Widows, Widowers And Everyone Welcome

[CommonPersonLikeMe]

Hi all,
As promised a shiny new thread to talk freely without judgement.

We always bought a new Christmas decoration every Christmas for the tree. Last year I bought a silver star frame for the tree and popped his picture in it. I'm also looking forwards, not backwards but it's hard !

That's lovely notapizzaeater

Hi, newbie here.

One week today I got the phone call from the hospital to come urgently if I wanted to be with him at the end. Of course I did and thankfully, I was.

I miss him so much today. He'd been ill and declining for so long, at first I was sad but relieved that he didn't suffer at the end and shocked because although I knew that day was coming, no-one expected it to be so soon. Somehow it still seemed so far off. I thought I was prepared, I thought I could console myself that he is released from his illness now and what it did to all of us, but today, I just miss him.

Welcome @DazedConfusedDone - I'm 18 months in and have more good days now than bad days. I smile when I talk about him and laugh about him.

@notapizzaeater Thank you 💟

I don't know if those days ever go away @DazedConfusedDone, I am seven months in and have them still. I hate what the illness did to him, I hate what it robbed him, and us, of but I am now taking baby steps at a different life to the one we had planned.

@bloodywhitecat I suspect you're right. I suppose that just goes with learning to live without someone you love. Hugs to everyone who is missing their loved ones.

My DH who had just turned 50 died of a brain tumour (glioblastoma multiforme) in January, 9 months after noticing he wasn’t quite right. We were all set for him to be diagnosed with stroke and it was not. Me and our DS (10) have been traumatised by almost all of the 9 months. Cancer is a bastard disease (I know, I had breast cancer twice!) but brain tumours are in a completely different league of shite. The rapid decline of a healthy, fit person is unbearable, the way it destroys the very essence of a person is beyond anything I have ever experienced.

I have been signed off work for 12 weeks by my GP just before he died. I can muster any enthusiasm to get back to work (due back on 17th April), I hate being a single parent, I want to be there for DS but won’t be able to when I resume work, even though I “only” work 3 days a week.

I hate this path that I am on just now. I have never envisaged (not that anyone does) my life taking this direction now. I am insanely jealous of seeing couples on the street holding hands, children going about with their dads. I hate myself for thinking that. But can’t help it.

I feel lost.

So sorry to hear that @balkanscot. I'm a glioblastoma widow too. Now 11m in. It is as you describe. Such an aggressive cancer and such devastating symptoms. If you were under 50 when he died there is a lovely charity offering support called Widowed and Young. There are meet ups and support groups online.

I hope you don't mind me posting about the changes to widowed parents allowance WPA and Bereavement Support Payment (BPA).

People with children who were cohabiting are now eligible for the payments. Those that were rejected previously can re-apply.

www.moneysavingexpert.com/news/2023/02/bereavement-support-payment/

{mention:theblackknight}, sorry you find yourself “in the club” - so sorry for your liss. Indeed I have just joined the YAW this afternoon, I turned 50 last September so JUST about qualify.

I still have to keep paying the mortgage even though I want to pay it all off with DH pension payout. But until the letter of confirmation (Scottish equivalent of grant of probate) comes through I have to plough through the bereavement payment lump s to keep up. Everyone wants their slice of cake even though they know it takes months to for the executor to handle the deceased’s estate. I hate being a widow!

So sorry for your loss @balkanscot

Its a bugger. And I recognise so well the jealousy of happy couples and families; I don't begrudge them but it makes the wholes in our lives that much deeper and darker.

.

Have been absent from here for a while, busy with my lovely Down’s people. Life is still so lonely but does anyone else have “empty chair syndrome” I drop off to sleep in the afternoon and I suddenly wake up and am shocked to see his chair empty.

The passenger seat is always strangely empty here, it always surprises me that he's not there @mumof2many1943 and the bed, I still can't sleep on his side. I talk to Alexa sometimes just so someone answers me, the loneliness is overwhelming at times.

@bloodywhitecat I have only just realised I still sleep on my side of the bed and it’s furthest away from the door and I have to negotiate the large Victorian fireplace if I have to get up in the night, I have to get out my side. As you say the loneliness is unbearable. Take care.

Another one here who can't move to the other side of the bed. Almost 2 and a half years now and her glasses are still on her bedside table

I am getting a cat this week for company, just another presence in the house and a cuddle 🥰 it’s so bloody lonely

DH's glasses are on his bedside and the tie he wore for our wedding is still hung round the bannister newel cap where he put it on our wedding night.

@vickibee I hope your new companion brings you some comfort, would you share a photo once you have your new friend? I would love a cat but my adult DD is so allergic she would never be able to visit.

Much love to everyone who finds themself in this shitty club of widowhood.

I don't know if I'm allowed to be here?
We met when I was 20 & he was 38.
We married, but parted 9 years later. He had some MH difficulties that I was perhaps too young to fully understand. We later both married other people.
6 years ago (after both long difficult marriages had foundered) we got back in touch by phone. We became friends again & fell in love again. We lived at opposite ends of the UK & I have 24/7 Care duties so our relationship was mostly long distance. Time together was brief but wonderful - we'd wasted so many years apart but we hoped to re-marry. But, he died, a year ago today.

This is Vera and I am excited to be collecting her tomorrow. Lots of cuddles coming my way hopefully

Much love to you, it is the first anniversary of DH's funeral today so I feel some of your pain, anniversaries are so hard . Would you like to tell us a bit about him? So many people don't want to hear about our lost loved ones and that makes it even harder.

Oh @vickibee Vera is beautiful, she looks like she has a knowing soul.

My story is similar in some ways so maybe I shouldn't be here either.
I married my first husband when I was 22. He was 33.
We had a DD who was 6 when we split up. I remarried and had my DS with my second DH. My second DH died in 2008 aged 56 from a grade 4 glioblastoma when our DS was 11.
He lived for a year after diagnosis. I was 48. Due to our DD my ex husband and I were still in contact. He was amazing after I was widowed. He helped with jobs on my house which I couldn't manage. We became good friends and did a lot together. We had a "bubble" during the lockdowns so neither of us was completely alone. My DD and DS had both left home and exH never had another relationship after we divorced.

I was moving house in 2021 and he helped sort the house out to sell. A couple of months before my move he became unwell. I spent a lot of time caring for him and he died of pancreatic cancer soon after I moved house. He was my best friend. I feel as though I have been widowed all over again even though we had been divorced for 28 years.
I think about him every day.

Your story and others (e.g. @medianewbie ) just show that real life is complex. The complexity doesn't make feelings less intense - but it does make them as complex as the situations out of which they arose.

Of course you are all welcome - anyone who has lost someone they love is welcome. Love and grief take many forms; the greater the love, the deeper the grief.

Thank you for the welcome esp from @bbloodywhitecat (I'm sorry you're going through a 'first anniversary' too)x

I suppose I think of WHAuden:
'He was my North, my South, my East, my West, my working week, my Sunday best ... I thought love would last forever, I was wrong'.

He had a lifelong struggle with his MH (bipolar & schizophrenia). So, he wasn't reliably kind (or avail) to me (anyone!). Yet, for 15 years in total, over a span of 35, we loved each other very much.

I had a great sense of him for the first 6m, & many dreams. This has lessened. He was religious - I feel he has 'moved on' somewhere else ?