@Winmick Ireland sounds so nice, quiet and even better a wee dog. You guys @Albert123 @Junebug17 @Bob @Winmick help me understand what my dad is going through he and my mum were married for 46 years and had their last anniversary in ICU. I hope you have good friends and family around you.
Diana
Hello Diana,
My lovely daughter and her husband have been a constant comfort to me since the death of my beautiful wife. Unfortunately, living in the depths of France I have no friends near me, and my family are in UK. I hope to change that soon.
I am always mindful that daughterâs have also lost a parent, and grieve just as much. Give your Mum big hugs as often as possible. Hugs go a long way to easing the hurt.
Have a good Christmas.
Bob.
I miss my husband so much. Cannot take much more.
I keep shunning efforts of those helping me as I want to be alone with him at home but heâs not here is he.
We had many very indepth conversations about other dimensions, science, religions and the afterlife over our 17 years together and had promised each other for a clear signal with evidence we could prove to others, if it was possible for him to communicate I think he would have by now. I have been talking out loud to him for hours today (though just as typing this a song came on Iâd never heard before and the lyrics are almost answering. in a big country by big country⊠must look them up in a minute but its not enough proof still for me).
We didnât have time when he was dying. It went from start to finish within 5 or 10 minutes and I was on the phone to 999 for most of it. Only his eyes communicated to me the pain he was in and he knew he was dying as I said he would be ok and he said no he wonât. I didnt believe that and didnât hold him like I should have with my hand on the useless phone and some aspirin instead of him. Just before he died he did take my hand and say âI love youâ which took massive effort and I truly treasure over and over. I wonder if heâd had a terminal illness so we had more time to specifically talk what might he have said though.
What is it like when your partner knows they are dying and you have longer, what kind of things do they say to you?
I keep asking him questions, did I nag him to death (I used to ask him not to walk with shoes on my special yoga rug and now everyone does all the time, filthy ones even and I say nothing I donât do my yoga) why did I care about this or that small thing when really I just cared about him, shall I move, what is the point in not killing myself, which way, what about the car? how to help mum, how to fix things like his home automation, he never really answers. But even if you have longer do you talk about these things anyway, I guess you still donât really think they are dying as itâs always a shock isnât it or do you?
Dear fleur-de-lis, it isnât any easier to lose your husband over a period of time, when Marcial was diagnosed we knew it was terminal stage 4. Unknown to us they gave him 4 months, well he surpassed that and lasted 3 years, meantime, yes, we did have time to tell each other how we felt and the children got closer to him too, but the toll it took on me was extreme. I had anticipary grief, grieving for him while he was still here, the pain and agony of envisaging my life without him, frightened, wanting him not to leave me but at the same time not wanting him to suffer. It was so hard as I had to do crying quietly, alone, so as not to upsel him and my kids. It was so lonely and the person that usually helped me through this sort of time was the one dying. To watch my gorgeous, handsome, husband, only 64 years old slowly dying before my eyes, not eating, he who loved his food. Then not drinking and getting weaker and weaker, even his voice lost its strength, I loved his strong kind voice. Losing weight to the point of just bones and no muscle, was very traumatising to see him like that. He hated what was happening to him and made me promise I would remember him as he was before and not at the end. I had the most wonderful 38 years marriage to him and after he passed away in his own bed at home as he wanted, he went peacefully and my daughter and I were with him as he took his last breaths. Either way itâs agony to lose your loved one quickly or drawn out. The pain and suffering is the overwhelming. I miss him every day, cry for him and long for him. Take care Fleur, be a bit more gentle with yourself, just like me everything was out of our control and there was nothing we could do to prevent what happened to us. We canât go around it but we have to go through it. Take care, hugs, Margarita
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Hi all.
I am reading these posts and there are parts in all of them that could have written by me.
The biggest problem for me ism
I have not surrendered to the fact that I am not going to see Steve again in person. I walk through the front door, having been out a walk, and expect him to be sitting in his armchair, or in the kitchen making a cup of tea, or seeing him in the garage working on some other DIY project etc.
I absolutely detest my life without Steve. It is just an existence, trying to get through each day. It is almost a relief when it gets to around 10pm and I know that is another day gone.
COVID has certainly not helped that is for sure. There are no distractions and there is only so much housework, gardening and walking you can do!
We are from all different parts of the UK and France, but united in this awful situation that nobody wants to be in.
Take care all of you.
June
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It breaks my heart to read your story everytime because itâs so much like mine⊠i feel the same⊠My partner didnât have the time to say anything to me⊠I was in so much shock when it happened I didnât know what to do or say, i kept asking him to stay with me. Itâs a bit comforting to know that your husband loved you so much that he took the massive effort to say âI love youâ
When i was clearing the old apartment i found two white feathers, which were unusual as we didnât even have a garden and lived in a very populated area⊠I wish i kept them but i didnât know they could be a sign. And one night, one of my bicycleâs lights got switched on. I didnât believe paranormal before but now i keep an open mind.
How are you feeling today?
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Thank you all for your replies. I am trying to work out what René might have said to me but I know I never can. We talked about these kind of things a lot due to a lot of previous family and friend deaths so I was always conscious one of us could die and used to worry about it but not to the point to have wills or have done anything useful about it,
When I did bring it up, he would often hold me and cheer me up or say he was strong as an ox (he was) and not going first⊠weâd end up laughing⊠I always just thought I would commit suicide if it happened to me and he would be OK if it happened to him. Somehow I canât remember anything very useful from all those conversations.
I definitely donât mean to infer that losing a beloved partner through terminal illness is easier, I truly know that is not the case and I hope I didnât offend anyone with my post. The only way I can think of that is easier if if RenĂ© and I had died together instantly in a car crash or suchlike but then there would be others to clear up our life instead of me I know and our cats left⊠there is no easy way is there.
@Riley My mum was coming over but i texted her not to come. I feel like I need to be alone and keep trying to talk with RenĂ©. Tomorrow is his birthday, This time last year we had so much fun going on and all kinds of things. Today I am sitting here waiting for the doctor to phone me to go through RenĂ©âs post mortem with me.
Thatâs good that you felt those signs from your partner. Did you manage to sleep in the new place yet and how do you feel about it, glad you moved?
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@FleurDeLis My mum died from cancer when i was very young just before entering secondary school, I donât think they had target therapy or immuno therapy then, at least not for the general ordinary public, it was a hard battle for her and I still have vivid images of her sufferings⊠I remember the first thing my dad told me in the hospital was âShe is not in pain anymore, it was a reliefâ. I canât really say whether sudden death was âworseâ or âbetterâ, to be blunt, death just sucks no matter how it happens.
Iâve been sleeping ok by listening to Youtube hypnosis videos. The sadness follows me wherever I go but it does ease off the financial burden. Iâve just put up the old fiber optic Christmas tree my partner bought years ago, I did sob in the process but somehow it is giving me a bit of comfort and much needed familiarity, it was an act to honour his Christmas spirit.
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Hello everyone,
Reading through all of your posts, there is of course a common theme of love, loss and loneliness. We humans are not designed to be on our own. We need conversation and contact with others to share our troubles.
Three years have passed since I lost my lovely wife, and joining this site was a scary prospect for me. I have always been self-assured and independent, and I assumed that the many available help lines would not benefit me. How could anyone possibly understand how I feel? I also think that secretly I didnât want anyone else intruding in my grief, sort of diluting it. Does that make any sense?
Ever so slowly I came to realize that there are folks out there just like me, and seeing all of your posts has given me new hope for the future. Although I am still very broken, I find that I can now start to celebrate her lifeâ as well as mourning her death. This is new territory.
I see some of you have expressed your sense of the futility of carrying on without the one you so deeply loved. I get this. I just have to remember that our children do not need to loose another parent so soon after Sandyâs passing. Also, and as soon as I can relocate back to UK, I will volunteer for this and other charities, so that I can in some small way repay all of you who I many ways have helped me to see things differently.
I wish you all a very peaceful Christmas and a better 2021.
Bob
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Dear FleurDeLis,
You are not alone in imagining the difference between a sudden death and watching a loved one waste away. Both have an equally horrific outcome as those left behind struggle with being catapulted into an alien world where absolutely nothing is familiar. Both ways take a terrible toll.
I liken the effect of sudden death to a knock out punch from nowhere. There is no preparation and the shock is so overwhelming that itâs equivalent to the physical concussion such a punch causes.
Broken heart syndrome can cause the heart to change shape temporarily because of the stress placed on the heart. I think shock does the same to the brain. Put the two together and the resulting chaos is obvious. Grief compounded by shock is indescribable as the body virtually shuts down almost immediately while at the same time having to assimilate the worst news possible. The world moves on but we are left struggling to accept reality. Fourteen months after my husband died suddenly I still cannot believe that thirty seven years together can end in an instant. I feel as if the past, present and future were wiped out in one fell swoop. Nothing makes sense. I wasnât with him and find it unbearable that he died surrounded by strangers.
Like you, I sometimes thought about which one of us would die first, although because we were both seemingly fit and healthy it wasnât something I dwelt on. I imagined we would grow old and look after each other but sudden death for some reason didnât enter my head?! Risk factors and statistics seemed to be in our favour. I ignore them all now.
In addition to what I have described you have the added trauma of being alone with Rene when he collapsed. Inevitably you will relive those moments over and over again but you should never doubt that you did and said all the right things. Who can ever prepare for such a situation. Even a trained medic would struggle to keep a cool head if treating a loved one. Most doctors perform CPR in a hospital setting and usually with a team supporting them. We learned afterwards that the policeman who performed CPR on my husband was off work for a month.
All the thoughts that are swirling around in your head are the most normal response to the most abnormal of situations. I have also had the car crash together thought. What I think is as shocking in its own way is how anyone is expected to find a way back to living as opposed to existing without support from those in the so called caring professions. I cannot believe that your GP who is aware of what you have suffered is prepared to discuss Reneâs post mortem by telephone. How can anyone offer the level of support required in this most sensitive and emotional of situations over the phone?
I too received my husbands post mortem report on my own. It was incorrectly addressed by the hospital to a neighbours house and they brought it round to me. No one has ever been through it with me as it was controversial from the start. I was asked to not be ânit pickyâ (actual words used by the bereavement consultant, a retired cardiologist at the hospital ) when it came to the cause of death for my husband. A hospital post mortem was begrudgingly carried out which confirmed they had got it wrong and had unforgivably missed a congenital condition for which both our sons have had to be screened and indeed monitored throughout their lives. We received a written apology eight months later but the face to face meeting I so wanted has never been possible because of covid. I didnât encounter much humanity before this awful virus but now it has plumbed new depths.
I am thinking of you as you endure this loneliest of experiences. It has taken me ages to post this response as like you I would hate to offend anyone by comparing grief experiences. Each and every of us who has lost a husband/wife/partner suffers agonies following their death however it happens. Itâs just that I can identify so much with what you write and express. Thinking of you. Xx
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