DP has died. Don't know what to do.

[LlamaGiles]

My beloved DP died last night after routine surgery. A total shock. We have a 2 year old. We had plans for a second child, a bigger house and marriage and my future all evaporated in an instant. I don't know how to carry on alone. I'm in bits.

Thinking of you today x

Hope the funeral went ok....

llamagiles I just saw something and thought of you and your DD. Do you know the children’s story book No Matter What by Debi Gliori? I had never read it, but there are 2 animals Large and Small and Small asks questions about love. At the end Small asks “but what about when we are dead and gone, will you love me then, does love go on?” Large replies “look at the stars, how they shine and glow. But some of those stars died a long time ago, still they shine through the evening skies. Love, like starlight, never dies.”

Maybe it would be a way to show your DD that her daddy will always love her, though I have no idea how you would read it without crying.
My youngest DC is 6, so probably too old but I put it in my Amazon basket and might get it anyway. If you want to see, you can google and the entire text comes up.

Hope you are doing ok.

It was the funeral yesterday. I got through it surprisingly okay, managed to read my eulogy which I was proud of.

Today's been really tough though. Worst day so far. Thinking about how this is the start of the rest of my life and missing him so much. Had a complete meltdown this morning that ended with me throwing things around the kitchen. I've got up and dressed today and that is absolutely it, just moped around. My sister wants me to talk to the GP but I don't think it will help. Nothing will bring him back. Trying to get back into hour by hour mode. I have the interim death certificate now so there are practical things I need to be getting on with but I just can't.

Very common for the day after the funeral to be impossibly hard. I genuinely believe it's the day things start to ease - not in ways you can feel, but imperceptibly. Try not to beat yourself up about not doing things - you don't have to do things right now, especially not today. You just have to get through it.

Have you contacted Cruse? You may find their free counselling sessions helpful - I did. They're not so much counselling to "fix" you as just a space where you can get all your emotions out safely, which I found to be of enormous benefit.

Getting dressed is an achievement. Well done.

@peachgreen thank you, contacting Cruse was on my list but I didn't know they offered free sessions. I think counselling would be really helpful for me, I am someone who likes to talk and I'm hoping I might at least be able to find some better coping strategies. I'll try and make that my "one thing I do today" tomorrow.

Just back from taking DD to the playground. It's hard because I want to tell him all about it. But at least we got out of the house.

Well done for getting dressed and getting out of the house. I do, because DC have to go to school, but I don't think I would have the strength to do that if they didn't.

I am awestruck that you read the eulogy.

I think your dh must have known he was a lucky man.

Very impressive that you spoke. How did his family interact with you at the funeral? Are they sitting shiva?

@badlydrawnbear I've managed to get DD fed and out of the house on the (few) occasions I've been on my own with her for any length of time since DP died, so I must have some ability to hold it together when I have to. But when there are other people here I suppose that's when I feel able to go to pieces. I also feel I'm only just about clinging to sanity a lot of the time My dd vomited in the night last night- just a bug from nursery probably - and I honestly thought I was going to have a complete mental collapse, I'm just about able to deal with the very basics but anything slightly out of the ordinary pushes me over the edge. I had to wake my sister up to deal with it I've also had a couple of what I'd maybe call emotional meltdowns in front of DD where I've been extremely upset and it really distresses her. So I want to stop doing that. It's so hard though.

@samG76 they are worried about covid so just one short evening at the synagogue. They are pretty good considering. They included me in the funeral planning and have allowed me to act as NOK even though we weren't married so it could have been up for debate. They could be a lot worse. They do tend to put a brave face on things though so I can't go to them for emotional support.

llamagiles I know what you mean about dealing with the basics. Yesterday I was on a zoom call with the funeral celebrant when the school rang to ask me to pick up DC1 because she had a headache and told the teacher she had banged her head before school (DC were messing about and she banged it slightly on a door). I cried more than at almost any point at the thought of dealing with an ill child as well. It turned out she was fine, fortunately. Hope your DD is feeling better soon.

DD's first illness after Mike died was my lowest point too. I went completely to pieces. It's hard enough when you're not alone and grieving. I'm so sorry you've had to deal with it so soon.

How are things? Hope you are doing as ok as is possible at this point.

Struggling, I can have 20 emotions a day at the moment. One minute I'm okay, the next I can be in tears or angry or hopeless. But I can't show it because of DD. Also guilt has hit me hard these last few days. My last conversation with DP was a bit tetchy and rushed, I was stressed with juggling work and childcare while he was in hospital. He sounded quite down and I was a bit dismissive. We ended by saying we loved each other but I wish I could go back and have that conversation again. It's the sort of thing that would be nothing normally but because it ended up being the last time we spoke I keep going over it. I hope he didn't think I didn't care. I don't think so but God I regret it. I've still not done one single practical or administrative thing either. Complete ostrich behaviour basically. How are you doing?

@badlydrawnbear that was for you obviously

I know the feeling (and am told it is normal). I cried in the vegan food aisle of the supermarket today (DH was vegan, DC and I are not) at all the foods I would never need to buy again. Today the future without him seemed impossible and overwhelming. I have been doing practical admin type things since the day after I found out DH had died, but only because my dad has been here with his spreadsheet telling me what to do and who to prioritise informing. I wouldn't have known where to start otherwise. I wish I could lend you my dad to give you a hand with all of this too. To be honest, although I started from day 1, there wasn't anyone who couldn't have waited, so don't worry that you haven't today. They are all very difficult phone calls to make. And, I absolutely know what you mean about regret. I regret the last morning when I was stressed and rushing to get DC out to school and I regret so many things from the past year and our whole lives together, but thinking that way just led me into a spiral. I just have to hope that in the end he knew how much I loved him. I don't have any advice at all because I am living much the same stage of this as you, but you aren't alone in this, and hopefully the other posters who are further on in this than us will be along later with advice. All I can say is take it one day/ hour/ minute at a time, and, I am told, it does get easier. Take care.

Thinking of you @LlamaGiles and @badlydrawnbear

Regret is normal but totally destructive. I try very very hard to shut it down: to think "well, that's not what happened, so there's no point thinking about it". But of course that's almost impossible.

If it is of any comfort, when DH almost died about a month before he actually did die, he didn't think about the argument we had that day, or the fact that I wasn't very sympathetic to his illness. He thought about me and our daughter and how much he loved us and how happy we had made him. My hope is that those were the thoughts in his head when he actually died, too.

Gosh, thinking about that has set me off. All of this is so unfair.

@peachgreen thank you, that is a comfort. We had a pretty good relationship overall, not perfect, but we used to compare ourselves to other couples and think how lucky we were, so it must have been good enough. I certainly feel I have lost my soulmate. So I hope that's what he felt too, in the end. It's just so sad to think about. I try to feel glad my DP didn't suffer for long, his death was very quick. He'd have hated knowing he was going and having to say goodbye to us. But it's small comfort.

Yes, the same here. We would often hear about our friends' dating dilemmas or marital woes and say to each other what a relief it was that we weren't in that place, how lucky we were to have found each other. Losing that is so, so hard, especially when you feel that it's irreplaceable and nothing in the future could ever be the same again. People tell me another relationship could be as good but in a different way but I find that so hard to believe. I just adored Mike so, so much - everything about him was perfect.

I don't know if this will help, but today while browsing the internet I found this book written with very personal experience to explain the sudden death of a parent to pre-school children
www.elkethompson.com/books/is-daddy-coming-back-in-a-minute/
There is a link on the website to Elke reading the book.