Hello everyone. My name is Kevin & i joined up here a few days ago, I’ve taken a little time to read through a lot of posts.
I lost my wife of 31 years, 5 Months ago to an aggressive rare form of cancer, she was 48!
Honestly i am not doing well, i had to watch helplessly as she suffered taking every treatment they threw at her for 20 months.
Ive read about others saying they’re in a fog and that’s absoulotely how i feel, amongst other dreadful feelings. i cry multiple times a day, i rarely leave the house.
I cut friends off, probably due to one of them suggesting i was just sad & should just say to myself yes what happened was bad, but time to draw a line under it and move on. I thought it was insensitive at best!
I didn’t do Christmas nor my 50th Birthday, i couldn’t face them or anyone.
I did however think that in this new year i would at least try, whatever that means? People are exhausting!
I see that some users on here are taking comfort that they are not alone, after reading some of the posts i can say it’s like stepping through a door to “normality” by that i mean the normality that has become the lives we are living now without our loved ones if that makes any sense?
I won’t keep waffling on, its a strange feeling telling a group of people i don’t how i feel when i can’t talk to family. x
Thanks just for being there.
Waffle away, Kevin. People here want to know.
Your remark about “people you don’t know” mirrors a similar comment I made in my first or second post, but I described the members of the community as “anonymous electronic entities” or something similar.
Well, I sure learned different.
Mea culpa.
Stick with the forum.
Hi
So sorry for your loss
I agree with Edwin keep posting it will help.
My wife died of cancer in July and I’m also struggling with it all she was only 51.
You can rant on here as much as you like and no one will judge as we are all suffering.
William
Edwin & William. Thanks for your replies, i will keep posting on here as i did find it helped initially.
Do you find that for no reason you take huge steps backwards? i just can’t get beyond the last week with my wife when she was so poorly, i relive it over & over. Its almost as if the rest of the 31 years together didn’t happen!
This isn’t what she would want and i certainly don’t want to feel this dreadful forever, the thing is i don’t actually want to move on. Probably because that would mean accepting i’m alone and i’ll never see or hear her again.
I know everyone is affected differently & until you’re in it you just don’t know!
Hi Kevin
,It’s 11 months now since my husband passed and iv’e taken many steps backwards,but iv’e also taken a few small steps forward,it’s only as the months pass that you may realise that,looking back on your grief.Lot’s on here replay the day there life changed through loss,i still do sometimes,not as much as i used too.I can only say what iv’e felt,my grief has slowly changed,the shock i felt at the start has somewhat lifted,now i’m muddling through learning as i go,i don’t expect anything,i just take each day as it arrives.So maybe that’s a form of acceptance,i don’t see it as moving on as i’m still hanging on to my hubby every day,he’s still in my thoughts most of the day,and some of those thoughts are looking back to our 35 years married,i can smile about some of them,and i still cry at some too.
In your post you say " this new year i thought i would at least try,whatever that means? maybe that means a small step forward for you. Take care x
Hi
Yes mate it’s just very hard to get your head around things. When I do something on my own I think ok that was a little step forward and then the guilt hits home and you think you’re forgetting about her then the tears flow and you’re going backwards again. I also have nightmares about the last week in hospital with Margaret. At the time we just pushed through but when I think back and remember the pain she was in and all her dignity was gone and that look on her face will be with me till I die.
Take care William
My husband of 44 years died November he had cancer but on his 8th chemotherapy thought he was getting better then things went wrong and died within 3 weeks. I find that I need to have a plan to help me like today go to the shop, tomorrow go the gym. I get bad days which I think is all part of the course. Retired early as going to do so much but unfortunately did not happen. I look back on our marriage and we were fortunate to have a happy one, miss him every day . New year I pretended I was out for a meal with friends just so I could stay in and think of us together. I try not to appear miserable but if I am so what part of grieving. Do u have any friends or family I find u have to get out there as they don’t always come to you.if you go backwards one day who cares think tomorrow will b a better day. Might not b much help but my thoughts are with you and sometimes it’s a struggle
Hello Kevin, I am so sorry for the loss of your wife, and I’m very sad that she suffered for a long time. You must feel heartbroken, grief is the hardest thing to cope with, as you say, no one really understands the depth of it until they experience it themselves.
I think you have made a massive step forward by writing on this forum, your words obviously come from the heart and I can really relate to all that you have written.
I find it helps to share your thoughts with people who truly understand, do not judge you and know how it feels.
Try to keep in touch Kevin and take care of yourself…
Elaine x
Dear Kevin,
The sense that you mention, of not wanting to move on, isn’t at all unusual. I have posted about feeling like that, and had several responses agreeing and understanding.
It’s as though you recognize that the depth of love, and the scale of the sense of love mean that you must feel the pain, and tough though it is you feel that any fading of the grief might mean a concurrent fading of your love. And yet you find it hard to face the thought of continuing the intenseness of the pain and grief.
Our friend and forum contributor Crazy Kate has an insight into this a few days ago which gave me great comfort, and you may care to track down her relevant post. She likened the journey along the path of grief to the development of first falling in love, though in some ways as a mirror image. That initial, all enveloping passion when you realize that you have found the perfect person, and when you can hardly believe that she loves you too, may be the equivalent of the overwhelming wave of grief. As the love develops, it gradually becomes warmer, more comfortable, more understanding, possibly a little less tingly and urgent, yet even deeper. So it may be with grief; the initial crushing weight may be the equivalent of the mad passion, and gradually that will ease, as it must, into something that can be borne, but without any fading of the undying love that will last forever.
I hope that I have expressed what Crazy Kate meant to convey. The idea has helped me - I have not moved on from the first stage, but I can accept that I probably will, and that will not mean that my love for Eileen nor the sweetness of the memory of her will have started to fade.
Hi Kevin
I lost my partner in October she was 47. I still can’t get my head around her diagnosis never mind her death 3.5 weeks later. I have good days and bad days and days I regret ever waking in the mornings. Everything is so unreal and I get very agitated by people that I just want to be alone all the time. I have a dog which helps as she was our focus in life and I just feel there are days I can’t move on. In the good days I feel positive and try and do the things that Lee wanted me to do. I think it will get easier in time I certainly hope so and know that you are not alone on here and there is always someone who will pick you up. I just say to myself that I’m going through hell and the vest thing to do is just keep going. Stay strong we are all in this together. Xxx
Crikey! Some very thoughtful, insightful replies, for which I thank you all. I know we’re all sufffering & I do appreciate your support.
I guess looking through posts it’s a case of the pain is intertwined with love & fear of forgetting, seeing it as each element can’t survive without the rest! Hence the inability to “move on”. In order to feel better it’s trying to untangle these feelings, keeping the love & memories but removing the pain! This will be easier said than done.
Take care all x
Maybe the idea of moving on is a bit frightening and almost like an absolute. I much prefer the idea of living on or living forward where the important parts of our past are taken with us and we look to build a new life or identity around the grief. I expect to grieve for the rest of my life but I don’t think it would achieve anything by using it as a dragbrake. I’m confident that my wife would have been delighted to know that I am surviving, and she had plenty of time during her illness to tell me how I should live on… and that’s not suggest, it really was tell. She also told my kids to keep pushing me forward.
My wife died in August and since then I have made significant differences in most aspects of my life, which isn’t too difficult as the previous four years were down to looking after and caring for my wife, almost to the exclusion of all other interests.
I lost my wife November 2017, we had been together since we were 16, and married just over 55 years, yes we married at 18 and never regretted any of the years, losing her devestated me, plus I lost my only sister a month later, the double blow has left me destitute and prone to deep depression and loneliness, if I go out it always feel as if I am leaving her behind, time has eased things a bit but is not a healer, that we are told, well not so far, life have become a great struggle to cope with daily living, yes the tears still flow at times, the silliest of thing catch you out and tip you over into tears and depression, going out has helped but one still comes home to an empty lonely house.
Hi Peter. Sorry for your loss. I understand what you are going through. My partner died in October and I’m lost.
I sat in silence for a long time smiled when had to but cried my heart out within. The pain was actually physical. It’s getting more bearable and it comes like a wave that washes over me and knocks me off my feet. All I can say is surround yourself with friends of you have them. Apply yourself to community groups contact grief and bereavement counselling like this and get to talk to folk outside your circle. Everything will become a new normal for you and I’m still finding my way. I think that everything you are going through is normal and it will ease. I hope you take care of you and start remembering the good times you both had together. I know this will be hard and painful but they will become a comfort in time.
Take care. J
Hi Kevin. I just read this post and cried. My wife died on July 2nd, she was only visibly ill for four months and even in the beginning we did not know she had cancer. We were together nearly 38 years and whilst I don’t think I will ever move on, the memories of what we did together keeps her forever in my heart.
All the best for the future and please keep posting and pouring out your thoughts