I retired at the end of March. My beautiful wife was a volunteer Samaritan. Come July she was to receive her very first pension payment. June 14th she did a shift at Samaritans but never returned home. She collapsed on shift and became unconscious. She died in hospital, totally unexpected from a massive bleed on the brain.
I never even had chance to say goodbye. Every day I wake up with a feeling of dread because I now have to live my life without her.
I have plenty of support from both of my sisters, my friends and even my wife’s direct contacts to her fellow Samaritans but even 4 months on, I still feel the same as if it happened yesterday.
So sorry for the loss of your beautiful wife. I can’t thank smaritain enough for helping myself after my husband died. I hope you’re also getting grief counselling but i understand how difficult it is. 5 months since my husband died suddenly and im having a bad week . The grief can still feel overpowering sometimes. But I am managing to have some more positive days.
Its so unfair. I wish I could give you more support but your not alone in grief on this forum. I hope you manage to find some peace soon. She was obviously a special person.
Dear Alfiebo I am sorry to hear about your wife. The pain is unbearable,. My wife died ten months ago she was just 61 and had so much to look forward to. I spend my days walking to help me cope and posting on this site has been a godsend as everyone here understands the pain of a bereavement
I hope you find some solace here too
Wishing you all the best Tom
@Alfiebo
So sorry for your loss my husband died suddenly cardiac arrest. 13 months ago he was 64 and we had been married 36 years
This site and the people have been a godsend to me .
I hope you will find the same , we are all at different stages of our grief. We all understand.
I am glad you have good support
It is baby steps and one day at a time .
Look after yourself
I’m so sorry to hear that you lost your husband unexpectedly. I too have many bad days and at the moment don’t seem to get any better. Both our adult son and daughter still live at home with me and we support each other and I’m grateful for that. They both require some attention though due to autism and learning difficulties.
My daughter finds it hard to show certain emotions, grief being one of them. My wife died the day before her daughter’s 21st birthday.
My son says he doesn’t want to be in the house at Christmas, to be honest, neither do I and I don’t know how I’m going to get through our wedding anniversary next week.
In my experience the build up to anniversary are the worst. It was my husband birthday recently so me and his sister wanted to celebrate rather than another day of morning. Which is most days..we went for a spa day followed my a meal with some of his friends. It was actually lovely
Xmas I’ve decided to get a cottage and do something different. I don’t have children so it must be especially hard. Its trying to figure out what’s the best and least painful..hopefully celebrating them and talking about the good things.. someone did give me advice recently when her husband died the first xmas she and her children picked a gift for themselves which would they could cherish.
Thank you everyone for your support. My life at the moment is unbearable and I can’t see it changing anytime soon.
My head is all over the place. Gill is in my thoughts 24/7. She was my rock, my life, my future. I’m totally lost and empty. It feels like I’m now living in a vacuum. I go to bed every night feeling angry that she has been taken away from me and then wake up to another day of sadness, loneliness, mental torture and a broken heart. My brain is on overdrive, constantly thinking about the life we should be having now, then thinking about how I could have done some things differently when she was alive and there’s so many places that I find really hard to revisit because of the special memories attached to them. I can’t even face listening to any music we shared together. I thought that in the beginning I cried so much that I had no tears left but that’s simply not true.
I can totally resinate with all them thoughts. It can get easier i know it doesn’t feel like it now. Its a huge trauma. I still can’t listen to music or go some places we went together but I’ve excepted that.
I hope you are getting therapy you need to talk. Thats why your wife did what she did.
@Alfiebo
It is 13 months for me
I have tried once to go to a place I went with my husband. It didn’t go well I just ended up in floods of tears .
So now I just stick to places I have never been with my husband
I am unable as yet to look at photos of him
I am hoping in time I will take comfort from them and smile at the memories
Not yet though
There is no time scale do things when you are ready .
I hope you can find a bit of peace in your day
I really don’t know when I will be ready. I spent a large portion of last year working on a new patio area in our garden. New paving, seating, wildlife pond, BBQ area and a fairy garden that Gill personally craved for. This is now a large portion of my garden that I can’t face. I spent the entire summer indoors. I cancelled my gym membership because I couldn’t even go near the place without her because she enjoyed it so much. I’m just hoping to get some kind of comfort by using this forum.
I lost my husband just over a month ago and I still can’t bring myself to talk about it but the tears and the love and yearning for him is boundless. His love for me is still evident to me in the work he did on our home and I hope you take comfort in knowing that all your time and effort in creating a little bit of a magical place for her in the garden showed her how much you loved her.
I’m sorry about the loss of your husband and hope you have help getting through these terrible times. Thank you for your kind words and thoughts. I hope that one day I will find strength and be comfortable enough to use that area again.
I am so sorry for your loss Orilla. My husband died 4 weeks ago and I am trying to navigate this new normal. I look at the Halloween and Christmas items in the shops, and often walk around the supermarket wiping away the tears. My husband Charlie used to celebrate both as he decorated the house and garden for the grandchildren. This year will be hard without him. Sending you gentle hugs and lots of love. x
I am so sorry for your loss, your wife sounds like a wonderful person. Please take comfort in the knowledge that she was there when some people were at their lowest point in life. The world needs more people who care, like she did. Sending you gentle hugs and lots of love. x
Their absence seems inexplicable in the places they should be. You see them there but they aren’t there. Everything that was so familiar and comfortable now seems unfamiliar and unsettling. I can’t bear to go the gym now either too many happy memories. I think I could fill a swimming pool with my tears but I will somehow have to live in this unfamiliar world. I’m sure one day without noticing it your garden will feel familiar and will remind you of the love you and your wife shared.
What you described is exactly how I see things Orilla. Gill is with me every second of the day, everywhere I go. Even venturing out to places we never shared can be problematic. Recently I visited a country pub with my son and daughter. The idea being to have a meal out in new surroundings. For me, it didn’t work out well because all my thoughts were concentrated on how much Gill would have liked it and the reality that she would never be able to experience it. I hope that time really does heal because I don’t like this new life I’m forced to live in.
