This is life (after passing of DH)

[Hisredipad]

I spent a while searching for a post to join in but didn’t find anything like I wanted.

I just want somewhere to pop daily and say things I can’t say IRL.

fell free to join me

today was our big anniversary and im feeling sad he’s not here to celebrate it with but I bought myself something I saw yesterday im sure he would have bought me. Bizarrely opened a drawer just a moment ago and found last year’s anniversary card and the sweet words he’d written.

Happy anniversary DH, xx years were the best ever xxxxx

@Wingedharpy @WearyAuldWumman

I have all my birthday, anniversary, and Christmas cards from DH. I also have all the ones I wrote to him pretty much too.

During Covid due to DH’s medical condition I didn’t even dare buy cards so we started to recycle them. So for the past five years on an occasion I’d get out three or four and we would choose one and write a little note within it and date it.

These cards for many years basically acted as draw liners and I used to enjoy going through them when I tidied a drawer but I brought a lot of of them together recently and I like the idea of having them in a beautiful box and it is my intention to take one on my birthday and at Christmases and display it.

Years ago, I used to enjoy embroidery and I belong to a club where we signed a cloth and embroidered over all our names. You sent me thinking that I could embroider the words of a little card that came with some flowers on my last birthday on to a piece of fabric and surround it with the flowers of the card and then frame it. ❤️🌺🌷🌻❤️

@WearyAuldWumman - Sorry you had to deal with that with the ex. I'm glad you fulfilled your DH's wishes and scattered him where he wanted to go.
@Emptyandsad - I understand exactly what you mean - how can we go from living and breathing and laughing and loving to literally a box of dust. It has really made me question so much about life / the way I live my life / what I want to be remembered for.
@atiaofthejulii - will your course be finished after the placement? Well done you for sticking with it, I am so proud of you ❤
@Sunshineandbluesky - "All my darling boy has to do is come back and everything will be fine again." This a million times over, I totally understand.
@Hisredipad - being busy and distracted certainly does seem to help but I hope you're looking after yourself too. I'm so pleased you feel your DH with you on your walks, that must bring so much comfort.

@Wingedharpy - I love the thought of you taking your DH with you when you go away and on the dog walks. DH is currently in our bedroom but think I will get 2 urns, one for upstairs and one for downstairs then a very small one I can take away with me if I ever go away again.

My niece certainly enjoyed the concert last night, she's only 13 and has had a rubbish summer holiday with everything that has been going on. I enjoyed it too, mainly because it was so loud I couldn't think about anything. Afterwards I imagined if DH was still here he would have came too. He would have absolutely hated the noise, the crowds, the standing, everything but if he thought for one second that it would make me happy then he would have been there with me.

This morning I thought I heard the window cleaner so I got up to open the gate, I must have looked a right sight out there in my pj's and crocs and thought I'll need to go upstairs and saw DH what I look like, then remembered he doesn't even know we have a window cleaner now. I feel those really small everyday mundane things knock the wind out me twice as much as the bigger things.

I'm really struggling to keep on top of the housework even though there's just me here now. DH was always clean and tidy and I feel like I'm disrespecting him by not making an effort but it's hard so hard right now. The never ending list of things to do is really getting on top of me. My SIL has offered to help me with the house but I can't bear anyone coming in and touching his things so I'll need to ride it out myself.

Yesterday I applied for the bereavement support payment. If anyone in the UK has lost their partner within the last 21 months you can apply and its not means tested. I have very mixed emotions about this as whilst it's money I am entitled to (or at least eligible to apply for) it feels gross to be gaining financially through DH's death. I have a whole lot of thoughts around this actually that I'll come back to talk about later today or tomorrow if that's ok.

@Hisredipad - I adore that idea!

I have also kept every card DH gave me. DH very rarely ever said the words "I love you" (although he showed me every single day that he did). On every card he sent he signed it "love you forever" so I'm going to get this as a tattoo so I can look at it every single minute of every day if I want and remember how lucky I am to have been loved by him.

It's really so lovely hearing what you are all doing to carry your memories of your beloved OHs with you.

I was messaging with my boyfriend's mum yesterday and I said something about how we'd been thinking about the future and looking at house listings (not that either of us could have moved until next year), and she said that he'd asked her whether she had either of his grandmothers' engagement rings that he could give me. (They didn't have any!)

That completely threw me. But actually I ended up feeling much calmer during the rest of the evening - like he was sending me a "don't forget how much I love you".

will your course be finished after the placement? Well done you for sticking with it, I am so proud of you ❤

Thank you @ByHisSideAlways, it honestly means a lot. Yes, I will be finished - the course is funded as a secondment so I'll be back to my old job (which is basically the same as what I'm doing on placement!) and then looking for a new job to use the new qualification. Bittersweet as the previous plan would have been to look for work near my boyfriend, but now I think I will probably just look within my organisation. I would like to move one day, that was my hope even before J, but I don't think there's any point moving just for the sake of it at the moment.

@atiaofthejulii how beautiful a story of the engagement ring. I hope your course qualification brings you a job with fulfilment and in time a life that brings lots of happiness.

@ByHisSideAlways of course come back and chat about the bereavement support payment. Mine was used to pay for an unexpected operation for the dog so it was in and out of the account within a few days and in the meantime until I sort out DH’s pension has been extremely helpful.

@WearyAuldWumman, I can’t get the audacity of that woman. My exes wife who became his ex-wife came up to me recently at a family wedding to tell me she was most put out by the fact that I blocked her on Facebook. Bearing in mind they’ve been divorced a good 10 years, and it’s 10 years since I’ve blocked her on Facebook too!

life does throw so many unexpected challenges as us, many would have still been there if our loved one hadn’t passed away and would likely been dealt with by them as part of their ‘jobs’ they did, this new normal of having to do everything really does stretch the brain somewhat and most days is very unwelcome. I know my brain is overstretched because I put my phone down and when I want pick it up one minute later, I’ve no idea where I’ve left it.

Ddog missed out on a walk yesterday, about 7 pm he sat right in front of me and stared me out, that’s when I realised I’ve been too caught up in my own day. We’ve just been out on a very slow saunter over the fields and it was nice to be greeted by horses in the end fields. DH love nature and animals and as a child rode at a pony club. Normally I hear the coo coo of the buzzards but they weren’t there today.

@ByHisSideAlways

I didn't know about the Bereavement Support Payment. I found out by accident - I'd phoned the DWP to tell them about DH's death. Then I had to phone back - when I got the Death Certificate, the date was different from the one that I'd given: DH had died during the night, but the date was given as the next morning, since that's when the paramedics had certified it. I simply hadn't realised.

I phoned and got a lovely young man who asked whether I knew about the payment. I too felt guilty applying for it, but it helped a great deal.

@Hisredipad In my case, the ex had gone from being pretty mean towards me to being quite friendly after her 3rd man died. (1 = DH. 2 = Affair Partner. 3 = DH's pal, a widower.)

I'd felt sorry for her and helped her out with a hospital appointment and so on...but her behaviour was still weird - overstepping boundaries and so on: the "You must be the same as me - sick and tired of dealing with..." comment was repeated a few times. Hard to explain, but I felt that she was trying to treat me as some kind of a junior wife.

She's no longer a problem... They've all gone NC with me...after I put my foot right in it. I'm still too embarrassed to admit what I did.

Thereafter, on DH's birthday I put a post up on his memorialised FB account together with a link to his singing. Next thing, all of the pictures, the link, everything disappeared. I was so upset.

I collected myself and tried blocking the ex and their daughter - and all the pictures came back. I'm assuming that there was some kind of temporary block because someone had clicked the 'report' button. Keeping them blocked sorted that out.

The memorialised account subsequently had two friend requests from new accounts for the ex and two from her previous partner's BIL. I just dismissed them.

So far as 'widow brain' is concerned, I've gradually become a bit better I think but I'm still relying on "Hello Siri!" and ringing my phone in order to find it a lot of the time.

I’m of the personal opinion that when we are dealing with what we are dealing with that there needs to be a lot of understanding on some of the things we do or what we don’t do. We mortals do make mistakes and there needs to be understanding of that.

I also believe that some people whether they be friends or acquaintances just live in our life for a period of time. Sometimes because we work with them but then we move on and we lose track of them. But I’m also not adverse to going low contact or no contact with family members if I find that they do not bring joy into my life. (that’s a huge rabbit hole that causes a lot of family friction, but I’ve refuse to be drawn into anymore.).

Something I found out about Facebook a few years ago is that if somebody sent you a friend request don’t dismiss it. If they can send you another request, they know you have dismissed it. If you just leave it there, they have no idea whether you’ve seen it or not and the only time I was ever asked about it basically I said I didn’t do Facebook anymore and was unaware of their friend request. There’s also another nifty setting where you can set a person as restrictive and they can see your Facebook up to the point you turn on that setting, but from then on and they see nothing more.

At the moment, I feel the need to protect myself from those that do not bring any usefulness to my life. But at the same time, I do seek out friends and be sure to include myself positively amongst them. It would be far too easy just to disappear into a life without others in it.

@ByHisSideAlways
'how can we go from living and breathing and laughing and loving to literally a box of dust. It has really made me question so much about life / the way I live my life / what I want to be remembered for.'
As someone who doesn't believe in God , I gain some comfort from the fact that we are all made up, literally, of stardust. The atoms that make up our bodies used to be (and will be again, at some point) bits of stars. I don't know why that is comforting; maybe because it makes me feel that our loved ones are part of something bigger and everlasting and beautiful.

I also really struggle to keep on top of cleaning the house. My 25 yr old son lives with me and I'm in the curious position of him nagging me to put things away!

I'm embarrassed to admit it, but I'm still having difficulty after 4 years. Things have improved a bit, but...

I don't know whether part of it is because it all happened during lockdown, but I became a bit of a recluse. I only had DH and my social circle shut down after I quit work. (At one point, I was working full time and doing all the life admin etc for my parents and DH, plus caring as necessary. Then I was caring for both my mum and DH whilst working.)

Partly it's because I had to have a bathroom floor replaced two months after DH died and then discovered that it's going to have to come up again. The contractor who built our extension is to blame, but I was getting nowhere with him. I still have boxes of stuff that I haven't emptied since I discovered that the floor needs to come up again.

I also need to do a lot more decluttering and the garden is a state. A neighbour wants me to pay her son to do my garden, but I'd rather not for various reasons - the main one being that even she doesn't trust either of her sons.

I've managed to get my boundaries looking neat - I've made a good job of getting hedging into shape.

Today's task is The Kitchen.

It sounds barmy, but I think that I found it easier to cope when I was still working, in some respects. I guess it gave me a reason to get moving in the morning.

I joined the gym about two years ago and I seem to get much more done on gym days.

Ah you're a member of the same club as me, @WearyAuldWumman . 4 years and 9 months for me, house still a bit grubby (the bottles of Cilit Bang have dust all over them!) and I am very much a hermit.

I know I should make more effort but...

4 years and 7 months for me!

I have tidied and cleaned one side of the kitchen. It's still far too cluttered, but I have to use things up. I threw out an out-of-date Covid test.

I keep forgetting that I have things and then I buy more. I have just about got to the bottom of one of my three bottles of glass cleaner.

I've told my cousins that if I snuff it, they've just to get a house clearance firm in.

I sent on a lot of mementoes and whatnot to my husband's kids, but there wasn't even an acknowledgement. The friends that I do have I met through work. There's one lady that I see once a week when I give her a lift to the gym and another that I see sporadically. (Both widows.) I did tell them the whole sorry tale of how I offended the kids. The expression "bunny boiler" might have been involved... When I told the pals about sending on MIL's jewellery, I was told that I was daft - they'd probably finished up at 'cash for gold'. I do hope not - one was a 9ct gold WW1 sweetheart brooch given to MIL's mother.

I thought that they might at least want recordings of DH's singing, so I also got copies of them made for them. Possibly they thought that the solicitor had done it all, since his return address was on everything - I didn't include a letter, per se, just a typed description/explanation of what everything was: explained, for example, that a gold ring had belonged to MIL and that both she and DH would have been happy for the son to give it to his wife. (They had lived together for years, but decided to get married after Covid.)

Even so, I have some other things ready to send them. They probably think that I'm nuts: I found a postcard sent from the front to DH's granny and I collated messages sent by DH's former pupils. There's also a copy of his obituary from his regimental magazine and two other things which I genuinely can't remember right now...I have it all listed in the letter to them. Right. I remember one - a 'good attendance' certificate awarded to my MIL by her Sunday school in Aberdeen.

They're possibly not that sentimental. The only communication I've had was when the daughter and granddaughter contacted the solicitor to say that they couldn't cash their cheques.

I actually didn't want to send any of the mementoes - it felt too much like getting rid of DH - but I'm conscious of the fact that if I don't send on such items, then they'll go in the bin when I die and that thought was worse than sending the items away.

I do regret giving away his guitar, but I'd already asked his daughter whether she wanted it, before she cut contact.

You can't expect his kids to give the same sentimental value on things that you do. My DW said, long before she was ill, that we should go through our photos and chuck the vast majority of them, because otherwise we'd just leave them with the responsibility of keeping things they didn't want. And so it transpired. We didn't get round to it and then, after her death, I asked her kids what to do with them. They didn't want me to get rid of them, they said they wanted to go through them, but in 4 years they couldn't find the time - nor the space - to take them off my hands. These were photos from their childhood, before I had met her, while she was with their father.

They haven't visited her grave, although they thought that they would. I don't mean this as a complaint, just as an illustration of how things go. They loved her to bits and were (and remain) devastated at her death. Grave visiting isn't part of their grieving process and that's fine

@ByHisSideAlways how can we go from living and breathing and laughing and loving to literally a box of dust. It has really made me question so much about life / the way I live my life / what I want to be remembered for.'
Can I ask if you came to any conclusion? I feel I have no idea and don’t even care about the way I live my life or what I want to be remembered for.
How could my vibrant loving DH be reduced to ashes?
Whereas before I did.
Also I’m concerned that I’m not willing to accept that I can’t have DH back. I’m asking lots of questions about his death and illness and how things could have been done differently and how I could have done things differently to help him. And dreaming that I put everything right. I’m not willing to let that hope go. Has anyone else experienced this?

I think that's very common, @Sunshineandbluesky . I used to play out different scenarios in my head - what might have happened if I'd done x, y, z.

The reason I went to the counsellor was mainly because I couldn't stop thinking about the what ifs.

Thank you both @WearyAuldWumman and @atiaofthejulii for replying. I feel slightly insane this evening and very lonely. I lived on my own for years before meeting my DH and before this happened I liked my own company, but evenings now, when we would have been chilling and cosy together are agony.
I wonder how long it will take me to accept he’s not coming back.

Again, that's not uncommon. I was fairly independent before I got married. Now...? I'm getting used to being on my own, but not to acting on my own.

I still find myself wanting to tell DH about things that have happened - even now, I'm sometimes in the 'forgetting that I can't tell him' mode.

@Emptyandsad I think I do believe in God, DH, wasn’t so sure, he felt there was something, his reason being we couldn’t just be here by accident, he felt there was a higher something or other. I quite like the stars and the Stardust idea, and sort of thinking that DH is somewhere sitting on his atoms looking down on me.

when I lived on my own, it had been my choice to live on my own and I was happy with that choice. Now I have been forced to live on my own. I don’t find it such an easy thing to do, yes I can do the basics cooking cleaning et cetera, but it was nice to have nice food and a nice place to live for the pair of us, I now find it a chore, fortunately our friends popping in quite a lot so that forces me to actually keep on top of things and therefore it’s generally not too bad, but there’s many a time when I just dump it all on the side of an evening and do it in the morning which I would never have done in the past.

@Hisredipad
I had a period after my first marriage broke down when I was on my own and I had accepted the idea that I would be on my own for the rest of my life. And I was OK with that. I had stuff that kept me busy, a house that I was happy in, enough friends to stop me feeling isolated

And then DW came along and being with her was just an eye-opener. I had never realised how joyful life could be. And now I just can't be bothered to try and regain that state of contentment that I had when I was on my own

@Emptyandsad that’s exactly my fear. Despite living on my own for over 10 years before I met DH, the revelation that life could be so joyful was incredible and, to be fair, I still marvelled at it. In fact I found a recent text message from me to him saying ‘thank you for marrying me’ .

Hello, can I join you please. My darling husband passed away unexpectedly last April at age 49. So many comments in this thread chime with me and it’s made me cry but feel a bit less alone. It’s like my sunshine has been taken away.

You're very welcome to our sad little group, @BlakeCarrington

So sorry for your loss. 49, as you know only too well, is so young

I'm so sorry @BlakeCarrington. Yes, as @Emptyandsad has said - far too young.