Title says it all. It will be three months to the day since he died on 26th April. So the first birthday of him not being here. Father’s Day was also a first and the boys and I chose that day, because it was also our wedding anniversary, to scatter his ashes. I gave each boy a framed photo of them all, along with rings made from their Dad’s wedding ring and signet ring - because I couldn’t divide two rings between three boys. The rings also incorporated grandparents wedding rings.
I said last week that I might try to sleep in our bed, but I still just can’t - it’s hard enough being in a place where he’s touched every single thing. Where everything was decided together. This was our downsize after my father living with us for 18 years and the boys leaving home. It was truly our own little place and our favourite of all our houses. I’m so unreasonably jealous when I see elderly couples holding hands. When I see an elderly lady shopping, I wonder if she’s going home to a waiting husband like I used to (he hated shopping), or is she alone, like me. I almost want to ask them - to ask how they coped if they are alone.
How do people cope? I just want a hug from the one person who can’t provide it. I remember how it felt though. Also, unlike the movies, there’s nothing left with his scent on, because everything is clean. I’ve tried.
It would be so much easier if it had been one of those marriages that had become easier than not being married. But we were so much a couple. Still loved each other.
I miss him so much. Every day. Every minute.
Thank you for reading my rant 
That’s not a rant, you’ve said it beautifully.
The “firsts” are hard but it does get easier -
Take care
G. X
At exactly 3 months a butterfly landed on my hand and stayed there for about a minute. I hope something happens for you that gives you comfort
Claire I so resonate with the cuddle , it’s all I want , is to be held by her.
I’m of a similar timescale of losing my wife , take comfort to know that everything we are feeling is very normal. I scream why , why did you give her cancer to again someone who never answers that question .
I talk to my wife every day , ask her to come back , she can’t . She knew how I’d be feeling she wrote me an incredible letter in the hospice before she died. Rereading it is hard but gives me comfort knowing she knew 100% how I’d be feeling she just knew it .
She wants me to love again , it may never happen .
So sorry for your loss , those cuddles made it all better when she was here . I hope you find comfort that everyone here knows how you feel, we really do
My wife also died in April, I remember the time when i came home from the hospital, I was shaking with grief, I could do nothing, I felt my life has ended. There was “her chair”, “her bar of chocolate”, “her perfume on the dresser” " Her wardrobes full of clothes and shoes, but not too many handbags" etc etc etc.
I decided I just had to face it, so i just sat in her chair, ate her chocolate, sent all her clothes to charity, smelled her perfumes etc. Loads and loads of tears, but I quickly came to terms with she’s not here anymore, and I healed. The grief has almost totally gone, of course I still have a good amount of sadness, but I have far more happy memories.
I dont have a butterfly landing on me but her dog does the same if she thinks I’m upset, I often think my wife sends her to me. I also chat to her every evening and often during the dog walks. IMaginary cuddles aren’t as good as the real thing, but I can imagine them at any time.
Hi ClaireSC
I so relate to what you say about elderly couples holding hands. I feel my husband and I have been cheated of spending our old age together. And I thought it was just me who looked at women shopping on their own. i also wonder if they have a partner they are going home to or just an empty house like mine. Something I will never get used to. I miss my husband so much I still can’t believe he is not here.
Thank goodness for my dog as she is so hapoy to see me on my return.
Take care.x
I glance into their baskets, if they are looking at an item I might say - that’s tasty or have you tried this? Treat yourself to that cake.
I used to work in retail & older people sometimes just go out for company.
They, like me, could possibly just welcome a few words before going home to silence.
G. X
I hope you are coping okay today on your husbands birthday? I am thinking of you - you are not alone sending you good thoughts
@ClaireSC I get everything you have said and the messages in reply. I’m dreading every first and hate going anywhere to see people. If I have to leave the house I do so with my head down so I avoid having to encounter people going about their lives.
I was awake as usual last night and suddenly thought what Christmas will be like here all by myself and just cried and cried. I googled this morning things to do when facing Christmas alone and can only comment the people who write these things have never experienced it and it made me angry.
Sending hugs to all x
Hi Claire. I lost my wife around the same time and we had our daughter’s birthday on Friday. Undoubtedly the worst day I’ve had emotionally since the funeral, but put the brave face on for my little girl and the rest of the family, who were all doing the same.
I made a point of visiting my wife’s grave and broke down at the injustice of it all. How can life be so cruel as to leave a seven-year-old without her mum? She was my second wife and the one I was to spend my life with. We only got eight years as a married couple and ten together.
I see my friends on Facebook who are happily married and while I don’t grudge them any happiness at all, I am in envy of them. They get their forever. It feels like mine was snatched away. I hope things get easier for you in time, Claire.
I’m so very sorry for your loss. In many ways it echoes my own.
My soulmate and life partner died unexpectedly 3 months ago on 22nd April.
It’s her birthday 31st July. She would have been 54.
After the initial madness of organising the funeral etc, I’m finding it harder to cope with her passing.
I think it’s because I have nothing to distract myself with and I have so many unanswered questions.
The inquest is not until December but the cause of her death is hospital aquired pneumonia.
Like you, I miss her cuddles and her laughter.
Sending love and hugs your way.
ClaireSC, I couldn’t agree with you more. I am also jealous seeing older couples walking down the road holding hands and think “why are they still together when we are not”, and then feel guilty about thinking such things.
I still don’t sleep very well, but I am sleeping in our bed. In fact I sleep slightly better since I started sleeping on Lesley’s side of the bed. It sounds stupid to me, but I think that it’s because I can feel her more on her side, and I don’t have the empty space where she slept next to me.
She died 18 months ago in her sleep without any illness. We had got engaged two days after we first held hands, and marred three months later. That was 44 years ago. We loved each other just as much as when we first met, when it was instant. We thought that we would be celebrating our 100th birthdays together, but it was not to be.
I feel for you Claire. Yesterday would have been Sue’s 69th birthday, but she checked out early last November, so it was not to be. All week I had been apprehensive about how I would handle the day. In the event I was still awake at midnight before the day, and took the opportunity to have a chat with her just after midnight. For once I slept soundly. Dawn the day and I decide what I am going to do for the rest of her birthday. On the way back from the garden centre, I detoured to call at Sue’s opticians and ask if I could recycle some of her old spectacles. The shop owner and Sue had always got on well and we talked about death, grief, funerals and all, because she had lost her father recently. I found sharing with someone face to face very reassuring…a bit like this group. We both felt better for it and because I called at a time when the owner had a gap in her appointments, neither of us felt hurried to end the chat. In a way, I do not fear the “first” days anymore. I still have our wedding anniversary to come and the first anniversary of her death. I hope that I can use them to meet and talk to someone who may like to share. I am looking for the positives in the horrible circumstances that a loved one’s death brings to us all. I miss her all day, every day, but I do intend to go on as long as I can so that the our own shared memories can live on as long as possible. Not long before midnight on the eve of her birthday I watched a TV programme (an old episode of “Criminal Minds”) which ended with a quotation from Cicero. It was quite on topic for me. “The life of the dead is placed on the memories of the living. The love you gave in life keeps people alive beyond their time. Anyone who was given love will always live on in another’s heart.”
Thanks to everyone who replied and was thinking of me. I’d planned to visit on his birthday where we scattered his ashes but couldn’t in the end. I put it down as a “lost day” - there’s still quite a few of those. But I did go the following day and sat quietly for a while. And didn’t have a meltdown 
- a little bit of progress.
It goes without saying that everyone here has my sympathy for what we’re all going through, and the feelings you’ve all so eloquently expressed. My husband’s name was Chris, by the way. Even just shy of 73, he was still so handsome and fit before he became ill - definitely not an old man.
The necessity of dealing with details is beginning to get through to me now: winding up the business and so on. And what to do with his golf clubs. These things continue to paralyse me, as well as the constant slide show playing in my head of the last months before he died. I’m sure many of you know about the slide show. I hope that diminishes with time.
Hi,
I lost my husband on April 18th and it actually seems to be getting harder. I really feel for you. It is a pain that cannot be eased. I think we just have to adjust to the new, unwanted ‘normal’, Never has the cliche phrase ‘putting one foot in front of the next’ seemed so relevant. It’s just what you have to do. It sucks but the alternative is not doing him justice. I’m so sorry for this happening to you (us). Xx
So very sad for you as a difficult journey ahead . I am almost 3 years on so have had the anniversaries etc over again . Yes it’s less raw but I still wake each day missing my soulmate . Over 55 years we were together since 16 years old. I am used to living alone . Have a supportive family and also love the home we chose together as our ‘last’ home .
I wish you comfort as you grieve and lovely memories which are a comfort in themselves I promise 