Dh has died - the MN Aunties are helping me keep on

[JuanPotatoTwo]

New thread, not very imaginative title sorry! I can't remember how to link - having a blank moment.

Wishing you all the very best op, I can't imagine what you are going through x

Hey Juan, read an article yesterday that made me think of you

How are things going in general?

The aftermath of grief is fucking exhausting hope you have plenty RL people looking after you.

Hope you're still getting RL support Juan. Often after the initial wave of fantastic support people go back to their everyday lives and you kind of feel 'left behind/in limbo' as though you're looking out at a world moving on

Checking in!

Hope you feel a bit better for some sleep.

I'm here - very quickly popping in so I don't lose you xx

Thank you G.

Unborn and Chish thanks for asking, I feel so lucky - people are being very lovely and supportive, including on here. It has inevitably died down a bit now but I have plenty of offers of coffee/shoulders to cry on etc.

I'm aware that the last couple of days I've sort of gone into myself a bit, and it's worrying some of my friends. I'm not worried though - I do this and then I come through when I've processed things. It's usually how I deal with things when there's been a crisis with Mark's health so it might be a bit different this time. I'll keep an eye on myself!

Hey magi safely back from Hastings?

Oh hi book, nice to see you.

It's just occurred to me that I feel guilty is it, or sad maybe, to be leaving the first thread behind. How strange is that? I feel like I'm betraying Mark in some way.

No Juan - just the next chapter in a book , that is all it is....

Safe & with loaves & fishes!! Great bakery there & lots of fish (obviously).

I think it is inevitable that you will go 'in on yourself' a bit now. You must have had to do so much organising, chatting etc in the last few weeks & some calm 'me' time sounds exactly right to me.

It is your grief & you must deal with it however you feel is your way.

Don't worry if you don't feel like posting here for a while - we'll all understand & will just keep checking in for you for when you want to come back.

My love - (((xxx)))

Cross posted - you are not betraying Mark - the thread won't take any more posts. That's all.

As book says it's just a chapter.

Hello Juan and all.

Just popping in now so I know where to find you, will be back later xx

Auntie Petally checking in. For reasons I do not know, i namechange all the time but I'll be with you, in one name or another, for the long haul.

I hope that didn't come across as terse- it wasn't meant as a criticism, you feel it regardless xx

Meant to say, you're not betraying Mark by starting a new thread, it's just that your MN support filled a thread. And that first thread will be there for you whenever you want to read back through it.

Auntie2017 happily checking on on you this lovely day, dear Juan.

This new thread is just a sign of how much you are cared for in MNWorld - and it will continue to be so for as long as you need us.

Glad you feel like being with you today. I always think that it is my inner self asking me to take care of me somehow - and try to listen. Even if it is just feet up in a corner with a book, or some music and your thoughts, or just you, you need to let you be. I hope you feel a tiny bit better for it.

My lovely DD asked me where I had gone when I was deep in the first stages of grief, and I knew just what she meant. Wherever it was, I needed to be there for a while, as do you. We're here when you come back.

Just saying hello (and kinda placemarking - wince, sorry).
A new chapter in a book is a good way of looking at a new thread.
You 'sound' in not quite such a dark place Juan.
Hugs x

How did you all get to be so wise? Yes, I'll look on it as the next chapter and not as leaving Mark behind. I don't ever want to leave him behind :(. book you weren't at all terse. Squirrels how are you today?

Auntie2017 I like the way you say "being with you", that's a good way to describe it. I just had a friend text me saying she was worried about me, and I used that phrase in my reply.

Haven't really achieved much today. Well, anything really. But I'm ok with that. Mark would have seen it as a wasted day for his part, but he would have understood. When ds2 spoke at the funeral he told of an evening this summer just past when he saw, through a crack in the kitchen door, Mark beaming to himself. So he went in and asked him what he had to be so happy about and Mark said "I feel like the luckiest man alive".

That memory makes me smile and cry. That was him, it really was. Here he was with serious health issues, often in pain, fighting the odds, yet he genuinely considered himself blessed.

I've talked myself back into melancholy with that memory now! He was such a good man and I miss him so much. Why him? Can't imagine ever not being sad. Am going to make myself a cup of tea in an effort to revive my spirits!

Oh Squirrels - cross posted. Hello - been thinking of you. Xx

Just popping in again.
Love the idea of a new chapter very fitting as it's your story Juan.

Glad you had a good nights sleep at last. Here's to many more. 🍷

Don't worry about not doing much. You need to do whatever suits you not follow some schedule. Doing stuff when you feel up to it is fine one day doing nothing the next is equally fine. Nobody is keeping score.
There will be many more 'moments' when you want to rage against the world at the unfairness of it all. Just pour it all out here we are big ( and old😉) enough to take it. Nobody expects it all to suddenly stop.

Take care.

I followed your thread and that of Chasing, knowing that it is going to be my story too very soon.

I've been on another thread a few times and outed there that I'm a retired counsellor. Here's what I think I might know - from my own experience, training and learning from clients. I hope I don't sound patronising because I sincerely don't mean to be, I'm just wondering if it could slightly be of help to see it written down.

Some gurus say grieving is like a form of madness - 'seeing' the person in the street, on a bus etc., hearing their voice, smelling them. That is normal and OK.

Also, there is a process but it is not linear, ie swinging from and through the various and varying emotions of Denial/Rage/Bargaining (if I do this, that might/might not happen)/Depression - until eventually begin to approach Acceptance - or as I personally prefer, Adjustment. That is normal and OK.

The big one: Oscillation - go to work/outing of some kind and feel and act almost normally ('Oh, isn't so-and-so coping well' will be others comments), get home, close the door and sob, scream, fall in a heap. That is normal and OK.

There are no rights, no wrongs and everyone is completely different. Some want to bottle it up, others to talk. So be it. That is normal and OK.

A colleague has said to me 'It's all part of life's rich tapestry'. Well at the moment, I personally wish that tapestry was all a whiter shade of pale.

My very best wishes to you and everyone else going through their loss of dreams.

Been thinking of you too Juan.

I'm okay, at the moment.
For too long I've been "okay in a not really okay but having to carry on coping but probably sliding down into depression" kind of way, and that's just gone now.
I miss John to the core, but I've been losing him all year, and grieving him through that - while dealing with caring for him, and being isolated in all our pain and unhappiness, and being petrified about the future. And now the future is here, and while I'm not charging ahead into it - it will come regardless and while I'd give anything to still have a healthy John by my side to go forward into it - I will go forward regardless.

I've posted on my thread about my last couple of days.

Sleep well
xx

Selena that is such a thoughtful and interesting message, thank you. I'm so sorry that you also are going to be walking this path. Do you want to tell us about what's happening? Of course I understand totally if you'd rather not. That wasn't the most helpful comment from your colleague. I had a "never mind, the worst will be over soon" comment today which I thought was a bit unfeeling.

Crossed with you again Squirrels. You sound as if you're dealing with this remarkably well, you sound strong and sensible. I understand that you've been dealing with John's loss for a while, even if you didn't realise it at the time. I suppose we are programmed to acclimatise to our circumstances and do so without really thinking. Doesn't make it less of a loss of course. And yes of course you miss him and the future that you should have had together.

I heard an Anna Raeburn quote the other day which I found comforting - the way you feel at the minute is the way you think you'll always feel. Something like that anyway. It's true - I can't imagine feeling anything other than heartbroken at the minute. But I suppose I will. We all will.

Really Juan I did know it at the time, I wasn't addressing it - I wasn't thinking about after he died because I couldn't cope with thinking about it. But I was grieving the loss of the man I adored and who adored me.
I think another thing is that I have been through a separation and divorce that I didn't initiate and which was horrible and scarey and all sorts of similar (but very different) emotions in relation to the future. And I got through that, and I made a life for me and the boys. And I can do that again, I don't want to have to, but I can. And this time - I know my John didn't want to leave me. I am carrying our love deep inside me.
But yeah, I'd have a healthy John back beside me in much less than a heartbeat if I could. And I'd take him to bed right now - and well!

I'm so sorry for your loss, today would have been my 32nd wedding anniversary but I lost my DH nearly 3 years ago, he was just 50. You will change how you feel, don't feel guilty when that happens, it is very normal. We all have good memories we can keep. I find only now that things are easier.
My DH was very ill and passed away in hospital, he was in mid April and passed away at the end of May so I find from here on really tough, but it's a different experience each passing year.
I don't really know what I'm trying to say...one nurse said to me "every body is different and everybody is different" I think it is a wonderful saying and think of it often, we all grieve differently but how we need to.
Thinking of everyone having a tough time just now 💐