everyone is piling it onto me and I can no longer cope xxxx
I understand your comments regarding others piling things onto you and not being able to cope. I too have those times. If it is close family I find I have to just tell them otherwise my head will explode. We are trying to deal with our grief, contain the emotions so as not to upset our kids. It doesn’t take much to push us over the edge. I often just lock myself away in the house and deal with my own challenges following husband’s sudden and tragic death.
I can only say I am genuinely sorry that you find yourself on this same journey.
Thank you both for your letters on whether our feelings on grief, as time goes by, are ‘normal’. I understand what each of you have said. It is three and a half years since my beloved husband died after 59 years of marriage. Like you I can enjoy life in company with other people, say at family gatherings, or with friends, but little do they know that I still have my feelings of loneliness! Gradually, I am still learning to accept this situation. My children are supportive where they can be, but I accept they cannot be with me all the time. They, and my adult grandsons have their own lives to lead. I do take comfort, however, whenever I see their happy faces, that they feel good with their world, especially at this time with all the difficulties that have to be faced and lived with today. I feel they have learned to cope with the example we set for them - just carry on! That is what we who are mourning our loved ones have to learn to do! I know so much more about grief, through the loss of the love of my life, than I ever understood before. Having met my husband when I was only seventeen, and he twenty-one we virtually ‘grew up’ together. We learned to cope with the ups and downs of life together, and I sometimes can’t believe it is over three years since he was by my side. I still occasionally have the bad spells, and tears, but realise this must be ‘normal’ and try just to remember all his loving ways and the fun we had. With my love and best wishes to you in that you can continue to remember the good times with your beloved. Deidre.