Second Anniversary

Losing a partner
1

Second Anniversary of Christine’s death

6th January, 2024

At six minutes past midnight on 6th January 2022, my gorgeous wife Christine passed away in my arms.

My heart is broken
Yet still, it beats
Da dum, da dum, da dum.

For whom does it beat?
Not I for I am dead
Da dum, da dum, da dum.

Each beat marks an instance
For which
The passage of time is stalled
Da dum, da dum, da dum.

Your death is my death
Beloved
My heart beats, still
Da dum, da dum

This second year has been horrendous, the sadness and aloneness has been building. It has been such a struggle to keep going. At this point, I am depleted. Spent. I miss Christine terribly.

Simon

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Hello @JerryH,

I’m so sorry to hear about your wife. It sounds as though things are very difficult at the moment and you are feeling sad and alone.

I’m sure someone will be along to offer their support, but I wanted to share these links with you to help you with your grief.

You might already be familiar with our other Online Bereavement Support services, but if not, you can find out more about our Online Counselling service, our Grief Coach text support service, and our Grief Guide self-help tools by visiting the link.

Take care - keep reaching out,

Alex

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@JerryH - my dear, I am so sorry that you lost your beloved Christine just 2 years ago, and today is her anniversary.

It is very hard, I know, as we watch the clock run down to key dates, holidays, all that was once comfortable and familiar territory - Christmas, birthdays, etc - becomes hostile and forbidding land, where emotional ambushes lurk, in silence, waiting for us to pass.

Tom died two years ago this month, too and I am working hard to drive out the memories of those last weeks, days, hours, minutes, seconds - as our time together ran out. Ambushes are all around.

The other night, a festival here in the mountains caught me unawares. One that Tom and I always enjoyed together. It had been postponed and I had not realised it was happening until the lights came up on the piste opposite and the music started. Boom. Alone in the apartment we shared, I watched it all, and felt a huge chasm - his loss. Everything so different and yet, the same, familiar rituals playing out in front of me on the snow front.

Our love for those we have lost continues, we nurture the flame that cannot be put out by anyone or anything.

Hold tight today, my friend, as you sit with your memories. If you can, see them as a glow against which you can warm your hands and your heart. Your love never ends, never changes - and together, all of us on here, walk forward towards our beloveds, in hope, in faith, that we will meet again. x

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Hi Simon.
Your poem shows the depth of your feeling. Would you think of perhaps expanding it and setting it to music? Would be incredibly powerful.

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Have you had any grief counselling @JerryH ?,it does help you come to terms with it all a bit more you know xx

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Thank you @Deb5. Yes I have. It has been of some help. x

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Hi Simon
Your words are so moving and have cut through my heart like a knife. I can only offer you a virtual hug at this really rough time for you, but please know that I’m thinking of you
Dena x

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Thank you Dena, that’s really sweet of you. Virtual hug gratefully accepted.

Simon x

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@JerryH
Hang in there Simon, these anniversaries are the worst, doesn’t matter if it’s the 1st 2nd, 3rd or 10th they take us right back to that awful moment in time. Hopefully tomorrow will be a bit easier. Thinking of you

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Yeh i agree with that !! Had my first on 16th december and it put me right back … felt like i had gone back to square one … :frowning: the sadness was so bad again … :frowning: sometimes i feel like i was never married if that makes sense … as if its a dream that i actually had that relationship because it all seems to be so far away now and i have such a completely different life with flipping different struggles ! Not one i wanted either but im stuck with it arent i … :frowning: and just gotta survive it somehow … but its bloody hard … i know that … just from a practical.point of view too … my husband had all these tools that i would like to use such as a strimmer and i dont even know how to use it … he did that stuff and need to take a shelf down and dunno how to get to screws !! grrrh …x

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That is the biggest sadness for me, in that I feel my life with Jim only existed in a different life time ago, like I am watching an old movie. It takes my breath away when I am in a place where we were once together and it’s like I have been frozen in time. I think to myself his footprints were once here, he walked down this path, his DNA is everywhere but he is nowhere now, it really messes you up. I feel all my history has gone, disappeared and I am now this blank new person with no identity, no one to relate to anymore because they don’t truly know me like he did. A big chunk of you definitely leaves with them. I am now struggling to know what his voice sounded like (I don’t have any video’s of him)

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Aw … dont you have videos ? Luckily i have and watched them loads to remember him … sorry you havent i truly am. Not even any family videos ? I suppose i was lucky
cos my daughter in law took one when he knew he hadn’t got long left … did your husband pass suddenly …
Yeh its almost like its 2 different lives isnt it. I love to talk about him and what we did together … then i know it was real what we had and how much i loved him so very much ( crying now !) Xx

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He hated having his photo taken let alone be video’d. I have loads of photo’s though of him.
He died suddenly, no symptoms, no signs of anything, fit and healthy so we thought. He had a massive heart attack :disappointed_relieved: 4 days after his 63rd birthday. I was in shock for the first 5 mths. It is now 10mths.
Thankfully I have good friends who knew him so we talk about him lots which does help x

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Thats nice you can talk about him. People around where i live have been asking me more about him but its still hard to talk about him to them … i just like to think of happy things about him now do you ? That makes me smile. I did love him so much and i realise that now. When youre married so long you take it for granted dont you ? But i bloody dont now ! How i wish he would walk through door after going to football ;( !!
Glad you have at least got photos !! Xx

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Yeh i know … i think what i find hard at moment is what is my future now , whats gonna happen to me ? There will be a new chapter for us all … saw a quote on facebook other day, one chapter has closed but the book is not finished yet … Xx

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I lost my wife Patricia 26 November 2022 i find myself feeling lost every day we’d been married 62 years I think about her 24-7 she’s never out of mind all the time it’s very hard and sad that I’ll never see her again i loved her it’s hard

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I have just got through my darling husbands second anniversary. He dued very unexpectedly 11 days before christmas.
Christmas last year was bad and it was even worse this year.
People have told me time is a healer but i am not healing. I miss him everyday. I occupy my time but i am not living. He would tell me to pull myself together and start to live again. It is so hard x

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Hi @Sallyricky,

I feel for you. It is ghastly. I have not found that time is a healer. The wound that is grief is not like a broken bone or a cut, whereby the parts knit together again. The wound of grief is such that one of the parts has gone completely. All time does is allow us to possibly get better at managing the wound.

Best wishes to you. x

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Hi sally we are all feeling the same when i read some off the notes that people put on it’s so unfair people have some. Wonderful things to say about there loved ones it’s heartbreaking this was my 2nd Xmas without her I put 2 special things that she liked and that was it no other trimmings at all I was dreading it i have a daughter and son I went to my daughters for Xmas day it’s just not same without Patricia

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I could not face christmas without him so i stayed by myself over Christmas rather than spoil everyones day

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