Hi Ann
I have my brother living quite close but the rest of my family are in the States and spread around the UK. We use FaceTime a lot. I am being pressed to go to visit them but cannot face the journey to California, or anywhere else come to that. My husband and I visited many times but it’s too longer a journey on my own. I have some good friends around me and lovely neighbours.
I forced myself to look at our albums, it was hard but I’m glad I did, try to look at yours if you can.
I still can’t watch tv progs we watched together or listen to music, I listen to Radio 4 now.
I hope your day isn’t too bad.
Sending big hugs, Rosemary
8 months ago tomorrow I lost my husband suddenly and unexpectedly to undiagnosed kidney cancer and a massive rear saddle pulmonary embolism. He was 53 years old. I wasn’t with him when he died. I did try to save him but couldn’t. I feel that I let him down big time. His life has been robbed and our future plans and dreams have been robbed. I really don’t know where the last 8 months have gone. I have been keeping busy to fill my time. I am trying not to look into the future as could have another 25/30 years. I hope that the time goes quickly.
The last week I feel that I have gone backwards and keep questioning WHY WHY WHY. It isn’t fair. I miss my husband so much and keep wishing that I will wake up from this horrendous nightmare. I don’t want to feel like this for the rest of my life but also don’t want to accept that I will never see my husband again. I guess until you have acceptance then you won’t move forward. Just a awful life.
Big hugs xx
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@Hazel.1966 I’m earlier on this journey at just 19 weeks. I am also questioning WHY? A lot lately. I thought I was doing a bit better but the last week has been full of negative thoughts and memories. I’m 56 and like you could have another 30 years on my own. The thought is overwhelming. Sending hugs.
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@Rome18 I have the same problem.My brother in law lives in Ontario and I speak to him every night on WhatsApp except if he had to be out.I actually don’t know what would have happened to me if he hadn’t listened to my sobbing ,anguish and sometimes incoherent conversation.My husband has another cousin in Oaklahoma and I don’t know whether I could face that trip with a change in Dallas Fort Worth.
The most difficult thing for me has been going to probate in North Cyprus where Zeki comes from.My UK probate was a doddle as everything we had was always in both our names except one account of his.In all it took 3 months I think.
But in Cyprus I had to employ a lawyer to do it.My lovely Zeki took a couple years(annual leave) changing the deeds of the various plots into his and his brothers names from their parents names.He no sooner did it and then died.Fortunately he had a local will with me as beneficiary ( UK wills aren’t recognised there) So I am nearly finished having it transferred to my name.The job had to be done Rosemary although it’s all pointless now to me ,part of the evaporated dreams and plans ,but will allow his brother to sell his half.The reason I’m mentioning it is I can’t even face going to Cyprus that really would affect me very much.
I’m so glad you have lovely friends and neighbours .Zekis cousins wife has come to me every day after work and my friend comes from Stevenage every Sat .I have been truly blessed .Without them I would have been very alone.
There are lots of friends mostly Zeks and some of mine but they slide back into their lives and forget don’t they .They are genuine but I don’t think they know how to deal with spouse bereavement.
I am going to endeavour to look at the albums!!??
Take care Rosemary
Hugs and love
Annxx
@Jan17 it is very overwhelming and going to be a hard journey for us and everyone on this site. My therapist said that the WHYs are part of the grief bargaining stage which can come in waves like a roller coaster. Big hugs xx
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To all in this conversation I pray that we will find peace soon.Just peace from our torment.Try not to think that we might or shoul have done this that or the other.One thing we do know is our husbands love usxx
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Ali29. I feel very much like you. It is just over 7 months since my husband passed away. This week has been hard, constantly crying. All my old agoraphobia has come back and I am finding it difficult to go out the door again. I thought I was doing so well that it feels like a backward step. This time last year we were preparing to go on holiday. I keep reflecting back on his passing. He was in palliative car the last couple of weeks of his life, so they weren’t feeding him or giving him liquid. I know in my heart he is in a better place because he was in so much pain. I have no family support at all, so feel so alone. Dying seems a much better option than living like this. We were married for 51 years but together for 55 years. It feels as though part of me dued with him
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@Caw1 I just read your post I feel just like you and I hope we can somehow get through this.I hope you will feel a bit better in time although it’s a year for me and I truly think it will take ages if not forever for me.My thoughts are with you
Hugs
annxx
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Thank you. I feel I can say how I feel on this site because we are in the same situation. No one judges you. Take care and love and hugs to you
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After my husband died in April I found quite a few pieces of art that he’d done over the years but had put away. I’ve started to have them framed, being able to look at them on the wall, where they should be, gives me comfort and reminds me how talented he was. He also had a garage full of pieces of wood he wanted to make things from. I’m keeping hold of them and in time I’m going to find someone to turn them into something meaningful for me. If these things were precious to your husband you could try to make them into something precious for yourself when you feel strong enough.
@19Lefke95
I am feeling a bit like you at the moment. I keep thinking of this time last year. It will be a year on 28th October since I lost my lovely husband. This time last year he was in hospital but we expected him to be coming home. He was fit and healthy as far as we knew, he had problems with his platelets but this had been on going for twenty years and was kept under control with medicine. We were given the shock news that he had cancer but they were going to put him on chemo tablets and we were told he would have 12 - 18 months. I was ever hopeful and thought that by then some new medicine would have come along and he would be o.k. He was such a fit and healthy man that we never dreamed of a different outcome. It wasn’t to be and sadly he just got worse, even the Doctors were surprised. They tried everything they could but it just didn’t work.
Like you, I constantly question why, why him, he was such a good man.
I know all of us on this site think why was it our beloved partners, it is so unfair.
We were planning to move before he went into hospital. I have gone ahead and have just sold the house and am moving to a two bed bungalow just around the corner from my sisters. They are my only family. I was excited at first but now I am begining to think that when I move it will be my home and not our as he won’t have ever been there. I still have to sort out all of his clothes etc. I did give his coats and warm clothing away last winter to a charity asking for warm clothing, I felt he would have approved. I can’t bring myself to give anything else away, not yet anyway.
I hope the coming days won’t be so bad for you and you somehow get some peace.
Sending you strength and hugs xx
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Ann,
So pleased you are through the legal ‘stuff’’, My goodness what a lot had to be done with Cyprus involvement,
I hope you can look at your albums. It helped me and I found quite a few photographs I had forgotten about. One of my husband on a cruise which I have framed, and it’s sitting on his beloved piano and bringing me so much pleasure.
I hope you sleep well. Sending hugs, Rosemary xx
Such a shame you and your husband didn’t manage to move to Hants/Dorset. I live in Dorset now, and moved here from Hampshire when I started teaching. Both lovely counties, but I prefer Dorset now. It is interesting that your husband too liked buying tools for his potential workshop. My husband had only recently had a workshop built at the bottom of our garden. He enjoyed organising all his planes, saws and chisels and hanging them on the walls. It looks amazing. I can’t bear to move any of it - still all there waiting for someone to use them.
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Good idea. I might try and find someone interested in doing this for me. It would be nice for some of it to be used. My husband would hate for it to be wasted or deteriorate.
@Caw1 Absolutely a part of me died with him. I can’t imagine for one moment what it must be Ike to love for 50 odd years and lose it. I only had my man for 16 years but he was everything I ever needed in life. We were so good together and life was so easy with him.
We too were away this time last year and planned an epic holiday this year but it wasn’t meant to be.
I’m hoping when I get back to work in Sept, I will get back on an even keel. Have to get through his 50th birthday first.
Life is incredibly hard but we are doing it , one way or another.
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Wow … " everything happens for a reason " huh … well i would like to know what reason is that ??? And how do they know theres a reason ? Terrible things happen to good people and that’s the sad truth … 
xx
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@JohnP1961 You are not weak for grieving. You’re not weak for any reason at all. You have had a huge loss and a traumatic experience and will be affected by this. Having flashbacks is normal, i think it’s the minds way of processing what’s happened to enable us to heal or at least move forward.
Today, for me, has ended ok. This wave is slowly ebbing away. Onwards and upwards till the next one. They’re never far around the corner.
You have to get through all the crashing waves to get to the calm sea. Hopefully one day, that will be me. Until then I will just wade through the waves.
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Yeh my bereavment counsellor said there is no way around it … we have to go through the process of grieving but as you say … until that next wave comes xxx
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I am 6 weeks today losing my husband to lung cancer and I too am still traumatised by what he went through. Not at all what the oncologist described.
I am up visiting my ‘home town’ as we discussed moving back here together or on my own but it is just so sad being here, not comforting at all as all its memories are when we were young and met and lots of firsts over 35 years ago. I thought it would help me think about a future but now realise home was where he was, not a location. It has actually set me back a lot as I was hopeful it would provide a glimmer of something as my husband says he felt comforted thinking I would be going back there where there is some family. But I just couldn’t live there. It has changed, I am forever changed and there are just so many triggers.
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I am so sorry that your visit did not turn out as you expected. In grief you can’t seem to know how you will feel about something until you actually do it. So it is a step forward that you have tried it. 6 weeks is very early along this road we are all travelling, you are doing so well even to think about it. I find visiting places where we have never been, or at least don’t have much connection to, is much easier than revisiting places we loved. Maybe in time this will change.
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