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

Spend the year focused on good truth.

How was the rest of your week @Hisredipad ? Mine was a tough one, bit of a washout. Saw the counsellor Friday afternoon and actually felt better afterwards and managed to get quite a lot of uni work done over the last 3 days. Have another study day tomorrow then uni and a couple of days at work.

@atiaofthejulii mine was a bit of a wash out as well, sort of soldiered on in a lot of a daze. Woke up one day and couldn’t make sense of where the past few months have gone. Made myself do some house jobs this weekend, did a lot of things that DH would normally do like weeding the patio and stained a wooden window that he always did and that was looking a lot like it was heading towards rotting if I didn’t act asap.

it was good to tick a few of the jobs off my list. Tried to get some financial advice but can’t get my head round it so have parked it again and seem to be a lot on some auto pilot of life, work is extremely hard work and as soon as I sort one thing another really crap thing happens, never known work life like it.

Im glad you feel the counsellor helped, I’m a tad scared of going tbh, I don’t think I could take dropping further into my depths of sadness.

went to my hobby group yesterday for an hour and a few of us are having a day out to a coastal place we like to go at the weekend so am hoping a bit of normality away from home will perk me up.

Also I haven’t seen a Robin for days and then I was tidying a bag of random crap and there was this penny stuck to something and when I looked it had a Robin on it and DH’s year of birth. I’ve never seen this item before, sort of looks cufflink ish but not sure it is.

That's lovely.

Could be something to fix a scarf in place? Or a tie pin? Thinking if it has his year of birth on it, maybe it was a present from one of his parents to the other?

I just lost it because I spilt water on his funeral order of service (I have another one) and a little keepsake book we used to write nice things that had happened in. Fortunately the book isn't too bad, just
some wet corners, but I couldn't stop wailing. Haven't cried like that in front of dd (she's 22) for several weeks, poor thing didn't really know what to do. I just have so little of him here that it's all so very important.

@atiaofthejulii i hope you’re ok. In different times you’d not have thought too much of it but be annoyed.

I think the penny is some sort of golf ball marker as I realised today there’s some plastic things in his golf bag which are similar. I don’t think it was used as is very clean. Also I have lost it. I put it somewhere safe but can’t remember where, I wanted to put it somewhere specific and safe 🤦‍♀️.

Having a detached from reality day today. Feeling extra extraordinary zapped of any energy and not really feeling like going to my hobby group tonight.

I’ve just made sure I’ve eaten a decent meal and some fruit and I’ve also had some vitamins as well. I think a lot of it is just in response to having a morning meeting where I had to discuss a lot about our finances and deal with some bits going forward. It’s just having to do with all this crap on my own normally we’d sit down and mull it all over together. Part of me finds it incredible that I’m having to do this on my own as we’ve spoken a lot about me in this situation really not that long ago but the reality is that what we spoke of isn’t what I can do or isn’t what is allowed because he hadn’t really understood the processes of some of the issues regarding leaving me money. At least the financial advisor was easily understood and I just have to try and work out what’s best for me in the long term.

Note to self is make sure I really understand what happens after I die and make sure I write it down so the kids will understand it as well

Please can I join you? My husband died at 54 on Monday. I’m feeling the grief unbearable and hoped for a place to get some of it out. I’m sorry I haven’t read the full thread so hope it’s the right place. Thank you.

Oh I'm so sorry to hear that, everything must be a daze still.

Do you want to talk about him? Was it expected?

I had a lovely couple of days away at the start of the week with one of my daughters, but it didn't leave me with many reserves for the rest of the week and I just feel drained and depleted. I need to concentrate on a uni assignment over the weekend so hoping I sleep ok tonight.

Feeling very "it's not fair/why me" tonight as I've been starting to be able to look slightly further into the future and it's going to be so different to what I'd hoped for.

I'm so sorry. Even though I've been a widow for 4 yrs now, I never know what to say to someone in the same position. Please excuse the clumsiness of my expression.

You'll still be poleaxed. I was helped through by friends who were in the same position.

Please know that this stranger is thinking of you.

@Sunshineandbluesky I am so sorry for your loss. Please do come and join us.

our experiences are all different yet we meet with the same feelings. I am nearing 6 months and I promise you it will get better with interspersed days of not so. I felt fraudulent a lot in the beginning, detached from my body, and I lived in some fog where my memory of which day yet alone what I needed to be doing evaded me. I’ve found msnet really helped me, not real life friends but fabulous in their support where we can say things we can’t say in real life, so have become some of my closest friends even though I don’t actually know them.

sending you hugs and 💐💐💐

Sending a hand hold. Such a difficult time for you. I remember feeling completely detached at this point..
There are no words - just sending fellow feeling. Stay on here and tell us how things are going day by day. People are happy to listen.

@atiaofthejulii I hope you’re feeling better today. I had a bit of an idea what my life would be like because I’d spent a lot of time wondering this period I would come to live in as DH has his illness for over ten years. And I was fortunate I suppose that I’d had time to prepare but the reality of life now to what I thought I would feel/be living is not quite the same. Not to say it’s all bad, just different.

I went away with my girl friends a few weeks ago (something we’ve done for many years) and felt better having done it as I’d nearly pulled out. Im looking at doing a cookery course because the distraction would be good and it was something I thought years ago I’d like to do but never got round to.

and to all of us here, I hope you find some peace and comfort during the days to come. 💐💐💐

Thank you all. I’m so grateful. I’ve not cried today but I think it’s because I’m feeling so ill. I think it’s because I haven’t eaten, I’ve just come downstairs and am eating ginger biscuits
He was having a heart transplant and it all went wrong. I think I am so stupid because I never thought I’d lose him. He’d never leave us you see so I can’t believe it and above all I feel so so sorry for him.
I’m sorry that even though I’ve read the bits about you I haven’t managed to take anything in. I am so sorry for you too.

Oh @Sunshineandbluesky that sounds horribly traumatic. I hope you have support around you and can lean on that.

You can say whatever you want here, no need to filter, you won't be judged. We know what it's like to be stumbling through those first few days.

@Sunshineandbluesky you definitely are not stupid, even when I knew DH only had a few days to live it never actually occurred to me that he would die, that was because we’d been in that situation so many times before and he pulled through.

The weather is so hot, so make sure you do drink lots of water as that won’t be helping either. I’m in my late 50s now and I’ve just started having an electrolyte tablet which is dissolved in water every day. They were actually for DH but I felt so terrible a few months ago I was clutching at straws to try and make myself feel better and I find they do help so I have carried on taking them although now I just have half a tablet every day.

and you will find that retaining information is hard. The best thing to do is be kind to yourself and take up offers of help or meals provided, et cetera

A friend gave me a notebook a few days after DH passed and I found it enormously helpful to write down just about anything and everything

I would also tear out pages from the back and leave myself notes all over the kitchen counter which even now I do quite frequently because I’m quite scared that in my fuzzy states I get from time to time I will forget to do something important.

Today’s important job is to feed the neighbours cat who is rather lovely and I really don’t want to let her down by forgetting. 💐💐💐

Yes, you do need to eat.

For some bizarre reason, the first month I ate a bowl of muesli in the morning and then one boiled egg.

I lost two stone in one month, but rapidly put it on again later. Try to eat a bit more, because I later realised that I'd mainly lost muscle and it affected my health - had to work on it later.

I know that this is the last thing you want to bother about, but try to eat a bit more. In the early days, I recall that I felt guilty about being able to eat when DH couldn't. You need to keep up your strength.

We never think that they're going to leave us. My husband had been ill for years - he'd had a triple bypass and a stroke two years later - but when it actually happened it was still a shock. Your reaction is very natural.

Thank you so much for your kindness and the ‘stay on here and tell us how things are going day to day’ is such a lovely thing to say.
His cousins and auntie have been here today and I’ve talked and talked and they’ve made me feel like I’ve had part of him here today. His uncle died of the same thing many years ago so they have experienced this.
When my brain is working I shall read your stories and hopefully support you too, but thank you from the bottom of my heart for being there for me.

@Sunshineandbluesky what a wonderfully positive username you have, nice to meet you on here, albeit incredibly painful circumstances. If only we can take your pain away, but unfortunately it is a process, a horribly painful one. Only by living through it, because you have no other choice, it will eventually feel like you've been able to move your life forward very very slowly indeed. It takes a long time to not wake up feeling like you've been punched in the stomach, but can you gain comfort from the fact the pain is a measure of your deep love for your late DH.

Pain is the price we pay for love. For me I found it more acceptable to say "moving forward" not "moving on" which I found was a completely impossible thing to do. I've never moved on from DH but I have moved forward in life.

my story is the opposite end of the loss spectrum to the other lovely ladies on here, we all have our own unique story and experience and none is more or less painful than the other. I had no chance to prepare myself or the family for the sudden loss of my DH, as he literally felt poorly one day and by the end of that day he had died, of what we later found out was an undiagnosed heart aneurysm. It will have been quick, he won't have know what hit him. We never had the chance to say goodbye, and I've reconciled that because our last unsuspecting words when we called each other from work were "Love you, see you later" thank goodness we said those words.

take care of yourself, as others have already said, especially in the heat. I lost DH in early summer in a heat wave, and I had to put flasks of water around the house to remind myself to keep my fluid levels up. It really helped even when I wasn't up to eating much - I survived in soup and toast!

My husband had his illness for many years but up until 2 years ago he was doing fine. And has never looked ill.
Then 2 years ago his defibrillator (which was implanted inside him) went off and since then it’s been a bit stressful, but because we’re both happy with a simple life, it actually has been okay. We’re a very close couple. I think someone else has said (and I’m sorry for not remembering your name) that we lived in each other’s pockets. That was us.
We never asked for much in life. We managed to find fun in simple things.
We always said that as long as we’re together we’ll get through this. But now we’re not together.
Stupidly I was prepared for life after transplant not to be plain sailing, but I never dreamt that the surgery would go wrong. How stupid was I. I think I always just put one foot in front of the other, never thinking of the worst.
I’m sorry for posting twice in one day. Thank you so much @Hisredipad for starting the thread. I’m impressed I’ve managed to retain that information!

@Sunshineandbluesky , you post as many times as you wish, there’s no limit.
I’ve found it useful to say things when they are in my mind, so you might find some of my posts were written in the middle of the night xx

My husband died in March last year. One of the best things I have done is to attend something called The bereavement journey. It’s run by churches but it’s not a religious thing and it’s open to everyone, no matter how long since you have lost someone. I think it’s a Seven week course but the last week is faith based and optional. What I found was that everyone chose to attend the last session because they were so happy to be with people who understood what they were going through and sad the course was ending. www.thebereavementjourney.org

I’m just realising that at first I wanted to keep busy. Now, having gone through all the firsts I am just passing time. I get up and go out for coffee and read my book, then I come home and watch YouTube or Netflix and nap. I am not depressed but I’m sad, and still have that ‘widow’s brain’. I have left my phone somewhere and had to rush back to find it, have left my Kindle in a cafe. I make arrangements to do something and then I regret it and panic and can’t sleep for worrying about it. If I can cancel I will, then feel relieved that I don’t have to do whatever it was. Usually then I find myself sleeping through the time I would have been there.
I comfort myself by thinking that I am just going with the flow and that is my self-care.

I am keeping busy - I was halfway through a very intense 12 month course (professional qualification - half uni, half work placement) and I've really wanted to finish it as he was so supportive of it and would be gutted if he was the cause of my not doing it, plus it will be very useful and I think that if I give up, I'll never do it again. So far I've kept up with the uni deadlines and negotiated less placement time (both uni and work have been very supportive) and my 12 months will extend to 13 or 14 to enable me to achieve the requisite number of practice hours.

The end of the course (October ish) is basically my horizon at the moment, I can't contemplate any further. Our birthdays are a day apart in December and I already know that's going to be impossible. I suspect I might end up having some time off work after my course finishes to just collapse for a while and actually face up to life without him.

I've seen a counsellor a few times, I'm going fortnightly. I have a lot of what ifs around his alcoholism and it's useful to talk them through, and to be able to talk about him without worrying that it will make the other person think badly of him, or get upset (or have any emotional reaction at all really).