KrypticKat

Thanks everyone. It's nice to know others can relate to this struggle. I actually have an update from tonight. It turns out his father side of the family is so fed up with my MILs Behavior that his paternal Grandfather is actually going to pull her aside and tell her if she's so hell-bent on people picking a side she's the one that's going to get left in the dust. Because I have been classy and haven't asked people to pick sides. Because I remain neutral and because they know how much my husband loved me and I loved him they're done with her BS. I honestly thought there would be no justice as she's done nothing but act like a child for the last year. But now the child has drawn the line in the sand and she's having a hissy fit because nobody standing on her side of the beach. This feels like a little victory. Who knows how it'll actually play out though.

Fuck the bureaucratic dipshitz that I've had to deal with. Screw the insurance company that only now finalized my husband's Insurance over a year later because of the documents they were missing. Fuck the coroner for haulting all of the documents because they kept going through employees like tap water. On top of that they wanted to take it to a review board so they could review possible safety measures to put in place in the future do other's don't meet my husband's fate. Important to do but Fuck them for refusing to release the documents that the insurance company would need that would not be impacted by the review process because bureaucracy dictates it to be so. Telling me it was going to take another year and I had to cry in the middle of a waiting room begging through a glass window just to get them to come to their senses that they were delaying my ability to start closing doors and moving forward with my life. Fuck your red tape and beurocracy at the expense of my humanity and suffering!

@Raymond. Thank you for your kind wise words. I often do think of my grief that way. It's something that I'm bringing along with me. It is certainly grown lighter in the last year and no longer suffocates, chokes and consumes me entirely. But it does weigh me down often still. I try not to judge myself because the reality is it's only been a little over a year. When you love somebody so honestly there is a deep wound left behind by the lack of their presence. I've now been in my new home for about a month. Things are going okay. I've had moments of panic where I question why I did this to myself and then I have moments of true happiness where I sit in my new kitchen window and the sun comes in and I feel like a new day is dawning. The last few weeks have been particularly hard since Thanksgiving. The first holiday of my second year. I didn't prepare for it at all because I guess I didn't expect it to hit me but it did. The fog on the grief sat underneath the surface all weekend as I smiled and did I actually enjoy myself to a degree. But ever since Thanksgiving I've honestly felt more boggef down than I have in a while. Lonely, sad, frightened...I'm honestly not sure how to shake it.

@Abitlost, I still find there's a bit of debate about that but my husband was a strong coffee drinker and I personally found his steeping time the best. 2 minutes after pouring the water over the grinds you would always break the crust and makes it just a few times so that it's steeped a little better and then let it sit for another 5 minutes. I don't think this method is traditional by any means but I tell you nobody make coffee better than him and his friends and family would attest to that. Mind you he was also meticulous about the type of beans and how fresh they had to be.

I am now 1 year and 3 months out from losing my husband. There are many things I remember in fine detail and others have become blurred memories. Probably for the best to be honest. I do remember early on reading stories from other widows brought me comfort. Sometimes it was just an assurance that I wasn't going crazy or having somebody I could relate to. I'm not sure how I can help others but I want to. I am by no means Out of the Woods but I am not as lost as I was those first few months. So I figured I'd try to share a story that maybe others could relate to. One of the things I remember from early on that kept me afloat was rituals. Things that were so innately a part of my day that I could have done them in my sleep. Things that required simple steps that I knew so well that deep down I just didn't need to think about it in order to do them. Because early on I couldn't think about anything. So I clung to rituals like a life raft. The most distinct one I can remember was making coffee. My husband loved coffee and actually got me into it. He did it the old fashion way. He would grind the coffee, boil the water and let it steep for the appropriate time before pressing it through and savoring that first cup in the morning, always making sure there was enough for me. I remember shortly after he died I used to hallucinate that I could hear the coffee grinder going off before I got out of bed. A sound I'd gotten so accustomed to hearinv when he was alive but now I never heard until I got up and did it myself. My husband was meticulous about the length of time the coffee had to be steeped for. He knew the exact temperature it needed to be boiled at and he had taught me during our time together. So after he died it was one of the few things I could remember how to do. I may not have been showering or remembering to eat but I remembered to make coffee every morning. I would run the instructions through my mind, hearing him telling me how to do it. Clinging to the memory of his voice as he instructed me on how to make the perfect cup. It was almost like a dance. Grind the beans, bring the water to a boil and take it off the heat for 30 seconds, pour over the grinds and steep it for the correct amount of time before pressing A lot of the older widows on this website will tell you the same thing. Sometimes you will take it day by day. Some days you will take hour by hour. Some hours you will take minute by minute. And on those particularly bad days you will take it second-by-second. Beyond that, I would also suggest if there are any rituals that you have. Rituals that remind you of your life with your significant other. Rituals that make you feel human even for just a moment: cling to them. Feel proud you were able to go through the steps of Being Human for those few minutes no matter what it might be. Making that morning coffee is still a ritual that I hold dear. However it is no longer just about clinging to the memory or surviving. I truly savor the moments of putting that coffee together. How it is now my ritual. How I've been able to incorporate some wonderful things my husband brought to my life into this new life I now have to live. So now I sit by the window of my kitchen in the morning sun and I'm able to smile. Not every day but most days thanks to the sweet little rituals that make my life my own. I hope you are able to find yours. Xoxo KrypticKat

I'm proud to say I've actually been doing pretty well. I worked really hard to work through my grief and pain for the last year and remove myself from people who are truly toxic. And I should have known better than involving myself with those toxic people again. Only to open up wounds and set me back. I just moved into my new house and flipped open my husband's laptop figuring I could use it down in the living room so I wouldn't have to go to the office to do paperwork. When I turned it on I realized it was still logged into his email. His email which is still connected to his Facebook which I still have not brought myself to close. And there it was... A message from my mother-in-law. She was responding to a post that another family member (which I still speak to) haf shared. A post about the coffee that I had got named after my husband. Her response was that she thought it was lovely but it would have been nice if the immediate family have been told and nd that one of the dates in the memorial was incorrect. I'm shortening her snarky respone in this post. The date error was an honest mistake by the company which could have happened to anyone and I had the company correct it immediately. Her post wasn't directed at me but it was snarky and looking for flaws in the most beautiful memory I have made after my husband's death. She was looking for a reason to tear it down. I could feel my blood boiling as I read the message. How dare this hypocrite say this about my beautiful Memorial to my husband. This woman who didn't even mention me in the scholarship she had made in his name which she never told me about. A scholarship which literally list seven different people connected to my husband, three of whom are dead. A scholarship that used pictures that were before him and I ever met. That scholarship sent the message that I didn't count. But I held my tongue because in the end it's just her directing childish anger at me and doesn't diminish the value of the loving relationship I had with the man in the story. I know I shouldn't let her affect me. This is a woman that will never accept that my husband loved me more than anything and I loved him more than anything. He will always be her little baby and she cannot recognize the value I brought into his life. And yet it's like she's still under my skin like an infection. Just seeing those few small words was enough to bring me to tears and make me need to call my parents who I haven't needed to call in a moment of desperate emotion for quite a while. It reaffirms for me that I need to keep my distance. I can say witj certainly I did everything I could to be respectful and give my MIL what she needed when I was capable. But this woman tried to turn the family against me even when I wasn't relevant to her life anymore. She tried to physically take things from me. My husband's ashes his belongings his personal information... I get that she was just trying to cling to everything she could get her hands on. Even if it was at the expense of the woman he loved more than anything. And that is why I stepped away. Because of my respect for my husband I didn't want to rip into this woman. I tried to keep a neutral relationship but the reality is I did not burn the bridge between us. I simply acknowledged that she had already burned it.

My husband's death was also accidental but it was a car accident. I found after he died people had a lot of really insensitive questions. Like had he been drinking or was he a bad driver. People just want an explanation to justify why somebody would die that way. That they must have been irresponsible or a bad person and that's why they're dead. Because the idea that random awful things happen sometimes to decent people just can't possibly be true. My husband was literally a Boy Scout I was just coming home from work. But again people just seem to me that justification for why something so awful could have happened. This is just my perspective but honestly I would keep your answers as generic as possible. Really only share the honest truth with people you know love you and support you and care about you. Everyone else is going to put their own shade on it and honestly it's just going to hurt more than anything. Nobody can understand what you're going through. No one truly understands the man you were with more than you do. They can think what they want but I would say if you're feeling vulnerable don't give them any fuel.

Day two in the new place. I just had a complete meltdown sitting on the stair. As I was trying to empty a box in the kitchen a container of Panko bread crumbs opened up and completely coated one of my bed sheets I was using to protect some other belongings. I've had a long day and I was tired so I shook the sheet out and took it down to the washing machine. I tested the washing machine just like you're supposed to do when you get your first place and it worked on the first day. But then upon closer inspection today I noticed this black gunk in the front of the machine. A quick Google told me it's something called scrum. Weird I've never had to use this word before. How could I miss something like this? I asked myself. My husband would have caught little details like this. My husband would have told me this house wasn't worth buyingperiod is the gardens needed extra love. Because it's too old and needed some repairs. Because the other owner had obviously done some DIY stuff and hadn't done a good job. I feel over my head in a bit like I'm drowning today. There's so much to do. Maybe I should have stayed in our apartment.

Thank you both of you. These ideas are helpful! I've lived alone before I met my husband and I remember being a little anxious about it. But now thanks to the PTSD of how he died it just seems so much worse than I remember. But I think as I settle in and take some of your advice I'll feel more comfortable. It's all those new Little Steps right?

I intentionally stayed in my husband and my apartment longer after he died because I just wasn't ready to leave the space that I associated with him. Plus I knew the neighbors it was a safe building. I've now bought my first house that I'll be moving into in a few weeks. I already have the keys and I started moving some stuff over and started fixing some stuff up. But now I find myself getting paranoid. I'm afraid someone's going to break into my house while I'm away from it cuz I haven't moved in yet. I'm afraid someone's going to break into it when I am there because I will be alone. And lets face it, cats don't make great guard dogs. It's going to be scary living in a place on ground level around new people without my husband. I'm not sure exactly how to cope with this. Maybe this is just first-time Jitters and everybody gets this regardless but I feel like having lost my husband it just makes the anxiety that much worse.

Next week I'll have the keys to my first house. I'm back to work full time. I have happy hobbies. I feel more like me. But I wouldn't say life is joyful. The closer I get to the move the more I think about him. I'm worried did I do enough. I wonder if he'd be proud of everything I've done and where I am now. I wonder where we would be right now if that car accident never happened. And then I try to reminisce looking at videos and pictures and I start to cry all over again. Knowing life will never be quite right. Wistfully hoping that maybe one day life will be good. But my brain has a hard time believing a life without the man I love, my first real love, could ever be good. I know this is a healthy step but part of me clings desperately to the past and what once was. But if I have to look at it honestly I've been living in the shadow of something that is gone. I think part of the sadness I feel all the time is because of that shadow I'm living in. That is why I know I need to move forward. And yet all I really want to do is climb into a time machine and stop my husband from getting in that car. I want to go to the cottage for that weekend trip with my family that we were planning that weekend. I want to hug him so tight and never let go. And yet I am alone. Making huge Decisions by myself. Smart decisions and good decisions but alone none the less. I wonder if I'll ever be happy for more than a few moments. Or if this is what they mean by the 'new normal'. Will good things that happen always be under this layer of sadness and longing for something that can never be? I truly hope this isn't my life sentence. I hope one day I can look at all these decisions and all the goodness that is coming my way now and actually feel true joy and gratefulness for what I have. But I don't think I'm there yet. I think I still have grieving to do. Looking at people that are ahead of me on these boards gives me hope. But my brain still has a hard time comprehending how they got to where they are. I suppose that's why they say you have to do this journey alone. I hate being alone.

It's nice to remember these things. 1) my brother is an amateur boxer. He encouraged me to take up boxing as an outlet. So he would drive almost 2 hours to my house once a week to let me punch mitts that he would put on. Sometimes I couldn't focus and I almost be in tears but he never judged me. We'd box and have a beer and just sit there. Not going to lie I got me through some of the darkest times. 2) my dad is pretty high up in a corporation. He honestly spend hours upon hours in meetings. And during the toughest earliest part of my loss if I got desperate and needed to call him he always picked up. He leaving meeting regardless of what was going on just to talk to me for a few minutes. I honestly felt so guilty about it at first but in the end I'm so grateful that he cared enough to be there for me when I was weak. 3) one day when I was particularly mopey a barista at a coffee shop noticed me and made an extra cute smiley face in my latte and told me that it might not cheer me up and he was hoping it would get a smile out of me. It did. 4) I got so lucky with the one insurance company I had to deal with. The guy that was in charge of my claim was so kind. Every time I got too overwhelmed and wouod not be sure how to fill the paperwork he would send somebody to help me fill it out. He wouldn't answer my questions the day I asked them and every time we spoke on the phone you always made sure to mention that he recognized how tragic and difficult this must be for me and he wanted to do everything he could to make it easier. Turns out some of those insurance people do have souls.

I've mentioned on these boards before that I have a friend who essentially ghosted me after my husband died. I've come to learn that some people can't handle these difficult situations and for the most part I let it go. I don't think I'll ever truly stop being hurt because she left me in my time of greatest need. Suddenly she started coming around in the last couple of months and she's talking to me as if she can just tag in and we can pick up where we left off. But I'm Different. The situation is different. And I don't think she truly understands that. The situation hasn't arisen where I can just tell her honestly how I feel and it may never come up. Sometimes it just doesn't feel worth it. But the one thing she does that's very difficult for me is she does trigger me. Honestly I believe this is well-intentioned usually her trying to talk to me about memories of the past. However it's usually through text and it feels very disconnected and it's usually out of the blue on significant calendar dates when I'm already feeling raw. Today for example. Today is my wedding anniversary and I haven't heard much from her lately but now she's texting me this morning telling me she's thinking of me and then reminding me of some of my memories of my wedding day. I know it's well-meaning. I can appreciate it but thinking about those memories is almost bringing me to tears and I'm trying to get through my work day. I honestly don't even know how to respond. Silence has been golden for the most part.

I honestly don't believe the intensity of the pain for the loss ever truly goes away. But what does start to happen is how long it impacts you and how long you're down and out because of it gets shorter and shorter. I can honestly tell you I have more good moments than bad now and I'm only about a year and a month out. But again everybody's pace is different and I've been working very hard to deal with my grief and get the support I need to be able to get where I am today. But I still have moments. A song, a smell, the sound of his voice in a video I accidentally come across. Finding something that was so insignificant when he was here and yet means everything to me now that he's gone. It can still bring me to my knees and make it feel like my heart is going to come out of my chest. But rather than taking me out for a whole week maybe it only takes me out for a couple of hours or maybe just for a moment. You get stronger as time goes on and are able to pick yourself up more and more. It's like exercising a muscle so don't give up. It is true that it does get worse before it gets better cuz you have to feel it to move through it and at first you really feel nothing at all. Don't judge yourself too much for feeling like you're running backwards. This is not a linear process and sometimes you'll go up, down, left, right and anywhere in between. We are all here for each other and I am so blessed to have found such a place to get the support that I needed. I hope you find comfort in these boards as well. KK

Ugh. Update. Rehearsal tonight and I swear to God I've fallen into some sort of teen movie and the Mean Girls are chatting in the corner about me. She's going around trying to pry information out of people and I had to go out of my way to ask my friends who do know a little bit more about what's going on with me to respectively play dumb because again it's none of her f****** business. As a result she's chittering away with her little friend and actually talking about me five feet away from me. This is ridiculous. I am actually raging. But I don't want to feed into it because guess what? I'm an adult. But I am going to lose my s*** on this chick eventually if she doesn't quit it. Why do people think they have a right to your information? Why do they think because you've been through a tragedy then you have to become their personal spectacle? Why are people so interested in other people's laundry when they can't even learn to clean up their own? People just need to learn to give people the respect they deserve and mind their own f****** business. Ready to break something right now. 😲😠😩

Hey @Adley. Just to clarify it's not the friend that's doing this. It's the lead actress who's a total stranger to me. I've never worked with her before. The friend who's working backstage has actually been very tight-lipped as she promised she would be and when I told the friend about it she was appalled and couldn't understand how she found out either. It's all very bizarre and disturbing. I will happily cut her out after the show but I have to work with her on this and I'm not going to quit just because someone's being an idiot. I will however be putting in her place and making her aware that my business is my business and she needs to stay out of it or she'll be facing my wid wrath. 🙄

I swear as a wid you see everything humanity has to offer. I'm doing a play as a way to feel normal once in a while. It's something I did all the time before my husband died. I decided this was going to be the one place I didn't tell anyone my sad story. So that can be an escape once in a while. I'm sure all of us can appreciate the need for that. The stage manager did know about my story because she's an old friend of mine and I've made it very clear to her and the rest of the directing team that I didn't want this information shared with people. If I chose to share it then it would be my choice but for the most part I wanted to keep it out. No here's where it gets weird. The lead actress in my show has been going around telling everybody that I had a heart-to-heart with her and told her about my story. Her and I have had all of two discussions. One was about how what we were going to drink on the weekend and the other was about how to do a British accent. I've never told anybody on the cast and I trust my friend so I don't know how she found out but now she's dragging my personal stuff out there on Centre stage. The exact place I didn't want it to be. It's as if she's getting off on some imaginary relationship we must have. Kind of sick.

I second everything Monique said. Another big part of it (at least for me) was that it's another step forward to regaining your life and that is now a life without him. I found every productive step forward lead to a resurgence of pain and emotion. I think it's normal. Just breathe and work through it. None of it's easy even when it seems it should be. Thinking of you. KK

Thanks everyone. I made it through. My friends took me away rafting for a few days. Being out on the water and active was therapeutic. For the most part it felt like I just ran a really shitty lap. I could actually recall what happened one year ago each day following the anniversary. (This day I went to the hospital, this day I went to the police, this day I went to the funeral home). I felt nauseated everyday. Early on I couldn't have told you what I did five minutes ago but I guess I was keeping track in the back ground. I hope those aweful memories will fade one day and I just keep the happy ones of him.

Standing in line at Starbucks in a griefy mood on my phone waiting to give my order. I must have been frowning because the guy behind me taps me on the shoulder and asks: "Hey sweetheart, who died?" I look up stunned but manage to reply "my husband" then immediately go back to my phone. He left me alone after that. Ask a shitty question get a shitty answer am I right?

I couldn't find a discussion on this on the site but I'm stuck on what to do. My dress is still sitting in the closet where I left it after the wedding. I never got it cleaned and preserved because I wasn't sure if I was going to sell it or keep it after the wedding. And my husband died and I honestly just feel more confused about it. Part of me thinks I should sell it as it's taking up room but there's another part of me that looks at it and wants to put it somewhere special. But what am I going to do with it? It's not like I'll have a daughter that I want to let wear it. Am I ever really going want to pull it out? I'm feeling so confused about it...

Just found out from my husband's aunt that in order to avoid my mother-in-law causing another scene at a family event they won't invite me unless she's not going to be there. I guess crazy blood runs thicker than water. It's kind of annoying that they're feeding into her childish behavior as I've tried to be neutral an adult about all of this. I suppose the sort of an inevitability since she has way more years with them and she did actually get a chance to have children and has that biological link. I suppose things would have drifted eventually but it's still kind of annoying. Found this all out on the anniversary of my husband's death. When life gets you down I guess it kicks you in the teeth too. Feeling a bit like chopped liver.

Writing it down does help. I used to keep lists of favorite memories. You will never forget your soulmate. Love like that follows you forever. The moving forward and feeling guilty is something I can relate to and we all deal with it different. It's like we feel guilty we continue to live life and experience things and they don't. But for me I take comfort in that my husband would be sad if I gave up on life. Loving life was why he loved me. So I choose to move forward with him in my heart and live to show him why he loved me in the first place. It's not easy. I wish I could give you a hug right now. Wrap yourself in all the wonderful things your husband brought to your life. Thinking of you. KK

'You playing that game where you remember what you were doing this time last year?' (That's been everyday for A year) 'Im surprised how much this week is affecting me since it's the anniversary. I guess it's just another day though.' (Fuck you mom. Fuck you for saying all of that to your daughter mourning the first year anniversary of her husband's death.)

Friday it'll be one year since my life was turned on its head. It's really hard to believe I haven't spoken to my husband for that long. I swear I just saw him. I've come a long way but I know my complicated grief is far from over. This week is really hard. My sleep is bad again and my emotional control is falling apart. Just trying to breathe. It does get better even it still sucks.