When my kids and grandkids surround me I realise how much love I have for them all. At the same time I feel that I’m stealing from my wife. She should be sharing this love, as we always did. So this thought spins around my head, making these situations quite hard to get through. The way you have been able to go to the places you both enjoyed is great. I have it in my mind to go away, we always loved staying in a cabin, the lakes or Wales. I’ve got my bike set up with luggage and sat nav, but can I actually do it. I’ve been close to booking somewhere. It’s the thought of arriving on my own, looking around the cabin, waiting for her to open the bathroom door and the comments that would follow. Then the trip to the super Market. It’s this that I know is going to dominate my stay. Denise would love this, or I wish Denise could see this. I don’t see how I get over that part of going away.
Dear Stevie
I can feel how tormented you are by the situation you are in
I don’t know if going away by yourself at the moment is the best thing for you
I feel like it might just be too much
Stay local near the people who love you and see if you can arrange to talk to a counsellor face to face about how terrible you are feeling at the moment
I think you are being really brave keeping everything together but the grief has got to come out one way or another , sooner or later otherwise it will build up and up and explode and nobody wants that to happen , especially your wife
It feels like you are stuck in a really bad place . I know every day feels bad . I feel the same . It’s a matter of finding small stuff every day to keep you going or if you are wanting to go further afield to get away from your daily routine either take someone with you or just take a day trip somewhere
Please don’t go it alone . Big grief , big love is too much to handle it all alone
Thinking of you
Please keep posting
You will get through this
Romy xxxxx
As you can identify and visualise the things that hold you back then hopefully, in time, you will be able to face them. I suppose it’s a bit like conquering fear…in fact it’s just like that. Some people can do that by working further through the visualisation. Maybe in time it will become clearer. It is hard to go through the motions at first but, as with most things, it gets a little easier each time. I feel I just adapt to things. It’s new learning.
I can see the thing about stealing but I’m not sure it can be that. For me it’s just the knowing how much pleasure she got from family contact and how important it was to her. It was on a different scale to anything I felt. I just feel like a poor substitute, not quite an imposter.
Hi CW13
What a wonderful way of thinking about it all. It made me cry because you are so right if I had gone I wouldn’t want my husband to be in a bad place and my boys think if I had gone first he would have given up and they would have had 2 funerals.
I am going to try to get on with life but it’s pushing uphill isn’t it. Thanks for writing though it’s certainly made me think
hugs Jx
Hi June, yes, it’s so much easier to think and write, than it ever is to do!
I have all the tools to do the job but each time I pick one up to start, I drop it soon after.
My husbands working life was spent as an engineer. He always said, ‘you need a strategy’ before doing anything. He always had one. Always made me laugh with it too. Everything he did, everything, was completed with precision and perfection. NEVER rushed.
Consequently, I’m now of that mindset. I’m developing my ‘strategy’ and I’m trying not to rush. Patience has never come easy to me, it certainly did for him though. I’m asking him to guide me daily, hourly some days and to let me know he’s still with me. The fact that I’m thinking about a ‘strategy’ for the first time in my life and looking upon dealing with this heartache as some sort of engineering conquest, tells me that he is. It also makes me laugh!!!
Take care and love to you June x
It’s interesting that you used the word strategy. I gave up using it on the forum as it seemed so at variance with the norm here. Maybe I thought it was too mechanistic but it’s a word that featured regularly in my work.
Hi Stevie I think you and Yorkshirelad are very brave to go back to somewhere where you went with your wives. My husband died on a cruise ship in 2017 and we did cruises for the past number of years and there is no way I can go back on a ship alone at the moment and go to the many places we have been beforei.e.Rome,Florence etc. The thought of treading those streets alone just makes me shudder. I did however go on family cruise last May which was booked when he was alive and on that same ship, I had to do that and now instead of the horrific memories of him dying on there these are somewhat replaced with memories of my grandchildren enjoying the holiday, which is what he wanted. I did also go with one of my sons to Venice and a cruise round the Greek islands, it was different and we had never been there before. His health wouldn’t have allowed the flight and he wouldn’t have coped with Venice with all the bridges.
I know I can’t avoid everywhere we went as a couple but for me I will have to make it different especially if I go alone. I haven’t get got to that point and it sounds like you have reservations. As my mum would say if in doubt do nowt.
Just take one day at a time and take care. Just keep posting on here there a lot of understanding and support.
XxJ
Hi June
I live the most part of my life in the same rooms, in the same house, in the same town where we lived for almost exactly 42 years and where I’ve lived alone for just 6 months. That, to me, is much harder than going away to somewhere with the occasional reminder.
I’m on the train from Lancaster to Skipton. It’s a stunning day and soon Ingleborough and then Penyghent will appear and I will remember wonderful days.
Making it different is definitely the way to go. Nothing can be the same. It takes effort and a degree of composure. It takes determination to get through the days. So, what’s new there.
How different is a big question. Maybe just a bit at first. It’s like building a safe foundation.
For me, doing nowt doesn’t work. It never did.
Stevie I wouldn’t push yourself any harder than you are doing right now. When you’re ready to do these things you will do them. Maybe you will never do them. That’s surely ok too.
The only thing I have done to date is go to one of the supermarkets locally that my husband often went to when grocery shopping. That experience left me wanting to burst into tears, throw my basket at the nearest person and hot foot out of the store. I didn’t do any of those things, incidentally, not until I got back home anyway. I shopped in a zombie like state and hardly know what I bought.
I absolutely can not even think about doing anything holiday, or even day out wise that I enjoyed so much with my husband. I ask myself why would I want to right now. I couldn’t deal with it, that’s the truth. Maybe I will never do those things again.
No one judges us on our ‘achievements’ or lack of them. However we deal with this despair daily is down to us as individuals. We all differ. There isn’t right. There isn’t wrong.
We’re surviving on a daily basis one way or another. That’s more than enough right now. It is for me anyway.
I make a mental list each night for what I hope to achieve the next day. So far, I’ve achieved none of my planned achievements for today. That’s me right now. Nothing like the person I’ve always been but, I have to accept it. I can’t change right now. All I can say is, I will keep trying!
You’re doing well doing what you do. Please don’t put pressure on yourself for more right now.
Sending love x
Hi everyone,
I’m having a bad few days, but it has been heartwarming to read these messages of support for each other.
Keeping posting
Lesley x
You’re amazing. One day I’m going to be amazing too!
You can be even more amazing. The sky is the limit.
I taught or facilitated amazing for years. I got paid to do it. Now it’s my turn to walk the walk and I don’t want to disappoint the onlookers. We all have it in us. Just have a good, close look at yourself. We’re born amazing then some of us let it slip away. Who knows why? (note the question mark this time).
Just knowing you want to be more amazing is a big step, especially so early in this journey.
Probably we don’t let it slip away. Probably we fail to recognise it in ourselves. Maybe amazing is something that we recognise more easily in others, as others recognise it in us. Perhaps!
You’re right, the sky is the limit, just as it always was!
Dear Yorkshire Lad
Today is the best day I have had for 29 weeks since my husband collapsed with the sudden cardiac arrest
I have been through the mill like all of us but trying to do right by the business and in the face of opposition from my father in law has nearly finished me off on occasions
Today we have had a meeting with the accountants
The business is holding steady and improving in some areas in spite of our lack of experience and my father in laws misgivings
We are in the middle of a refurb by our petrol suppliers and the place is looking good
I know my husband would be proud of me , my eldest daughter and his staff, especially his second in command for holding our nerve whilst being heartbroken and grieving for him
When I was driving home a magpie came and perched on a branch at eye level . I said please stay there while I drive past and it did . Only about 6 feet away from me .
The day after my husband died a magpie came and sat on our bedroom windowsill outside and since this time I have seen magpies on many occasions when I have made big decisions in relation to the business which could go one way or another
I take seeing magpies as confirmation from my husband that I am doing the right things and to keep going
Weird I know but it gives me so much comfort . That and hugging trees !
Hope you enjoy your trip out today
Sending love
Romy xxxxx
Hi Romy, I’ve just arrived home a few minutes ago at the end of a truly beautiful journey. I didn’t read a single page of my book as the views today were so captivating.
It’s great to hear your good news after the suspense of waiting. I think your story takes things to a different level and I just can’t imagine how you’ve held everything together. You must have had so many plates spinning at once. It’s always amazing how, in the face of real adversity, some people can just step forward and meet the challenge. Managing others in a disparate workforce just adds to the achievement. I hope you pass all the good news on to your staff as you deserve to bask in their admiration. Despite the years of conditioning I think you can safely tell yourself you are good, brilliant, amazing. Why stop there… tell others. You’ve got the proof. They probably know anyway.
We all need comfort in difficult times, whether that’s magpies, trees, mountains, poems, music or whatever else seems to fit. Is weird necessarily bad. It’s just a type of different. It might be a step too far but how about The Magpie Garage. Nobody else needs to know why. It has a certain ring to it.
Dear Yorkshire Lad
Your post was so lovely and the Magoie Garage bit at the end made me chuckle.
Thank you so much
Sending lots of love
Romy xxxxx
Magpie !!! X
Just putting it out there…late morning I said I hadn’t done any of the tasks I’d set myself for today. It’s now late afternoon and I’m delighted to tell you all that I have now completed them all. Cried on occasion but completed them one way or another.
I am in the process of compiling another to do list which I hope to complete over the weekend. I’m writing it down this time though, rather than compiling it mentally.
What a way we live these days. Not even baby steps from my end, I’m crawling still…! x
Writing it down sounds a bit scary. It doesn’t leave much room to forget. Maybe hide the piece of paper. Think carefully about this.
You are all truly amazing and I have enjoyed reading these posts. Thank you all.
I mentally decide on what I’m going to do each day. I know as soon as I wake up what that day is going have in it. Can’t be sure how I’m going to cope but I just hope. Wednesday for instance, was doing well. Out walking with the dogs for a few hours, lovely sunshine and blue sky, then later I couldn’t start the lawnmower, (never done this before) Went into a meltdown, crying and feeling as if it was the end of the world. Telling myself I couldn’t cope with the allotments, couldn’t sow the seeds (I always do this every year) etc, etc. Next day I made a decision to sell the mower as it’s too big for me anyway. Picked out a new one. Sowed the seeds in the greenhouse I was convinced the day before I couldn’t do. So everything much better. I have learned that one day can be shit and the next the brain will start to reason sensibly again.