@Angel1309 Honestly some people, I have a close relative like that, I think they don’t want your grief to spoil their celebration so they dodge you like that brother has done. Friends especially the good ones are much more supportive I’ve found. I hope you have as good a day as you can do, sending hugs x
1 Like
@Galaxy75 Morning Lynne, yes it’s hard but we have to keep going.
Yesterday, Friday I was walking along the streets of London trying to pass my time, while walking I was thinking I should have been watching daytime TV right now and Sean would have been working at home upstairs. We would then have some lunch together then he would go back upstairs until 3.30. Here I was wondering alone along the streets restlessly with no aims what so ever!
Today, I am at the library which I joined recently just to read endlessly anything on the bookshelves. Whilst on the train here, I was reminiscing we would have been getting ready to go grocery shopping and having some lunches at our local restaurant - the usual Saturday things! There I was standing on the packed train, leaving the house trying to distract myself from sadness and loneliness again! I daren’t going back to all our local favourite restaurants since Sean’s passing, fearing the waiters would ask “Where is Sean?” I would have bursted into tears so I now only go other places and order his favourite dishes and say here darling, I am enjoying on your behalf - to me it’s quite comforting to live for him and talk to him all the time!
Tomorrow, Monday we used to work from home together but these days I will be sitting and glancing to my right to an empty desk and probably crying on the inside again.
Sending love and hugs to everyone & a good weekend to you too!
Toyah x
2 Likes
@Kathy6 Ironically, the other brother’s wife says they (Catholics) aren’t allowed to celebrate Xmas once someone in the family has died during the year. Then another text saying they are decorating the tree and planning for a quiet one this year - here you go, meaning I am not being invited! So true that you can choose your friends but you can’t choose your family!
Furthermore, When I was arranging the funeral she did offer to help and then texted me listing her available dates - her diary was fully packed 7 days/week i.e., no availability! Her husband also texted me to make sure the funeral date wouldn’t clash with his hospital appointment dates as he was panicking about his heart conditions as Sean had a heart attack when he passed. I was totally speechless & gobsmacked as to how self-centred some people could be! Where was this so-called brotherly love? I ended up taking care of it all with the help of my best friend & my daughter who, like me, knew nothing about Catholic funeral, very fortunately it went so well with the guidance of the kindhearted Catholic priest!
Sean was so well loved that I was in flood of tears to see over 100 colleagues turned up at his funeral when only 17 people worked in his department. My angel was truly a beautiful human being and I am so fond and proud of him. Love and miss him till the day I will happily join him someday!
Sorry for waffling on endlessly…it’s made me feel so much lighter…
Thank you, I hope you have as a good day as you can do too!
Take care x
3 Likes
Hi Toyah
Yes me too 35 years married taken away in an instance. 6 months for me thought i was getting better but not so. I know it will always be in my mind the sudden death could i have given CPR if i could have got into bathroom but it was not to be.
Now like yourself wandering around trying to keep busy but still dreading going home to the silence quiet him not being there
So back home to tears and christmas movie.
I detest weekends like yourself we worked from home meeting up for lunch and coffees.
Now i’m retired i find the days and night long on my own
I have joined book club choir and a walking group next year but even then you are alone.
This new life as one is not what we wanted.
Hope you have a nice weekend.
I know its hard for each of us to get through this time but sending hugs
Lynne x
3 Likes
Hi everyone
Sitting reliving the entire nightmare scenario from 13 weeks ago today. I wonder when I’ll ever get through a Saturday without remembering the unthinkable. In an instant 42 years of happiness and contentment gone and no chance to say goodbye. I’ve managed an occasional smile recently, and even laughed at times, but it’s so short lived and then it’s back to the aloneness and the grief. I hope for all of us that once the festive period is over we feel a little bit stronger and more able to find a way of living with our loss. X
3 Likes
@Angel1309 Hi, I’ve not hear that about catholics not celebrating Christmas when someone dies in that year and I was married into a catholic family, I must have missed that rule. I guess you have to enjoy your friends who sound very supportive. Take care x.
1 Like
Hi Lynne, gosh…we both are going through almost exactly the same traumatic experience. Sean & I had been together 37 years married for 35, he too passed so suddenly and I wasn’t there by his side either 
.
It’s been 7 months now and I still dread approaching my front door knowing I am about to enter an empty space inside, it happens every single day, lonely and painfully. On my way back on the train from the library today all I could think was ‘so lonely, so lonely & so lonely’ all the way home .
We had planned to reduce our work days in January 2024 but now I can’t bear to even think about having more free days so retirement is definitely out of the question, for now. Perhaps, later on - I’ll play it by ear. It’s bad enough having weekends wandering the streets aimlessly so the right thing for me to do now is to keep working for the sake of my mental wellbeing.
Take care and I hope you have a lovely weekend too!
Sending everyone big hugs x
1 Like
Sending strength & big hugs - it will get better someday x
1 Like
@Kathy6 me neither, I did ask my colleague who is catholic and she said never heard of it! Maybe just a silly excuse to make it easier to not invite me - the two brothers finding all sorts of reason for not inviting their little brother’s widow!
My best friend is really my true family and I am forever grateful to them!
Take care & big hugs x
2 Likes
Hi @Angel1309
You too take care of yourself.
It is such an existence living as one now didnt think i would be on my own so soon.
I hate evenings and weekends the days i can fill with things to do. TV on as background noise i cant remember watching anything since he passed away.
I really dont want to spend the next 20+ years like this.
I used to volunteer for Macmillan cancer before this happened hopefully i will do so again and help others who are suffering.
Take care
Lynne Xx
4 Likes
I know exactly what you mean, it’s a lonely place
3 Likes
Thank you @Angel1309
I hope we all find strength and hope in the new year. I for one am going to have to try to get past the feeling that everything that can go wrong will go wrong. I’m assuming that it’s an offshoot of the grieving process, but maybe it’s just me. Maybe it’s just part of the loneliness. Thank goodness for this lovely community.
Volunteering sounds like a good plan @Galaxy75 . I ‘m undecided at the moment about retiring early, but I would like to do something like that too. The days are too long and lonely without some kind of structure and purpose in life. Xx
2 Likes
Hi Lynne, yes it’s truly an existence living alone not by choice! Everyday I wish I could’ve had 20 more years with Sean. He still had so much to give & to live for and I keep asking why, why was he taken so soon, far too soon. We had had so many plans for our lives together and only just started to put things in motion just before he passed.
Then, boom he’s gone and my world fell apart, so cruelly
I haven’t spent time in my living room in the evenings watching TV ever since Sean’s passing. We used to spend evenings/weekends watching TV together, chat, joke and laugh - now too painful to sit there alone!
I spend every evening in my bed. It’s my sanctuary and I can’t wait to get up there as soon as I’ve had my dinner. I feel most peaceful and secure in that space, close the door and either read books about grief or log on to read & write to get things off my chest. I am so grateful to be able to share my thoughts and feelings with you all, reluctant members of this community - thank you everyone for reading & sharing!
It’s actually a very good idea to volunteer, helping others is so rewarding I may give it a try when I finally decide to reduce my work days someday.
Take care & big hugs x
5 Likes
You’re welcome @Mist2
I too hope we all will find strength and hope in the new year!
Take care everyone x
2 Likes
Hi @Angel1309
I also watch tv or read in bedroom as you are correct more peaceful and his ashes are there. I will be taking some to Fiji were he was born in 1960 as per his wishes the rest will stay with me planning on planter with rose bush as he loved flowers.
I too write a journal diary of what i did during the day and how im feeling as i want to look back every year.
Lynne
3 Likes
My husband spent Xmas 2022 in hospital but we celebrated in April when he came home from rehabilitation with a joint birthday/Xmas dinner. He loved it and we all wore our Xmas jumpers. Sadly he died in September so Xmas 2023 is going to be rough for me. We were married 48 and together 50 years. I can’t bare the silence in the house.
4 Likes
Hi Lynne, wow Fiji… paradise! What a beautiful idea - rose bush that will stay beside you as if he was still around and looking over his beloved.
Take care x
1 Like
I’m so sorry for your loss. It’s terribly hard and painful when we lost our beloved no matter how long we were together. It’s so heartbreaking that we have to go through these moments of deep sadness, despair and probably worst of all - silence and loneliness! So painful and unbearable!
This year will be hard but I do hope you have a good Xmas as you can.
Hugs x
4 Likes
Moving forward
Lost my husband 18 months ago, I miss him every day. I’ve kept super busy joined clubs, friends have been amazing but gradually their lives move on whilst I feel mine is sort of stuck. People feel you should have moved on but there is still so much sadness in me. The loneliness’s is at times unbearable, I give myself a good talking to and say come you’ve got this move forward and I do but then I get stopped in my tracks by the smallest reminder of what I have lost . You can feel so isolated so lost sometimes it just overwhelms. No choice but to keeping going and hope it just gets better. It has momentarily, and I think I’m through the grey but it’s always there. How do you get happy and contented again when your whole life has changed and you’ve lost so much, every meal on your own nobody to share a cuppa or even a grumble with nobody to make future plans with nobody to give you that hug when you need it, that special person who knew you inside out as you knew them and knowing you just have to keep trying because if they were here they’d say come on love don’t give up be happy again. Then you feel guilty for being sad when they lost everything, Friends and family just seem to think you should be over it by now but are you ever ?
I know it will get better and today is near Christmas and is just one of those bad days it will pass let’s hope the new year has more joy it has too doesn’t it so best foot forward we will get there.
2 Likes
At work in the office today, feeling terribly sad suddenly, have had to pause - missing him so much that I can’t focus fully on my tasks at hand. Have been thinking of him all morning since I got up! Thinking about our day to day things that we did together. His colleagues paid a visit yesterday and we had a good chat for a while- that must’ve triggered this pain and sadness as I was so happy to be talking about him with people who were so close to him and suddenly as they left everything became silent.
Sadness and loneliness then settled in ever since!
2 Likes