Thank you Jim for another deep, heartfelt & poignant post. You’ve touched so many of us suffering grievers with your words. I agree that any new experience, accomplishment, achievement, makes me say “oh I must tell my Sister about this.” But then it hits like a 2 by 4, that she is not at the end of that phone or text, she is no longer at her home or work, thus everything pales and seems to lose meaning. I do not have children, but I was somewhat of a “mother figure” to my little Sister. I even was given the title of “Little Mother” when growing up. Nevertheless I cannot imagine the shock and agony resulting from the sudden loss of a child. You are an inspiration however, in the way you are able to impart your painful experience onto others, therefore giving us hope that we too can survive what we never thought possible. Xxx
Thank you sister2. Think we are all just stumbling along in the dark. If there is the slightest glimmer of hope. It’s worth sharing. Hope you manage to find some peace 
Hi all. In the 2 or 3 months I’ve been on this site I think the thing I’ve found most helpful, besides reading about or talking to like minded people who really understand what you are going through. It’s actually a good way of comparing where you are up to on the grief journey. By that I mean when you read other people’s stories you can judge yourself and where you are.
Reading about all the people who are recently bereaved. Realizing how much pain they are in and the suffering that they are enduring makes you realize how far you have come.
Before I came across this site I felt like a wondering nomad dragging all my pain around endlessly. In the beginning when I lost my boy. After the initial numbness wares off, you find yourself at the very bottom. You are literally scrapping the very bottom of life. After the first year or two. You have ran out of ways to find an outlet. You try anything and everything to make your life just a little more bearable. What I’ve noticed reading people’s stories is a theme that seems to get repeated for almost everyone. You run out of people to turn to very quickly. You can only tell your story so many times before those around you loose interest. Or sometimes you mite find yourself telling a complete stranger , maybe someone you’ve just met on holiday or someone new at work. You tell them what’s happened to you or who you’ve lost. But you never get the response you were hoping for.
Coming on this site has helped me more than anything I’ve tried in the past. Simply because I can gauge how far I have come.
For me personally in the beginning I wanted to tell everyone about my son. I genuinely thought in my own head that I needed to tell whoever would listen. But then as time passes you realize that it’s not a subject that people want to talk about, basically because they haven’t got a clue what to say or how to respond. Coming on this site and speaking with like minded people. Who genuinely 100% understand how you are feeling I think gives you courage to carry on with your life,.
I never ever thought I would see an end to this hell, and had I not come on this site I would have no way of knowing that 6 years down the line I have moved on from the depths of despair . Don’t get me wrong I don’t spring out of bed and dance down the stairs and moonwalk out of the house every day. But I’ve learned how to function again, something I definitely couldn’t do 6 years ago. Thanks for listening 
Thank you. It gives us all hope that we can mend on this journey x
Hi Jim, you have a really good way of explaining this hellish road we are all on. Initially people were always telling me it would get easier, of course they were all the people who had never suffered the loss of someone they were really close to. in the beginning I didn’t even realise how numb I was, I was just trying to cope with all the awful necessary things you have to do and then suddenly after a couple of months I think the reality started to sink in and the pain was unbearable and you don’t know how you can survive it. I know people who have lost their husbands in the last year and they seem to be coping so much better than me and I kept thinking what is wrong with me, why can’t I function like them, but I realised they all had someone to help them through it, either grandchildren or close family and friends. I don’t really have anyone, I had to deal with everything alone and the people I thought would be there for me weren’t, I get the odd phone call, but you get the feeling they think you should be over it by now, but as you have said before, you don’t ever get over it, how could you. My husband and I just spent most of our time together we only needed each other, stupidly we didn’t really think about how we would cope when one of us died, I think we had the fantasy that we were so close we would be bound to go together and when he died 9 months ago it was such a shock, I just thought I would die of a broken heart, but I am still here and the pain has got so much worse, it is like nothing I have ever known and only those of us that have suffered it can possibly understand, you can’t explain it to others, they just don’t get it. I have tried to find ways of coping, I have joined walking groups, I have had some counselling, but in the end nothing really helps because at the end you still have to come home to an empty place and it hits you all over again. Sometimes I just want to shut myself in and wait for death, I often won’t leave home at all for a couple of weeks, but I know I have to try, so then I drag myself out and try to act like a normal human being, as you say you try anything and everything to just get through it. I am starting a new bereavement group this week, so I am really hoping that will help, at least being with a group of people who have suffered the same sort of misery will mean they will all know what the pain is like and maybe we can help each other. Obviously nothing will ever be the same again, but reading what you and othrs have said on here gives some hope that maybe eventually there is a way to survive this. Knowing I can come onto this site when I am feeling like I can’t go on does help, so thank you to everybody on here x
Hi Lynn. Reading your msg. As heartbreaking as it is. I can see that you are achieving things you couldn’t have done at the very beginning. It may not feel like much. As horrible as you feel. Reading between the lines you have come along way since losing your husband. I no exactly what you mean when you say sometimes you don’t go out and shut yourself away and wait for death. I’ve been there a 1000 times as I’m sure lots on here have. But just coming on here and interacting with people has certainly given me hope. Life will never be the same for any of us. And dare I say it. Alot if people are just waiting till the day they can meet up with lost ones. I hope you manage to find some peace. Really hope you get something from your bereavement group. Don’t be too hard on yourself 
Hi lynn
I notice in your post you are going to a bereavement group. I’ve often thought this would be good to get together with people in the same situation and really understand like this forum. I am in the north east and have looked online but can’t see any here.
Hope you get help from it xx
Hi Jim
You have put this so well. I lost my dear husband 8 months ago so am still in the raw stage but I thought your description of this big whole was a very good way of looking at it and it gives me hope for the future. Judy
Hello Judy
I like you lost my husband just over seven months ago and coming onto this site has helped knowing I am not alone We must support one another and as mentioned many times unless you have been through this awful bereavement process people do not understand
My thoughts are with you x
No you are right. I have lost other people in my life, a close friend, my parents but they were elderly and it was expected, an aunt, a cousin to suicide but nothing compares to the loss of a life partner or losing a child which I cannot bear thinking about.
Our world’s have changed so dramatically and it effects every part of our being. Life will never be the same, we will never be the same, we can just hope we can learn to live with this big hole in our lives and accept it.
Only others who have been through it can understand. Which is why it is good to be able to be able to connect on here where we can be truly honest about our feelings and not pretend we are getting better.
Judy
Thanks Jim, just being able to speak on here and know that people care enough to respond means a lot, especially at those times when you feel so terrified and desperate with really dark thoughts, sometimes I can barely breathe and it is only on here that I can admit those thoughts because I know others have been there and understand. May we all eventually find a kind of peace that we can live with, Love and hugs to all. x
Hi Barbara,
I agree I think it will be good to be in a group with others, my group has only just recently started and is just in the Surrey area, it was suggested to me by my social prescriber who is a lovely lady that phones me every couple of weeks to see how I am doing and she tries to find these things that will help. I think that now the pandemic situation has improved there maybe more of these groups starting up, so keep looking, sometimes your doctor will know about them, so you could ask at your surgery. I see you are in Durham, my gran lived in Washington and we used to spend a lot of our summer holidays visiting her, I also still have an Auntie living in Morpeth and another in Choppington. Coming on this site is very helpful, but it is a shame we are all so spread out around the country so we can never meet. Sending you my best wishes xx
I am also living in Surrey and I was wondering where are the courses being held as I think that it would be helpful for me as I lost my mum back in 3rd March 2020 after she suffered from a massive stroke and never regained consciousness.
I visited her joint grave as, she is interned with her mum at the churchyard in Banstead. My parents used to live in Dorking and moved to just outside of Wisbech Cambridgeshire 21 years ago. It was my mum’s wishes for her to be buried with her mum.
We were lucky enough to have her funeral just before the first lockdown came in, but could not go back upto my dad’s until July last year and bring her ashes back. As I had to wait for my sister to get some time off work for her to drive upto our dad’s. I am unable to drive due to my medical conditions, we eventually laid her to rest on the 19th August 2021 a day before my 56th birthday.
Hi Steve,
The courses are held at several different locations in Surrey, they are done through the Brigitte Trust, which is a Surrey based charity which you can find on line under Brigitte Trust Surrey which will give you all the details about the courses. I think it will probably be helpful for anyone suffering from a terrible loss as we all are on here. Take care, best wishes, Lynn
Thank you so much for this. Only 4 months since my husband’s death and already some people are expressing annoyance that I am not ‘better’ yet. I feel that the only people I can bear to talk to are those who have been bereaved. No one else has any idea how totally the world changes after a death. Even though everyone’s experience is different we share that knowledge that nothing will be the same again.
Hi
I lost my wife in December, but I feel I lost her when she asked to be admitted into hospital end of October. That’s the last time I saw her walk, last time I was able to hug her properly as she left our home, to be returned to pass in our room.
People say to me well it’s not been long, you’re starting to grieve, you can’t think about going forward until you grieve… I can’t do anything more, everyday is to me groundhog day. But I survive and eventually hope to fulfill my wife’s request that someone will love me as much as she did.
Time doesn’t heal, but helps one live each day. Nature has taken 44yrs of my life, but I have been spoilt by my first love in life.
I hope you can move in your own time and get some level of substance.
Steve x
Unfortunately you are at the beginning of a journey none of us wanted to be on. 6 years past for me and you don’t move on you just learn to live with the pain. As you say until it happens to them lots of people don’t understand it’s not like putting on a new coat after taking off an old one. Your whole life has changed. Hopefully things get better for you.
Thank you very much.
How things have taken place will never change. The time involved, I suppose fortunate that we knew and could prepare the best way we could.
I did just that, and she hated being cared for and suffering indignity. I believe her MS started the attack, and our gp then refused to listen to her, to the point when it was diagnosed, he refused to see us at any time thereafter.
We can’t change what happened, but I intend to utilise my time left the best I can.
Good luck
Steve xx
We had about 3 months from being told it was the end stage of Carole’s cancer ,we had time in between hospital stays for her to go say goodbye to our family and take a car for my brother who sadly died 2 weeks after Carole.
I keep reliving the final few days and how ill she was and how she hated being cared for and all that entailed she always said she didn’t want to become an invalid. It makes me sad to think of that time but also happy her pain and indignity were only for a short time.
Just shows how hard dealing with all these feelings is and how your mind works .
John
I’m with you on the dignity etc. We discussed everything when my chrissy was diagnosed with Ms and then the liver cirrhosis. She made me vow that I would put her out of her misery, I couldn’t do that so I spent as much time in the hospital with her n this pandemic, but also with her in our room prior to her final admission.
Dignity is the only thing that can be given to an individual, along with final love.
Good luck 