MY LIFE AGED 75

Losing a partner
1

THERE’S only two things that keep me going after losing my loving Anne - soul mate - and married for 50yrs. She passed 12/7/2019.

  1. When I’m asleep and out of this world.
  2. When I’m sufficiently intoxicated to drift into another dimension.

At all other times I walk through life just surviving. Doing what has to be done and giving a smiley face to those I meet. But the constant feeling in my heart throughout all of this charade is that my Anne is constantly missing from my life. And it NEVER goes away.

So one day this living hell will come to an end. One way or another.

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@James71

Would you like to tell us about Anne? She must have been an amazing woman xx

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Good morning, @James71

I am so sorry that you feel this way. There is nothing I can say that will console you. I can only say that I have been through the same thing recently, 7 months ago. Things started to go wrong about this time last year.

My husband and soul mate started to sleep a lot. I had just recovered from COVID19, so we thought he’d god that too. I’d slept for a month and he’d done everything for me, so it was fine for him to take time off.

We’d bought the house of our dreams in January 2020, before COVID came here - I got it in Dublin in 2019 when I met some students at a university there. Nobody who treated me had a clue what was going on. And then lockdown came and took our summer away.

Jim died at home with me in September, after 12 precious days. He’d been in hospital for more than 3 weeks, but because the NHS is exhausted and terrified of the second wave, which we all knew was coming, he’d have been better off at home.

Neither of us were told anything at all, until he was forced to sign a DNR. I wasn’t even told about that, which is illegal, however, legalities matter little these days. My husband didn’t matter to the consultant.

I blame the registrar and the admitting consultant, who I understand are now frantically lying and lying and trying to pass the buck to anyone else they can sling it at. I took the precaution of getting my husband’s case notes first, because I simply could not understand what had happened. I said that at the time, however when I read them I became angrier and angrier, so I complained. As a patient’s next of kin, I can do this. The problem they have is that nothing they say can override what they said in their notes, which I have. That’s that.

Once upon a time, a long time ago, I was an aspirant medical student, I did a lot of nursing, but I never become a doctor. I am a writer and have been for most of my working life.

All I can say is that today is a new day. It’s after Easter, and in a week, the lockdown that has made life a living hell for too many of us, will be lifting again. Stores will open, not just food shops, but all sorts of shops, the streets will become busy again, although I am still going to wear a mask.

Summer is coming, this could be a perfect summer to get out and try to enjoy life again. Would your wife want you to mourn her forever? I can’t answer that question, but I know that my husband doesn’t want me to mourn forever.

We will always be soulmates, that is a fact. But apart from that, I am alive and upon this earth, whilst I really believe he is watching from Heaven. Not literally, of course, but I believe that in time we will meet again. I also know that our dogs that we have loved and lost will be there with him now. He’ll meet his mum and dad again, and he’ll get to meet for the first time my mum and dad.

That’s my choice. That is how I have dealt with it - and I am still struggling, very very much at times.

Christie xxx

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Dear Lost82 & Christie,

Thank you both dearly for your replies, and particularly to you Christie for sharing your most inner and precious story and feelings. Yet telling you all about my darling soul mate Anne would just be self indulgent. All I can say is that my Anne had, what the native American Indians would call, ’ A good death.’ I was there. I told Anne I loved her and she was the best wife a man could ever ask for. And she was loved by the kids because she was the best Mum any child could ever wish for. It was then I saw my darling take her last breath. Anne passed over with a smile on her sweet face. Now after typing these words I’m crying my heart out. So its back to the alcohol. And I don’t care a fig about my health or the bloody future because there is no future. Just survival for the sake of survival. Bless you both from the bottom of my heart.
Geoff xx

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Ah sod survival. I’m settling for existing at the moment. One day at a time seems ridiculously impossible so my target is the next hour. A few of them and it will be bedtime and then it’s morning and that’s one more day done for all of us.

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I understand you completely ever since my fiancé died a year ago I’ve been in a constant state of intoxication everyone keeps saying I’m only 22 I shouldn’t destroy my body like this but they don’t realise it’s already destroyed she was my best friend for 20 years there is no point in preserving my body

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Dear Lost82,
YES! I agree with you entirely x My post didn’t express clearly enough what you and I are feeling.
Bless you mate x

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I’m with you on this one.

But I think alcohol merely suppresses pain, it doesn’t deal with it. The question I ask, again and again, is this: if I had died, and Jim remained alive, would I want him to feel like this?

No, I would not. I would want to try to help him to get the best out of his life on this earth. I would want him to find a new home, a new way of life, a new wife. I had cancer 11 years ago, I actually wrote a ad for him on a good dating site - I know he’s sensible enough to avoid women who’d take him for granted, and I wanted him to have a chance. He would not have known this until a close and trusted friend felt it was right to show to him.

Sorry, but this is my inclination. I do not wish to offend anyone, and I too have drowned my sorrows far too much recently.

Christie xxx

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You sound as though you have some good resolve to move through the pain and that is admirable. I hope that I find some strength in the weeks, months and years to come. I know I would not have wanted my husband to suffer longer than was necessary if this were the other way round, and I know that he would definitely not have wanted to have caused me this suffering. That said, I don’t know yet how to move through this pain. Hopefully some counselling further down the track and support from around me will help. I can’t see how I can gather that strength but I hope that I can.

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@James71

I’m sorry, I didn’t want to offend you or anyone else. I went into autopilot for more than 3 months after Jim died, simply because the dogs would be totally lost without me. I was doing things like a robot.
Perhaps I am fortunate in some macabre way, because I have had a few deaths in my life, and also often held an animal in my arms as it is put to sleep.
The lockdown for me has made everything so much more difficult. It feels like the world has ground to a halt, which I know has made my own grief worse. The sense of isolation and desperation - the fact that we are all alone in our own little bubbles, trapped in a house that is empty apart from memories, we all want to kill the pain.
As a society, I don’t think we understand grief anymore.

Cxxx

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Hi Geoff, my wife of 43 years died 3 days after your Ann. And I feel exactly the same as you. Take care.

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I think you exactly put into words what none of us can Thankyou.

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Hi, @LexRose99

Thanks, that’s a very nice thing to say.

We are all in the same leaky boat on the ocean of grief.

Christie xxx

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Dear Lost 82, I so identify with your pain when one hour goes into the next and then to bed to lie awake tormented by thoughts of the last days when we did not see what was coming… … The tearing sensation inside will not go and I feel like an alien on a strange planet… I am pleased to have found this site where others understand…

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