I’m so sorry to hear about your husband, Jim. It sounds as though things are very tough and you are feeling really overwhelmed, but I’m really glad that you’ve been able to talk about your feelings here.
There is lots of other support out there, and I would really encourage you to reach out and speak to someone about how you are feeling. I know Devi has suggested finding out more about our Online Bereavement Counselling Service (thank you, Devi!) This is a free service and sessions are held via video chat so you can attend from home. There’s more information about this service here: http://www.sueryder.org/counselling.
Shout - https://giveusashout.org/ - are also contactable by text, 24/7. You can text SHOUT to 85258 and talk to them about anything.
You can also make an appointment with your GP and ask to be referred to counselling or other support services in your area.
Please do get in touch with one of these services, Misprint, and please keep talking.
Thank you. And yes just for our husbands to be back with us. I have had a few real bad days and nights where I have found myself back to Day 1 so to speak. I think as you have highlighted there is so much to remind us of what we have lost.
Dear @Sheila26 & all you lovely lonely heartbroken souls out there.
Perhaps this may help, even just a little.
Trying to find the strength to cope, this is the time last year when we both had covid & I unfortunately survived, my dear husband was to die on 13th January. We lay here holding hands, not knowing this was our last night together. So much unsaid…
Some of you may be familiar with this link/site
I wish you all peace when the bells peal out within the hour.
It’s only been 2 months since I lost my partner. We hadn’t been together long, only just over 2 years but I have felt all those emotions too. We got together later in life and thought we’d have a few years together. He was such a kind , loving person who died suddenly and unexpectedly from an undiagnosed cardio vascular condition. I have cried every day since his death and the future looks bleak. The festive season was so difficult, we had plans, it’s January 1st and we should have been together.
I have a son and daughter-in-law, My father is nearly 91 and in a care home, he has dementia. I keep going for them.
I have very happy memories and try to take comfort from them. I still message him every day, I know he can’t read them but it comforts me to share my thoughts, I talk to him too. I know it sounds mad but I think it is stopping me from going mad. My friends and family are all there for me, it doesn’t stop the the aching loneliness but I’m grateful for their love and care.
I felt the same way when my mum passed away on the 3rd March 2020 after she suffered from a massive stroke and never regained consciousness. She was in hospital for 4 nights and with my parents they moved away from near where I live about 20 years old and moved about 3.5 hours drive away. Luckily I still have my sister living close by and she drove both of us upto our dad’s and we managed to see her the last couple of days and managed to have her funeral just before the first lockdown came in.
It has been very stressful and hard as, we couldn’t get back upto my dad’s until July this year to bring her ashes back so that we could interne her with her mum. It was my mum’s wishes and done that on the 19th August. Again another very stressful day but myself and my sister just get on with ourselves and keep in touch with our dad who we visited just before Christmas and returned on the 30th December.
I just try and keep busy the best that I can even though I have got osteoarthritis in my right knee and not long ago got diagnosed with osteoarthritis in my left shoulder. So for me it can be extremely difficult to try and do anything but I just think of all the good times we had together and keep in touch with my dad and my sister very regularly.
I did contact the support team last year and they were great to speak to if you needed someone else to speak to.
I just wish you all the best and good luck for the future. Hope you have a great new year.
I to feel the same way as my wife was told she had cancer of the limp nodes & given 4 months to live bloody chemo killed her she suffered huge blisters on her feet lost weight got really bad bed sores & would not eat, l cried every single day as l tried my best to take care of her & 1st response did help but my heart is dead inside , l scream at an empty house to take me away l hate this life & want my wife back
Why did she go through with chemo as l am sure she would have still been here
Lotr I wish Jim hadn’t gone into hospital either he would be here now if only he had not gone. I feel they murdered him just didn’t care about him and I wasn’t allowed to visit. Got a complaints procedure going on at moment but it won’t bring my darling hubby back but I might get answers as to what happened. But I expect it will just be a cover up .
It’s only been 2 months since I lost my partner. We hadn’t been together long, only just over 2 years but I have felt all those emotions too. We got together later in life and thought we’d have a few years together. He was such a kind , loving person who died suddenly and unexpectedly from an undiagnosed cardio vascular condition. I have cried every day since his death and the future looks bleak. The festive season was so difficult, we had plans, it’s January 1st and we should have been together.
I have a son and daughter-in-law, My father is nearly 91 and in a care home, he has dementia. I keep going for them.
I have very happy memories and try to take comfort from them. I still message him every day, I know he can’t read them but it comforts me to share my thoughts, I talk to him too. I know it sounds mad but I think it is stopping me from going mad. My friends and family are all there for me, it doesn’t stop the the aching loneliness but I’m grateful for their love and car
Many of us here un this “club” talk to our lovesones, text and send messages and keep their phones. It is the phond number where we used to call, where our love answer it was our other half. A love and voice we missed .
It is not madness , it is comfort that many of us do.
Hugs
Devi
I text Sunny every couple of days. I tell him how much I love and miss him, and tell him about things that are going on with family, or friends we both knew. It helps me feel close to him. I haven’t told many people that I do that, but those closest to me completely get it.
Love to all
Sophie x
Just read all of this. And loved it. And I suspect for many it’s an ideal way to grieve. Not living in the past because the grief and memories are NOW, in the present. I did all of this. Sang the songs, watched the movies. I reckon it helped my brain process the confusion of grief. Brain constantly looking for the lost one so it could reactivate all its links and synapses.
Grief is so physical, so visceral, like every cell of one’s body is filled with the grieving .
Just breathing, for another day, a tiny walk, posting here, talking to a friend, striking a loved pet slowly slowly helps those particles expand so they can hold the grief and my continuing life together
In some ways you are helpless and alone - your brain certainly feels that and grief takes over every part of us. Yet you are not - every person who’s grieving is in rhythm with your grief, it’s like trees whispering to each other in the breeze, grief is like the sound waves of those whispers and touches each of us.
Helpless - yes you can’t bring back the one who’s died or change the grief but you’re helpless in your breathing - you can slowly breathe in the very air your loved one breathed, recycled by the trees, you can breathe it slowly or quickly. You can choose when to have a cuppa and be quiet while you sense their presence, and speak to them
Grief is sooooo so so painful and it takes ages for our bodies to grow round it and hold it. Xx
Hi Misprint, I too lost my wife from pancreatic cancer, she had whipple surgery to remove everything and the prognosis was very good, this happened just before covid hit, the following treatment with chemotherapy etc. was very poor, it took weeks before she eventually went on to chemotherapy but it was too late and she was diagnosed with terminal cancer and given three months to live, I was so angry that treatment more or less stopped with covid taking priority, the following palliative care was appalling too. When she passed away I started a complaints procedure which took a long long time, but they did respond and admitted that the treatment received was not to the usual standard and thing’s for the future would have to improve, this is too late for my wife of course and many other people like your husband, but I feel like I have honoured my wife’s memory by pointing out the many failures by the NHS and having them admit it. Moving forward I don’t know what the future holds, I like you feel alone and totally aggrieved, I promised my wife I would move on, but it’s so hard without her and thing’s don’t really seem to matter to me anymore. Take care and try to find strength from somewhere.
Lots
I know exactly how you feel regarding chemo. My husband was diagnosed with locally advanced pancreatic cancer in 2017. He had no pain and his tumour was hardly the size of a finger nail. He was muscly and strong but they wanted to move the tumour away from an artery so he started chemo. Within a few months he was only 8st in Weight and could not eat. He could barely walk and was sleeping most of the time. The NHS did nothing to help him gain weight and eventually he died in the hospice after a 16 month battle. I still feel that if he had refused the chemo the tumour would not have become aggressive and he would have had better immunity. Eventually he got jaundice and then sepsis which I believe killed him before the cancer. I just wish we could turn back time and just left things as they were. I am sure he would be here today.
I have struggled with the loss of my partner and the father to my beautiful children to murder since 2009 and the loss of my mother and grandmother in 2010 … for years I buried head in the sand and didn’t face these accounts., I blamed everyone and buried myself in a bottle of whatever was alcoholic… but the truth is it’s no ones fault … reach out to me and I can be an ear … I now volunteer for sue Ryder … making good out of the bad I’ve felt… i have one moto… its PMA… Positive Mental Attitude… we cannot change the past its how we embrace the future now xx
Similar for me, a few years together, was so happy, later in life and never expected to feel so happy, he died just before Christmas so it’s 4 weeks now, everything has changed, can’t go to work, just taking day by day going over and over if I could have done anything, to feel so close to someone is a wonderful thing, so precious, sometimes I feel he is still around in a different way, I talk to people and it helps but it’s facing that this has happened is so hard big hugs to everyone, this must be the loneliest hardest road to go down
