Leadfeather

I can not speak to this issue with any authority as I have not yet been in your situation. However, your post reminded me of a good blog post I read on the subject and I wanted to share. http://www.onefitwidow.com/blog/post/stop-comparing-death-and-divorce

That is what I am seeing in myself also. And I have a coffee meet-up scheduled with #1 next Saturday. . .and I don't even drink coffee. Hope I am not her #2 or 3. . .

Not really a vent, more of a question. How many men/women do you talk to online at a time? It feels like if I am not careful I am going to have to many conversations going at once. Three seems to be about my limit. Also after a few days of chatting I want to do a meet and greet before investing to much more time in a conversation.

Thank you everyone for your advice and opinions. My commitment to what my sons need from me, means this will not happen for about a year if it happens at all. And I am rational enough to know that in a year my life could again change and my feelings on the matter might also change. At this point however I am leaning towards doing it. In the meantime. I have a nice 8 day ride through Death Valley with an Adventure Cycling tour group to look forward to this coming March.

I am having some issues with the fall also. I think for several reasons. First, I have noticed every time the seasons have changed it is a reminder that time is passing without her Winter to Spring, Spring to Summer, Summer to Fall. Second, it is a month out until the first anniversary of her death and I am leaving the time of firsts and heading into the time of agains. Third, and I think this is the main reason I am having a hard time with the Fall, it was the time each year when we started nesting. Springs and Summers were filled with doing things both before and after she died. Fall for me has always been a time of coming inside, getting away from the dark overcast sky and cold winds of Michigan into a home warm with yellow incandescent lighting and dark hard wood floors and the sounds of my wife and kids talking and laughing. Now she is gone and my youngest is away, and the house is quite. One thing that keeps me going is that I know life can change in an instant from good to bad. which means that life must also be able to change from bad to good. Just keep moving forward, embrace the memories and wait for a new emotional / spiritual Spring to return.

Yes I could buy a smaller place when I returned, and while I am gone my sisters, mother, father-in-law, mother-in-law and sister-in-law all live in town and have rooms for my sons to stay in or places to visit for home cooked meals and family time. And with my youngest 500 miles away I have found that FaceTime video conferencing is great for staying in touch with him, that same tech makes staying in touch on a long extended trip much easier. I think I really want to do it, I am just second guessing myself because it would be a very big step and I want make sure I am making the choice from a good place. And this last year riding on a bike has been my safe space. I have done several smaller rides the last being biking from Lansing Mi to the UP over 5 days. There is a real freedom in your only responsibility being to get up, bike 100 miles and enjoy a beer at the end of the day. Kind of a rambling response but there you go.

My wife and I were very into cycling. In fact I met her back in college when she was one of the group leaders for a month long bike tour of Australia. Well that is not completely true. I met her once before in the hallways of the art department and when I learned she was leading one of the groups for the trip I made damn sure I was in her group. I find myself at a point in my life where I have very few responsibilities. The boys are both well on their way to adulthood. My oldest will be moving out at the end of the summer and my youngest will only be home in the summers. I can cover college for the youngest and I don't have any debt. I have the ability to put my career on hold for a year. Actually quit and then go back to freelancing when I return to the work force. I am selling the house at the end of next summer to move somewhere smaller. It is tempting to take a year off, throw my tent and other essentials on the touring bike and circumnavigate the United States. But then I wonder if that will just make me feel more isolated. It is something we talked about doing. Bike Touring. But it was always something we would do together. I am not sure this massive trip appeals to me at this time because I really want to do it or because it is a way to run away from some of the memories that are still raw. This would be one of those major decisions I would talk over with her. But since that is no longer possible I am throwing it out to the board. So, those of you that are a few years out, what massive changes did you make. Are you glad you did it?

I am so sorry Remyswife. I wish you peace in the weeks to come.

This weekend, weather permitting, my late wife's best friend and I are going on a day hike in Manistee. There is a hill along the trail that was one of my wife's favorite places. She and her girl friends camped there several times. And she and I camped there together also. The picture below is one I took the first time she showed me the view from that hill. I remember how excited she was to share that place with me. Saturday I will place some of her ashes on that hill. Tonight, in preparation, I opened the urn that contains her ashes for the first time. It was hard but I think that the fear of doing it was worse than actually doing it. Which seems to be a theme with a lot of firsts this year. The fear is worse than the act. Now that I have over come that hurdle I feel like I can move forward with plans to leave her ashes in the places she loved.

Rainy afternoon here, Wilco is now my spirit animal. I see the third song as the answer my LW would give to the first two songs. Hate It Here How to Fight Loneliness True love will find you in the End

Avett Brothers - No Hard Feelings We discovered this song two weeks before she died. We both loved it. We both had no idea two weeks later it would come to mean so much more to me.

It is coming up on a year since my wife died. Today I was going through old emails and I came across a copy of the eulogy that one of the pastors of my church gave at her funeral. He did a wonderful job of distilling her essence from the memories my family and I shared with him. Honestly I am not sure why I feel the need to post it here but I have never been skilled at introspection so I am just going to do it. It is long, and comes from a very particular world view. Suppose you had never read the Bible and didn’t know anything about God. You open up the Bible to the beginning and you start reading. The Bible begins with a description of the creation of all things. It’s in the form of poetry, and toward the end of the poem, the creation of humans is explained. But there is something unique, a curious difference about humans over all other creatures: They are described as being made in God’s image and in his likeness. God made people in his image—he made us like him so that we could bring his love and justice, his joy and peace, and his kindness and goodness into the world. You’re reading this poem about God creating the world and then you get to this part about humans being made in God’s image. What do you know about God at this point? You know that God creates things and orders things. You know that God creates beautiful and good things. So what can you conclude? If people were made to show God’s image into the world, and God is creative, then people must also be creative. Chris was a clear and incredible picture of God’s creativity. Let me read the first three verses of the Bible. In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. The earth was formless and empty, and the spirit of God was hovering over the waters. And then God said, let there be light. The Bible describes these moments before creation begins and formless and empty. There is no order, nothing that could support life, and then God begins to give things an order. Can you see that this is exactly what Chris was like? God wanted to show you that God is an artist. God could have shown you that directly, but he thought it was a better idea to give Chris a unique part of God’s creativity and then bring Chris into your life to show you how creative and life-giving God as a Father can really be. All of you who know Chris know that she was a designer, a builder, a painter, an artist. She was extremely talented, and extremely willing to use those talents for your benefit. She painted murals on walls, she made new walls and tore down others. She remodeled and repainted. She chose colors, built shelves, and rearranged furniture. Or as she put it in her journal: “I am environmentally and spatially obsessed.” She found joy in making spaces more livable, functional, useful, and beautiful. One of her gifts was recognizing the problems: as one family member put it, “she had a keen insight into the crux of the problem. She saw how it was, and she saw how it should be.” What struck me as I talked to Matt, Chris, Andy, Karen and the rest of the family was that it wasn’t just about making physical spaces more livable and beautiful. It was about making life more livable and more beautiful. It was as if Chris carved out and designed space for her family and friends to thrive. The way she coordinated life for her boys when they were young. The way she hosted parties. The way she helped her mom and her mother in law when their husbands died. The way she meticulously worked to ensure her boys had a great education. The way she planned vacations. All of that was a way of ordering and moving life around so that the people she loved—her family—could thrive. Chris was bringing God’s goodness, beauty and love back into all of creation through her giving heart. She was an incredibly giving person—it’s not something she was trying to be or trying work at to be a better person. It’s just who she was. Constantly giving of herself to make life better for others—for all of you. She wrote recently in a journal, that her biggest achievement was giving birth and raising her boys. When she reflected on her own life, the thing that made her most proud was literally creating new life for others—for her sons. Each of us reflects a piece of God’s Image. We were made to teach each other about who God is. And each of us reflects God differently. Chris was a woman made in the image of God. You could see this in the way she forgave others. You could see it in the way she brought peace and order to a crisis. You could see this in the way she enjoyed nature and outdoors. You could see this in the way she worked with the Motion Initiative, organizing and repairing bikes for those in need. You could see this in her trustworthiness—how everyone trusted her eye, her vision for life, and her gut. She could see what others couldn’t, and that is a reflection of our Creator God. All those moments of genuine care and concern; all those moments of patience; all those times she cared for her family, her friends—those were all the way God chose to show us that God is cares about us. Chris—like each of us—was a reflection of God. The song we just sang is How Great Thou Art. Let me re-read the words to you of the first verses. O Lord my God, When I in awesome wonder, Consider all the worlds Thy Hands have made; I see the stars, I hear the rolling thunder, Thy power throughout the universe displayed. Refrain:Then sings my soul, My Saviour God, to Thee, How great Thou art, How great Thou art. Then sings my soul, My Saviour God, to Thee, How great Thou art, How great Thou art! When through the woods, and forest glades I wander, And hear the birds sing sweetly in the trees. When I look down, from lofty mountain grandeur And see the brook, and feel the gentle breeze. And I would say that when we look at the life Chris lived, and the impression she left on this world for good, this too causes us—even through our tears—to marvel at God’s greatness displayed to us in a beautiful life so well-lived. Chris has left a heritage for us by the way she lived her life. These are traditions and values that she has handed down to you: beauty, creativity, self-sacrifice, compassion, love, service, faithfulness, kindness, and goodness. These are the parts of Chris that will live on in you if you let them. Matt, everything Chris did was for you. Her whole life was for you and your 2 incredible sons. All that she did for you and the legacy she left for you—it is all yours. It is yours to have and remember and cherish. It is yours to give and to share and to grow. Chris’s love was the kind that was present even when she was not. It is still that kind of love. And we thank you and your boys, and Chris’s parents and siblings for sharing her with us. Let’s pray. Father, we thank you for Chris. You brought so much good into this world through her. And that is why we miss her more than words can describe. That is why losing her is so painful. We have lost a great, great woman, and now we trust her to you. As we mourn, please help us and be near to us. Chris is a person worth celebrating and honoring. Help us to know how to honor her—give us the courage to be compassionate and kind and good like she was. And give us the strength to care for each other. Amen

Just give him the gift of your time and attention. Actually I am really bad at gift giving and don’t have any good ideas. But try and not stress to much about finding the right gift or what level of gift to give him. He likes you because you are you.

Just rip that bandaid right off. As someone who was just was on the receiving end of a "your a nice guy but" text I much prefer to know and move on than to wait and not know.

Online Date #1 had a beautiful smile, she had to cancel our first lunch date because of an emergency at work, had to leave early on our second lunch date because of an emergency at work, is not "officially" divorced, has two preschool age kids and is not sure when she has time to date but wants to see me again. To many red flags for me so moving on. Online Date #2 I really hit it off with and we made plans to see each other again, but tonight she texted that she met someone else and wants to see where that goes. So moving on. On the lighter side there was no discussion of genitalia size. . .

1. My oldest son found out today that he has received permission to take two college classes that are supposed to be taken one after the other at the same time. Which means he will be able to graduate on time. 2. I spent the evening playing games with friends. 3. After almost a year of testing the doctors have finally figured out what illness my brother in law suffers from and the treatment they prescribed is working.

The strange part isn’t being in love with her. I always will be. The strange part is looking for another great love who is not her.

Mountain biking Saturday turned into a second Mountain biking afternoon on Sunday. Nothing there but friendship she does not like biking alone I enjoy biking with a companion. Monday’s lunch date had to cancel 10 minutes after I arrived. Her boss called her as she was driving with an angry client emergency. Was a little bummed but we rescheduled later that night and have a m&g tomorrow. it Is strange to still be so deeply in love with my LW and dating other women.

I was going to say something like "embrace the madness" but that is probably what they want. . .

Reminds me of a quote I read in a book by Matthew Stover. “Keep inching towards daylight.” I know I will never have the life I thought was ahead of me. But everyday I try and point myself towards daylight and someday I know I will feel its warmth again.

Bought donuts and brought them over to my sisters to give to my young nephew and nieces right before dinner time. ;D Then I headed back home for bacon and artichoke pizza while watching an episode of Venture Bros with my son. The evening finished up with several hours of video games in my study.

Thanks L2F, I have a mountain biking get together tomorrow and just set up a lunch M&G for Monday. So, yay? As for my Mother she is content to live on her own at 73 and has no desire to recouple.

With my mother it is Everyone Loves Raymond and Frasier reruns. But going over there is still helpful. She lost my father about a year and a half before my wife died. So she know exactly what I am going through. And she lives a block away.

And my M&G canceled on me tonight. She could not find a sitter, and is booked up with things for the next two weeks. Not sure if she is really interested or not so I threw the ball into her court and asked her (nicely) to throw it back if she has a night she can go out. Oldest son is out for the evening, youngest is out until Thanksgiving. The house is so quiet and I do not know how many times I can go over to my mothers or my sisters houses and talk about the same old things. Screw it I am going to the gym. If nothing else having so many empty hours to fill over the past 10 months has helped me finally drop 55 pounds.

Thank you for this thread. It has been helpful. The profile examples somewhere in the middle of this long chain were very helpful in rewriting my own description borrowing parts of them. I hope no one minds. My original about me was written way to soon after my wife died and I shared way to much. I have found after having been married for just a few months shy of 25 years and having only dated one woman in my life I have to re-calibrate my expectations. I think the next date I go on I will go with the expectation that I am just going to enjoy a drink and small talk with a woman and not concern myself with anything past that. One of the men on this thread mentioned not asking for a second date until he has had time to think about the first, and that also seemed like good advice. And it was a hopeful thing to read the thread all the way through and see a few people who were searching and venting at the start of this massive thread and who now have found someone.