Are you still stunned?

[Eddienhp]

I am 6-1/2 years out. I have been busy rebuilding our income and raising two kids; one with special needs. Lately I find myself walking around the house thinking how significantly our lives changed. The house remains mostly the same. My husband's items (artwork, instruments, etc) are still in place. The children enjoy them and I have never felt the need to move them. I wonder he is so much still here yet we are so used to him not being around. It doesn't hurt any more. It is a tinge of sadness followed by the reality of today's living environment. Is it delayed grief? Am I just waking up from the chaos that was created? Or is this just normal for us to feel after losing someone so important?

Eileen

[trying2breathe]

At times I'm still stunned that he's no longer here.  At 4-1/2 years out, the grief has softened and I'm glad to have rebuilt a life for myself.  It still hurts sometimes, but nothing like in those early days.  I think it's normal to have moments of disbelief that this is our life now.  At times I feel his presence and think that he's still around and can imagine what he might say to us.  My grief has been spaced out because to take it all in at once would have been too devastating.

 

The analogy of waves of grief makes sense to me.  At first they come in fast and furious like in a terrible storm.  Eventually the waves slow down a bit and settle to more gentle waves and further apart.  This is how it's been for me, anyway.

[Captains wife]

Its amazing what time can do...At almost 6 years out I certainly feel more like myself these days and have carved out a good life for myself and my son. But the loss is overhanging and I do have days when I feel very alone and just sad about our loss - and my young son talks about missing having a Dad a fair amount these days. Im finding recoupling to be a lot more challenging that I expected. I think sometimes my life is so busy and Ive always been very independent so that the loss gets tucked away and then resurfaces when there are triggers. But, like you, the pure pain I felt in the first months and years is gone for me. (Although every person I think is different).

[BrokenHeart2]

Thank you all once again for making me feel like I'm not crazy!  I do at times step back still at almost 5 yrs and wonder how this could be. I'm feeling like I have made some good progress but yes, that looming sadness in the background is there. Some days my heart just aches for him but it doesn't knock me down hard the way it used to. Certainly nothing like the early years and I thank God for that.

Hugs to my wids and my pillows (still my soft place to fall  )

[Peony]

the grief has softened and I'm glad to have rebuilt a life for myself.  It still hurts sometimes

 

This is true for me as well.  I do sincerely still miss DH & I still miss absolutely everything about being married.  I can certainly make it on my own, but it goes completely against my human nature.

[Euf]

It seems normal to me.

 

I’m probably saying that because that’s kind of how my life went… and goes. I still have guitars everywhere.  There are still pieces of him here.  But it isn’t how it was in the beginning, where I couldn’t bear to throw away even a piece of paper that he had written on. Something he had touched.

 

These things are now just a piece of me. My life has changed too, in ways I never expected. But I still smile at that guitar in the closet.

 

I think that those with children would find it even more important to have pieces of their father’s life  around.

 

  he is so much still here yet we are so used to him not being around

 

That is it exactly!  Here and not here.

 

Hugs

 

[Mac]

I don't know if that sense of being stunned will ever end.

[Mac]

Yep, I'm still stunned. We were married for 28 years and we were best friends for 37 years. Just like that, gone in a flash. Life is good these days. My daughter was in college when my wife passed, and my son had just graduated from college. They are doing well. We are thriving as a family. It has been nearly 6 years. Gratitude is on overdrive. And yep, can you believe this shit? Life is good and I am engaged, so very much to be grateful for! But yep, WFT happened?

 

[Virgo]

I agree with that stunned feeling never completely escaping our thoughts. It resurfaces even years after loss. Different things or circumstances trigger it.

 

I was dining out with my youngest daughter Saturday evening. Just talking to her about her day made me sad that her dad wasn't there to take it all in too. Realizing how much she has grown since he died. It's not something I think about every time I look at my daughters, but it just hit me. It took me immediately to that feeling of, "is this really my reality? I can't believe he's gone!"

[trying2breathe]

Virgo   My kids, how they've grown and are doing well and that he's not here to see this - these days affects me more than my grief over losing him.   My son is graduating college a semester early, daughter thrived in her first year of college.  Both kids doing exceptionally well right now, I get emotional when I think of how he would be so very proud of them, and that they don't have a father here to be with them.

 

Mac   Congrats on your engagement!

[Mac]

On 5/2/2018 at 8:19 AM, trying2breathe said:

Virgo   My kids, how they've grown and are doing well and that he's not here to see this - these days affects me more than my grief over losing him.   My son is graduating college a semester early, daughter thrived in her first year of college.  Both kids doing exceptionally well right now, I get emotional when I think of how he would be so very proud of them, and that they don't have a father here to be with them.

 

Mac   Congrats on your engagement!

Thanks, I didn't mean it that way. What I meant to say is life is good and I am engaged in life. For quite some time I had a whatever attitude, accepting my "new life", but not always embracing it. I have felt a huge shift in my attitude this past year or so. 

[twin_mom]

On 5/7/2018 at 9:18 AM, Mac said:

Thanks, I didn't mean it that way. What I meant to say is life is good and I am engaged in life. For quite some time I had a whatever attitude, accepting my "new life", but not always embracing it. I have felt a huge shift in my attitude this past year or so. 

I thought like T2B that you had found a new life partner and was so excited for you! 

[Leadfeather]

Yes! Though I have accepted the reality of her being gone I still have moments when it hits me all over again. It is no longer a backward looking feeling of shock, it has become moments of shock that all the days before me will be without her.

 

I was reading a Travis McGee novel last night. And there was a quote about death. It is not a happy quote, or an uplifting quote but it struck me as a true to how I feel stunned these days. The caveat to the authors sentiment is that I am a Christian and believe someday the ship will dock and we will be united with everyone who was dropped over the side. But that does not help with the missing while we are still onboard.

 

Anyway, here is the quote,

 

Quote

 

“Life is like a big ship, all lights and action and turmoil, chugging across a dark sea. You have to drop the dead ones over the side. An insignificant little splash, and the ship goes on. For them the ship stops at that instant. For me Sam was back there somewhere, further behind the ship every day.

I could look back and think of all the others I knew, dropped all the way back to the horizon and beyond, and so much had changed since they were gone they wouldn’t know the people aboard, know the new rules of the deck games. The voyage saddens as you lose them. You wish they could see how things are. You know that inevitably they’ll drop you over the side, you and everyone you have loved and known, little consecutive splashes in the silent sea, while the ship maintains its unknown course.”

 

 

[Mac]

On 5/9/2018 at 5:32 AM, twin_mom said:

I thought like T2B that you had found a new life partner and was so excited for you! 

Thanks. 2 relationships so far, but nothing that lasted.  

[hikermom]

On 5/9/2018 at 8:01 AM, Leadfeather said:

I could look back and think of all the others I knew, dropped all the way back to the horizon and beyond, and so much had changed since they were gone they wouldn’t know the people aboard, know the new rules of the deck games. The voyage saddens as you lose them. You wish they could see how things are.

 

 

So often, particularly early on, I would feel like I just needed the world to stop for a moment. It felt like I was frozen in a moment of time and the rest of the world was moving ahead full steam. I was stunned like a bird that had flown into a window and wasn't dead but wasn't fully present either. I needed the world to stop so that I could catch my breath. Almost as if I had been thrown overboard along with him.

 

Now it feels more like this quote - so many big and little things have occurred in the past 5+ years that I wish my husband could know. Life changes for me and our daughter; simple things like songs on the radio that were released after his death. The rules of the deck games have changed but at least I'm back onboard.

 

I'm not stunned any more. There are moments that I'm struck by the incredulity that the world is now missing this man and all he had to offer, that I'm a widow (I still can't use that word most of the time). Stunned, no, as that word conjures for me a sense of stillness and being frozen, like that bird. I'm moving - forward, backward, sideways - but still have moments where I am surprised.

[BrokenHeart2]

Very very well said HM!!! You nailed it for me!!