canadiangirl

singinmomo4, I am so sorry to hear of all that you are facing. It is too much. I absolutely dread anything happening to my own family because it would put me over the edge just now. I wish you courage. I hope that things improve for your entire family.

Mary Beard's Caligula. Just fell asleep to it a few nights ago. Super sexy too.

Also an exciting night planned of housework til I pass out tonight! If I get really tired I might watch "Meet the Romans with Mary Beard" on Youtube. She is awesome, and always puts me to sleep. Super sexy evening. Echoing feel better, LC.

Thanks for the pin, Mods!

((smabify)) I posted in the introduction section. The battle lasted 4.5 years and it WAS a battle. adenocarcinoma poorly differentiated and too many mets to mention. I am not "over" the trauma of his final days, and I don't know if I ever will be.

Hi, I'm canadiangirl. I also came here from the YWBB site. My husband died in 2013 after a cancer battle of four-and-a-half years. In a period of 15 months we were married, had a baby, got a new house, I got a new job, and he got a cancer diagnosis. Many nights I would do what many new moms do and check to see if my baby was breathing, and then I would go and check if my husband was breathing. He fought cancer to the very end. There was no preparation for the end, no expression of his wishes, no videos or letters to our child, none of this because to do these things for him would have meant accepting death or giving up. It was heartbreaking. I am still proud of him. I am still exhausted.

Thanks AC, this is exactly how I feel. Thanks anniegirl for putting another message on FB! I hear you about the YWBB being a small percentage of widow(er)s out there and that active users will probably know or find their way. It's honestly the once but no longer active YWBB members that are not on FB (many of us want to remain anonymous) that I am thinking of - so many posts, so much journalling of dark days. If I came back on to YWBB years later only to find it gone it would be akin to someone burning my diary, even though I rarely re-read it. It really bothers me. I get that YWBB is/was someone's else intellectual property but my words are MINE, and now perhaps someday my child's, but only because I had a shot at saving those words (for which I am grateful).

On Friday the YWBB site will apparently go dark. So we have less than a week to try to get the word out to people about this new site and to save their stuff from the YWBB site. The YWBB admin took down the user list last Sat. so there is no way of methodically or simply reaching people. All we have is PMs and the Facebook sites. I am not a member of the Facebook groups and don't wish to be so if there is anyone who could post a reminder asking people to please contact those they know who are not FB group members but who might wish to save their posts or join the new group that would be great. The admin message is absolutely not clear on the fact that the site will go dark. If anyone here could help by adopting a thread this week that would be great. I have PM'd (in groups of 5) members on pages 119-102 of Young Widowed Parents; approx pages 1-19 of Books and Quotes; most of the members in the Extreme Caretaking thread under "Special Circumstances" and pages 1-19 of Newly Widowed members. I note all usernames in a notebook and then send PMs pointing to this new site and stating that apparently the site will go dark so they may wish to save their posts. I am targeting 2011 to the present only because I think there is a greater likelihood that the members of these "peer groups" may check in on time. It is really daunting without the userlist - there are thousands of names (a tribute to the founders). Most people will not get the PM in time, may not join this site and may or may not care about their posts. But as I mentioned to mt4freak, the fact that this great big repository of heartbreak will just vanish this week without many people's knowledge just... my anger over that is what keeps me going. But I have other commitments as well. PLEASE HELP. Thanks to those others I know are doing this!

Thanks MrsDan-- FOH to winter, snow and ice. FOH to spring bringing with it a resumption of dealing with never-ending estate matters. FOH to friends asking when/if I am going to date again. And ditto to your last FOH.

AC, I will try to think of a systemic way to go about it. Tonight I am working on the Parents thread. My target is those wids from 2011-2013 because, as I joined in 2014 and have been on here a lot, I have a good sense of who is active from that year and most have made it. But those from 2011-2013 - not necessarily so much. So that is where I am going tonight. I know we are trying to be future forward but I really have to shake my fist at the YWBB admin who took down the YWBB user/memberlist without giving us the opportunity to send out a mass PM or doing one themselves. I have had about 6 replies for about 200 PMs sent in batches of 5 but every single one counts. I am using a form message now that I will update to include info that board will vanish as of 20 March.

I don't think as a community we should dwell and I think that perhaps this thread should not always be pinned so it is not the first thing new widows see. I do think as a community former YWBBers will eventually "get over it." Then I hope this thread will fade into history. BUT I also think, just like grief, it is not realistic to expect people to repress the anger they may feel about this, because I think acknowledging it will help people move on from it. I don't think the anger is disproportionate - I don't believe people are getting their knickers in a twist over something minor. Many people relied on the YWBB board as part of their mental well-being. For many people, it was their only record of their darkest moments. For many couples, their written history. It's like the YWBB bore witness in a secular sense. For me, it was and I hope this new board will be, the only place I can vent and speak about what is truly going on because in real life (IRL) I suck it up - no one wants to hear about the widow s--t sandwich. And speaking of IRL, thinking a FB page and PMs will be a panacea to keep people connected undermines the whole point of the board, which is that it is ANONYMOUS, a key protection. The abrupt closure and this statement from the founder is "fresh" news. Acknowledging anger, in my opinion, does not detract in any way from the amazing initiative taken by those who set up this board and it will not take/it is not taking away from the love and support which is already being expressed in many other threads already. I am grateful to the founders of YWBB and I am sorry if they are facing legal action (I suspect this as well). I think this will be a safe place. Something beautiful rising from the ashes. But I think it's okay, normal and logical to survey the ashes right now. It's where I still am as a widow too. It is not right to focus on what is lost on-and-on forever. And someday I/we will get there too.

OK, I went through two Extreme Caregiver threads tonight, as these are the ones that helped me personally the most. I PM'd all those not-already-members. There are just so many threads, and I cannot decide whether to tackle PM'ing the members who signed up in 2003, '04, '05. Views welcome from the vets - maybe some of you know who is still interested/active. Before the 20th, I think we are going to have to have many members play adopt a thread or divvy up the messaging. cathyr will help (thank you!)

I am quoting from Ann E, who is a member, writing in 2010, quoting another member, Joe A., who wrote this poem which I think is a great descriptor of Extreme Caregiving: "Robbed: Joe's Lament" The hope for a better year became The hope for a better month The hope for a better month became The hope for a better day The hope for a better day became The hope for a better moment One perfect island in an ocean of pain

This one happened to me just today, but I heard it secondhand and it wasn't a personal message, thank goodness: "We have faith that with all the new technology and social networks, the newbies will find their way, just as we found ours. The site wasn't there when I lost my husband... In fact, there are so many wonderful online resources now, we felt that everyone would find their way and be in good hands. It was a really hard decision and there were many board discussions about how to address our future. Please know we have always had everyone's best intentions in mind...Thank you for reading this and understanding that it was a business decision made based on many factors that not everyone is aware of." :

Fleur and others, please stay. I am only 15 months out. Selfishly, I think I am game again to try to support those newer in this journey but I really need those veterans like you who help me look ahead, maintain focus. It's like we're monkeys in a chain - I am happy to pull those further down the chain but who's going to pull me up? Please stay. At least to get us over this transition hump.

Like! Also LIKE bringing back the tag feature if possible. Great thinking!

AC, have you PM'd the Extreme Caregiving Thread already? If not, I will do this tonight. That thread helped me tremendously when I first joined YWBB.

Reposting from YWBB: This is a group of stunning photographs by Sarah Treanor, who lost her fianc? in a helicopter crash in 2012. She documented the psychological journey of grief, and if you have time, you may wish to check them out here: http://www.visualnews.com/2014/11/18/tou...grieving-death/ Sarah has an Etsy shop called "Seven Shooting Stars" (I do not know Sarah personally).

This was posted by former YWBB member Goodgirl715, who hasn't made her way here yet, at 9 years out: Grief can destroy you -- or focus you. You can decide a relationship was all for nothing if it had to end in death, and you alone. OR you can realize that every moment of it had more meaning than you dared to recognize at the time, so much meaning it scared you, so you just lived, just took for granted the love and laughter of each day, and didn't allow yourself to consider the sacredness of it. But when it's over and you're alone, you begin to see that it wasn't just a movie and a dinner together, not just watching sunsets together, not just scrubbing a floor or washing dishes together or worrying over a high electric bill. It was everything, it was the why of life, every event and precious moment of it. The answer to the mystery of existence is the love you shared sometimes so imperfectly, and when the loss wakes you to the deeper beauty of it, to the sanctity of it, you can't get off your knees for a long time, you're driven to your knees not by the weight of the loss but by gratitude for what preceded the loss. And the ache is always there, but one day not the emptiness, because to nurture the emptiness, to take solace in it, is to disrespect the gift of life. ~Dean Koontz, Odd Hours

?Once you are real you can't become unreal again. It lasts for always.? --Margery Williams, The Velveteen Rabbit