Morning, over the last few days I’ve found myself interacting on the site a lot more, trying to offer assistance as best I can to those who are suffering as I was, as I still do to be honest. It has been a strange experience to chat with people who are in their very first days and weeks and to reflect on how I was then, so I can best relate to them and their needs in that time. And I have had to really think back, think of myself in the first days and it just blows me away how much I’ve moved on from that time. I’m not better, we all know that’s not happening, but things have definitely changed, or I have definitely changed, or both I guess. I still feel unconditionally sad a lot of the time, anger, pain, fear they are all still present. But I am not consumed by them, I understand them and that makes things so much, I want to say easier but it’s really more acceptable. In the first days and weeks I had so little awareness of myself, my situation, fight or flight was in full effect and I panicked so much about the future, the present, EVERYTHING. Now here I am, in the future, looking back on those days and wondering how I got here to the position of being able to reflect and look back to that time and at its madness. For me its been the realization that this will never be over but my understanding and so my outlook will develop as I move through. To be able to reflect and see progression is an impossible position to reach in the beginning, I was completely focused on memories of my wife’s last days and weeks and the inevitable end. That was all I could reflect on at that time. Now I can look back and reflect on that point, see how grief moves with you and in a lot of ways helps you forward, allowing the pain to come out. Part of me will always be lost to my wife, but now I realize I can give it gladly. I think before I was fighting to keep her with me but now I realize there’s no need to fight, I have no choice, she will always be there in me. And months from now I will look back at this moment and it will allow me to see how I have changed once more, and so it will go.
That’s so perfectly put and describes how I feel. I had this feeling that I need to let him go to move forward but I don’t.
6 months for me yesterday and I am in the process of completing the garden renovation that we started before he suddenly died. It’s not as we had planned but I’ve done my best and the skills I’ve used to help me, he instilled within me. He taught me so much over the years and I was able to use his tools as he always patiently showed me how to use them. He is around all the time and I do understand everything you have written here.
Life goes on but they are within us all the time.
Hey Ali, it’s a weird feeling isn’t it? Being able to appreciate memories and experiences once again and so let them in.
I hesitate to put the following in this thread but this song really helped me to realize that I wasn’t alone, this was the human condition and that somewhere someone understood what I was feeling. I was aware of this song but never really paid it too much attention until I read the lyrics and I thought it a perfect description of my situation and trying to hold my wife to me:
Song to The Siren:
Long afloat on shipless oceans
I did all my best to smile
Till your singing eyes and fingers
Drew me loving to your isle
And you sang:
“Sail to me
Sail to me
Let me enfold you
Here Iam
Here Iam
Waiting to hold you”
Did I dream you dreamed about me?
Were you hare when I was fox?
Now my boat is leaning
Broken lovelorn on your rocks
For you sing:
“Touch me not
Touch me not
Come back tomorrow
Oh my heart
Oh my heart
Shies from the sorrow”
I am puzzled as the oyster
I am troubled as the tide
Should I stand amid your breakers?
Should I lie with death, my bride?
Here me sing:
“Swim to me
Swim to me
Let me enfold you
Here I am
Here I am
Waiting to hold you”
And if you care to have a listen it’s the TIm Buckley original you’re looking for, can’t seem to link it
Thank you, I’ll have a listen.
I wish I had reached the point where you are now but, even after seven months since losing my dear husband, I am still suffering from the last traumatic four months of his life. In fact, in some ways my mind is in a worse place than the early days.
We had a wonderful life with fabulous memories but those heart-wrenching times keep taking over. I did everything I could but guilt also creeps in. I am having counselling and so I desperately hope I can be feeling as you are now. I am so pleased for you.
Thank you for the poem, it’s beautiful.
Best wishes.
Hi Rome, tbh I’m probably just experiencing a point of stability at the moment and trying to make the best of it, shore up the defences with some positivity. I think one of the things that I found really important was learning to be patient with myself, trying not to expect too much of my emotional situation, accepting that it would be up and down in the long term as well as the short.
Yes they are beautiful words, wish they were mine, but they are actually lyrics to a song:
Tim Buckley: Song to the Siren
Taken from The Monkees show weirdly enough?!
Thank you for sharing. I too have interacted with a few posts where people are in the early days of loss & you realise how far you have come but wonder how on earth you managed it. I have found that although memories now bring smiles more than tears they seem so distant & although I know he will always be with me, it’s up to me to speak Derek’s name … as long as I’m here he’ll not be forgotten.
I’m three years 7 months on, I’ve found the later years hard but in a different way. The firsts of everything you expect to be difficult & you build yourself up for them, people are still aware of your grief & are expecting you to be upset & sad. But as time goes on there’s an expectation that you get over it, move on. You don’t, you move forward because that’s all you can do. I put a positive spin on things, everything I do I’m taking him with me, but every family happy occasion he misses or even sad occasions where I need his support just cuts me in two. In the time since he went, both daughters lost a baby, his father passed away & then one of the girls had a little boy & just celebrated his first birthday. It was our nieces wedding last year & being there without him was so lonely, everyone else couples just hits you.
That’s where I am now, able to enjoy life & be happy but always carrying the hurt. You learn to hide it well. I often get sideswiped by something unexpected & then I’ll just take a day or so, work through it & it passes. I’ve found writing poetry helped me get my feelings out & I also read poetry, Donna Ashworth is very inspiring & poignant in her words. This is one of my favourites.
Take care & wishing you well on this roller coaster ride x
Thank you @Jodel712, you have explained perfectly how you feel after the years since you lost your dear husband. I found your words very encouraging. After nearly seven months without my husband, I am still feeling very mixed up and emotional.
I have him with me all of the time and I talk to him, saying what is going on without him in my life, and telling him how much I love him.
Also, thank you for the inspiring poetry.
Best wishes.
Wise words and great insight here from @Walan - lots here resonates for me, at nearly 19 months in. Hold on, everyone, and lots of love from me x