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

Last day of treatment tomorrow. So looking forward to not visiting hospital and various medics who constantly remind me of DH. (They are all lovely but I feel I’ve been launched into an another round of grief).

someone told me they felt year two was more difficult because you’ve been through all the firsts and had reason to be sad but now you’re supposed to be over it. Feeling in limbo at the moment, cant decide if it’s meds or depression that’s making me feel quite unwell. I had to go unexpectedly out this morning and found it good to be doing something different so think it’s likely depression. Hopefully I’ll feel less tired in days to come and I’ll get out again. I had to wear my sunglasses today, roll on sunshine and summer.

Yes, the second year is hard.

I remember having various hospital appointments and missing DH waiting for me at home. It was also hard having to answer the marital status question, I recall. I'm now used to that, though.

Hoping the last day brings you, at the very least, a sense of relief and release.

I think it's easy for grief to roll into depression; how would it not? I've been 'appropriately sad' for so long now, I don't know if the 'appropriately' still holds water. Who cares? Nobody's caring makes any difference to how I feel

Sending you a hug

@WearyAuldWumman @Emptyandsad
thank you both
Knowing someone is always here understanding our struggles is always good

I got given a goodie bag with a tin of biscuits and a book on how to recover from radiotherapy but I was desperately sad that DH wasn’t there with me nor was he at home when I got here. I suppose I’ve been rather stupid really because I’ve chosen to do this alone but I don’t want anyone else with me.

I understand the desire to do it alone, given that you can't do it with the one person who would have made it easier

@Hisredipad I just wanted to pop on and say you’ve had a really tough time lately and going through this treatment on your own must have been so so hard. And I really understand that you might as well be alone if you can’t have him. I hope life feels a little brighter very soon.

I hope everyone is okay and that the bursting through of the sunshine has brightened your days recently.

I am still struggling with fatigue, but today did a cancer counselling session which to be honest I only agreed to do because I just didn’t know what else to do and I decided I can’t fix myself. It was actually extraordinarily revealing. How talking to somebody for the best part of 40 minutes can bring out a whole host of lightbulb moments is beyond me.

I suddenly realised that there are things I need to step away from and that to do that I need to ask family that are involved in our business to step in, it was hard asking but agreed to without my needing to say too much.

There are a few other things that I have decided to step back from to enable me to find some time to devote to myself and a hobby that I’ve long lost my connectivity with. I’m hoping to book myself a hobby holiday in the next few months and plan my working week so that I work a proper structured day. No more working after 5:30 pm. (I often read back through all our posts to gauge how far I have come and this will be a good reminder to myself to make sure I am working just a working day).

so although I’m really tired and exceptionally shattered, I do think I will feel so much better tomorrow for lightening the load in my head.

I'm very pleased that you were able to speak to someone and that it has helped.

The hobby holiday sounds like an excellent idea. :)

That's encouraging to read @Hisredipad. I have been in a really low mood for the last few weeks with no particular trigger but it's been awful. Culminating last week with the most horrific flashbacks and nightmares about DH's last week, turning off his life support and all the decisions that had to be made, which have made me stop wanting to go to bed. I've managed probably 3 hours sleep a night for the last week and it's just wrecking me.

On top of that I have significant breast pain in the surgery site and the foul taste in my mouth that accompanies the medication I'm on (it comes and goes, but is very much present at the moment) so I really am feeling rubbish.

I have decided that I need help, although I can't quite bring myself to make an appointment yet, the thought of opening myself up again to all the pain and sadness is putting me off, but I guess that needs to be done to make some sort of progress.

Ironically the coming of spring is making it worse for me, the first mow of the lawn was something DH always did, now I have to, and everyone being more cheerful about sunshine and assuming I feel the same when really I just want to scream that it's another season he won't see and he's getting further away from me. And then I feel guilty for being so miserable and spoiling it for everyone else.

As you can tell, I'm in a mess 😔.

I’m really sorry that you’re struggling. I wonder if it’s worth you looking at the charity that are supporting me at the moment for my cancer. They are for everyone. It’s called Penny Brohn and a lot of of it is online and over the telephone.
It might be worth you giving them a ring to start with if you think it may help. I’ve booked myself onto a few online courses that are coming up during the next month at the suggestion of the counsellor 💐💐💐

Hello, can I join you? I’m nearly 2 and a half years into sudden and completely unexpected widowhood. DH died of a femoral artery aneurysm that we didn’t know he had a couple of weeks after his 57th birthday. He was incredibly fit - two days before he died he’d done his usual 100km Sunday bike ride so his death was a massive shock. The deathmin was overwhelming and confusing as I had no passwords for anything and he had two limited companies that I had to try to unravel. Then six months after he died, I went on holiday - it was my birthday and I couldn’t face being on my own at home - I had a freak accident and ended up being airlifted to hospital with a brain injury. I’ve made a full recovery but it obviously didn’t help and I’m now left wondering what’s grief and what’s head injury aftermath. I’ve been feeling very flat for the last few weeks - no obvious reason, I think it’s more a realisation that this is it for the next however many years. We had some sunshine at the beginning of the week and together with longer days my mood had started to lift but then we got plunged back into winter on Thursday with torrential rain and horrible gales and I plunged back into feeling really down again. The house is leaking in a couple of places and it’s all my responsibility to get it sorted - I miss having someone to share the good things and the crap too. Sorry for venting but I think you’ll understand.

Hi, @Pleasedontdothat .

That resonates with me. It's been 5 years for me, but I have various things that I need to sort out and I still find it difficult to do it without having DH here to at least give me a hug.

I'm happy to meet you, though I wish we weren't in this position.

It was @Hisredipad who set up this thread and I think that many of us have benefited from it.

@Pleasedontdothat of course you’re welcome to join us. I’m so sorry to read your story. In some ways our stories are not dissimilar similar. I had to unpick my. DH’s family business and start running it on my own. About 10 months after I became a widow I was diagnosed with breast cancer. I have been battling a little myself with extreme fatigue after radiotherapy and some other treatment which isn’t chemo.

I sympathise about the leak. Last week I managed to get a shower pump in the loft replaced which has been slowly leaking for a good year or more.

I’m very much a list writer
I have a list for today
And more lists for the rest of the week
Written on the back of old envelopes and often placed in a row along the breakfast bar where I cross items off or transfer them from previous envelopes

I try as much as possible to be proactive about things that need doing urgently. But it’s not easy, but it is good to tick things off sometimes. I found a local Builder who put in a concrete post that stops the whole of the fence falling over just before Christmas and he’s offered to do all sorts of things Should I need them doing Which I will take him up on at some point, but none of those are quite as urgent.

I recently did some counselling for my cancer, but my cancer is so intermingled with the passing of DH that it’s all got a bit of a muddle, but the counsellor actually helped to unpick some of it.

I hope you find some comfort in this thread. Feel free to pop in have a shout or a moan, et cetera as much as you wish. 💐💐💐

Hello @Pleasedontdothat

You're very welcome - feel free to share your grief, however muddled it may seem to be with any other shit you may have going on. All these things run together, like colours in a washing machine...

Like @WearyAuldWumman , it's been a little over 5 years for me too. My wife died very suddenly too (2 weeks, so not nearly as sudden as it has been for you and your husband).

It will not be long before this thread is a year old. I’ll soon be approaching a second wedding anniversary without DH. I can’t believe that all this time has gone by, and that we’ve supported each other through the ups and downs, and probably down downs. 💐💐💐

Every now and then I read back through bits of it, it’s good to know the feeling of fraudulence, which I can’t really explain from around this time last year has diminished. Being diagnosed with breast cancer has definitely put a spanner in the getting over it all works but tonight for some bizarre reason ive decided tomorrow is a planning day, get healthy for the crappy tablets I need to take and seize the day (DH’s school moto but I don’t know the Latin); OH, and I can’t believe it’s a year since I shut that shed door, I got a gardener so I didn’t even go back in for the mower. (Maybe its about time to face that hoard).

I’ve got a ‘do’ to go to in the summer that I’d like to sparkle for, this weekend I’m getting my hair done, just like I used to before I didn’t have time to do it and haven’t seemed to bring myself to do so since DH passed.

There’s still a lot to unpick with grief I think I’ve learnt recently, and still some ghastly probate kicking about, but hopefully this summer will see it all sorted and I can relax a bit and then maybe in September I will finally book a hobby holiday.

I’m putting it all here as a marker to make sure I do sparkle this summer and that I get fit so that I can enjoy the rest of my life as much as it possible and I know DH would have wanted me too. Strangely I feel peaceful.

Yes, that's definitely what DH would have wanted.

Getting probate out of the way does take a load off. it's good to have an event to look forward to.

As time has gone on, I've found that the memories bring more smiles than tears though I still find myself forgetting that I can't tell my DH about something that's happened in my day. Mind you, I sometimes find myself thinking that I must tell my mum about something and she's been gone nearly 11 years.

The motto is "Carpe diem", I recall. [I did Latin at school many, many years ago.]

It sounds useful to put a marker down and decide to carry forward.
I remember so clearly not long after DH died, I was in a supermarket and it just didn't feel right, it felt superfluous, or maybe fraudulent as you mentioned, to even buy groceries. Who was I to go shopping, to carry on living, when he was couldn't? Now, 3 years on, I have come a long way, even though I still cry at tiny reminders. DS is impossibly difficult, but I guess I have that distraction. But I can find joy in doing new things, meeting new people, and trying to undo the years of stress that we went through by trying to exercise and live healthier. It doesn't feel pointless.
I didn't mean to write so much - thanks, @Hisredipad , for starting this thread, and hope that you recover every day and hope we carry on moving forward.

It's encouraging to read these more positive posts, at the moment I'm just floundering about. Talking to a friend though has helped me - she reminded me that I haven't given myself time to recover from my cancer (surgery 2 weeks before DH's diagnosis, then 6 months of chemo and a month of radio), so I need to make that a priority I think. If I can process that better and deal with the outstanding problems from it rather than just brushing it under the carpet, then may be I'll be in a better place to cope.

I hope so, it's all so exhausting.

I feel like I only write here when I'm down, but I read everything I promise xxx

Well, since I last wrote, 5 weeks ago, I sunk lower and lower, and was struggling more as the anniversary approached, and then just hit a wall I think. Have been off work for a couple of weeks and I'm signed off for a couple more. Think I'd been avoiding stuff I need to think about. Finally got myself together enough to connect my therapist so have seen her again and have a couple more sessions booked in.

I'm just physically and mentally exhausted. Last night I thought, I could either cook dinner or hang up my wet laundry. I feel pathetic but I'm trying to be kind to myself and give myself time to rest and recuperate.

@atiaofthejulii You can only do what you can do.

There are still some days when I tell myself I've accomplished something if I've done one thing and if something unexpected comes up, it can be difficult to cope.

I'm just back from taking an old leather jacket of DH's to Barnardo's. He'd not worn it for years, so I finally managed to let it go - it's been hanging up in the hallway and getting in the way of the hallway to kitchen door closing (along with a handbag that I already took to Barnardo's) and the shopping bag that I used to carry it in.

I managed to get my printer/scanner working again over the weekend. It's been sitting unused for months, since I got my laptop fixed and updated. Epson have finally released a bug fix. It took me one a few hours to one night to get the printer working and then I was able to sort out the scanner software the next day.

I can now print out my language vocab and I've scanned some letters, etc before sending the originals to DH's kids. They'll quite probably just chuck them all out, but I'd want to read them first in their place.

There's one to my in-laws, written by someone who'd been on leave up in Aberdeenshire and had returned to London. The P.S. describes the air raid siren going.

The building that he wrote from is still standing - I googled. I also tried googling his name, but there's no mention that I can find. I hope that he made it through the war: the letter was dated 1943.

Ah @atiaofthejulii , motivation and energy just seems to have disappeared completely.

Prune the roses? Who for?

Put my clothes away in drawers? Why? I'm only going to get them out in a day or two.

Have a shower? Who's going to notice if I smell

Cook a meal? I can eat a bowl of bombay mix and an apple...

As the time stretches, so you'll find your energy levels wax and wane and slowly you come back to...to what? It's obviously not normality, but it becomes something more than merely existing, and spots of temporary happiness start to appear haphazardly. I'm finding spring this year has brought a real lightening of my mood. I've bought a campervan (after literally years of prevarication) and a little motorbike to go on a rack on the back and I'm planning to go to the Outer Hebrides in May

I wonder if the weather is helping you along a little @Hisredipad . Over covid my DW used to cut my hair. After she died I started to cut it myself in front of the bathroom mirror. It's not that I can't afford the barber; it's more a kind of remembrance of how she cut it. The first time she was really quite nervous about it, but she grew more confident by the minute. As her glee in hacking away grew, so my nervousness increased in inverse proportion...

I hope the sunshine has helped lift everyone’s spirits and helped put your socks away.

I had eight hours free electric with my energy supplier today so have been washing everything since 8am till 4pm, lots went in the tumble dryer to get it dry and away but the sheets got dried on the line.

Spent the week researching foods that will help me battle medication side effects when I start taking the tablets. Have been researching cancer support charities and off loading as much work as I can to enable me to have a break soon. Did a few of DH’s annual jobs, one meant getting a screwdriver out and wrestling with a cable to rewire the dead pond pump, a few choice words were muttered as normally one of us pushes and one pulls the cable, and it’s a long walk round between outside and inside 🤦‍♀️.

Had a massive wobble when buying diesel for no reason I could put my finger on other than wanting to discuss with DH the leap in fuel prices from yesterday to today. @Emptyandsad, I cut our hair in Covid, I cut DH and it was pretty good if I say so myself, doing my own was a right disaster!

@Hisredipad just give me a shout, I'll come over and cut yours...but you'll have to have a short back and sides!

Fast approaching my second wedding anniversary without DH and marking a year since this thread was initially posted.

I genuinely can’t believe this past year has gone by. It has flown. A friend told me the second year was the hardest and I’m beginning to find out why. I feel life is just disappearing right in front of my nose. I did open the shed door walked inside turned around, walked out and locked it again. Not sure when I’ll venture in there again.

I sat in the garden last Saturday whilst the gardener mowed the lawn and then under my instructions planted some lovely bushes that I was given for my birthday and I wanted in specific places. I am looking forward to the warmer months and I’m trying to plan a barbecue for all the friends that have been right by my side particularly since December but also throughout all of last year.

The tasks post grant of probate are slow and somewhat difficult. I didn’t realise premium bonds still went on winning after death and it’s only when you apply for the money after the grant of probate that they send you a really stupid number of cheques, 43 to be precise, (the postman was glad I was in) which has been a total nightmare to pay into my bank via an app on my phone. A fantastic win for all our grandchildren who were inheriting that part of the will.

I can’t drive at the moment, so I’m feeling rather whatever it is one feels when one is stuck in doors and can’t get out, I’ve got the most foggy brain at the moment from the latest treatments, but this one was nowhere as bad as the first one. I suppose the plus point is I’m not having to buy diesel.

aha, cabin fever, that’s what I’ve got! DD was coming tomorrow but the little ones is not well so they’re coming next week, im going to try and plant some seeds in the propagator as DGC school have a May Fair and I’ve generally donated some seedling-plants for the plant stall most years and I find it thrilling to see the appearance of the tiny shoots bursting their way into the daylight whilst nurturing their growth. My mums glut of Tommy plants last year raised £60 for the school.

apologies for rattling on, due to colds and flu ive kept my self to myself and definitely could do with some proper human company, I’m hoping everyone in our family is well on Sunday, mums doing her traditional Christmas Day dinner.

I got my hair done, so started a bit towards my sparkle, I oiled the treadmill and did five mins walking then collapsed on the sofa with a cuppa and a biscuit but im probably overdoing it and should wait until next week.

Sorting out matters after probate does take longer than you would expect.

I found that after each milestone [for want of a better word] such as getting probate out of the way, I'd feel myself sagging again - that's doubly so when you're dealing with medical issues at the same time.

Yes, try not to overdo things, hard though that might be.