Toosoon2.0

You will get through it together. Same boat. One thing at a time. Lots of love from us. xx

I should have checked in on him. I could have done that and didn't and I regret that. To his fiance - if you join us here - you are in my heart. If we can do anything, we are just a message or a phone call or a short drive away. Christine and Andy

I knew Michael long before he was widowed. My university built a horrendous building for giant classes where I was mandated to teach. I couldn't deal with the technology and Michael was in charge of IT. He saved my life 1000 times in those giant classrooms. Sometimes we'd smoke cigarettes outside the building and make fun of the "system" together. Then, somehow, many years later we realized we were both widowed and got reacquainted. Then I went to his son's tragic funeral. Then he came to our wedding party and we got stoned together. I loved him. A bright, bright brilliant light has gone out. I wish I had had the chance to say goodbye.

I will admit that I have amassed an obscene (but cool) collection of vintage housewares that I have never and will never use. I need to sell them or somehow otherwise get rid of them. Somehow my hard work at the thrift stores and garage sales has resulted both in our not needing to buy clothes brand new (I am a weird non-consumer person) but also, ironically, a lot of random stuff we don't need. Maybe I need to watch that Netflix show about stuff that doesn't give you joy. I have an insane collection of "state plates." and a wide array of specific crockery for 1970-s food I will never make. WHY? Honestly, who needs this stuff? I believe for me it is nostalgia. Finely crafted things from my childhood or before hold some meaning to me and I think that is ok but it also needs to have a limit. Rambling, sorry.

I didn't mean to diminish in any way what you're going through (I was once in a brief abusive relationship and I know how difficult it is to choose to walk away). All I meant was I think we sometimes demand so much of ourselves or the world demands so much of us that its ok not to have it "together" every now and then. I've been sick for the first time in my life and its been really hard both physically and emotionally and it has slowed me down but life keeps racing on, life doesn't care about my sleep patterns or how my illness limits me. Its hard. So I guess I was just sending a wish of solidarity. Sometimes you have to give yourself a day to just drink tea (or wine) or watch tv or read a book - a day as I say to my husband, that I need to get myself back to the center, to get myself back to a place where I can think clearly (and yes, I am writing this at 4:30 am which is not the center where I can think clearly😊). You've been through a lot - I wish for you only peace. xo

Hi. I just wanted to say that I've had a rough year. I don't think it is grief as much as it is just a lot of sh*t all at once and I'm getting older and you know, hormones. I am sure it mostly looks pretty ok on the surface but we've had a lot of stress and illness and death and its just kind of made everything feel really heavy all of the time. It piles up sometimes and leaves me feeling exhausted, reminding me of what grieving felt like but it isn't the same thing. One of the things I have tried to do to keep it all in perspective is to have reasonable expectations for a given day - and if that means I do nothing but stay away from the internet and drink tea and read a novel in my pajamas well then that can be good enough for a day. I am sorry that you are suffering. I am far away in southeastern PA but as Mike said, if there's something we here can do to help, please say so. Be kind to yourself.

Oh sweetheart, I am so sorry. Andy lost both his parents and a sister in the past two years and it has been so sad. It has also been scary to know that its going to be my parents and in- laws next. Be good to yourself. All I have to send is love.

Thanks, Tybec. It really upset me to see how delicate Araia's - that's his name - sense of security is. That we're all he's got. That the bedroom we made for him is the only home he's known since he ran from his home country nearly ten years ago. And the universe suddenly felt very shaky again, like all we have to hold on to is each other. Sorry - emotional morning.

So this could be a crazy rambling post so I apologize in advance. My family went from two to five, when I remarried, and then to six when we "adopted" (I can't think of another way to put it) a young refugee from east Africa a few years ago. I don't really know how to explain how this person became part of our family but he did. He's home from college for the long weekend and this morning we sat him down and told him we might be moving (it is still hypothetical right now but increasingly it looks like in the next six months we'll be relocating). Our house is the first real home he has had in the past decade (and he's only 25) so telling him that might change was a big deal. Anyway, the reason I'm writing this post is that I could feel his panic and grief. It was palpable and real - another loss, more uncertainty, starting over again, one more thing he can't count on. I did everything in my power not to cry but it was so hard to see how scared he was. We knew it was a big responsibility to become a surrogate, stand-in family for him. We knew what we were taking on when we made this commitment. We talk a lot about triggers here and yes, they are real, but seeing his grief play out in real time this morning threw me for a loop. It made me think about how fragile we all are, how the ground beneath us is not as firm as we'd like to think it is. I told him in the end it will just be the beginning of a new story for all of us and that as long as we have each other we'll be ok. I'm not sure he believed me and I am not sure I believe it myself. Thanks for listening. It really sucks to be emotionally overwhelmed before 7 am.

I am sorry for your loss. I also just wanted to say that my daughter will be in her 5th year at Camp Kesem UPenn and it has been an exceptionally positive experience for her not just during the week of camp but throughout the year. I cannot say enough good things about our experience with camp. Hopefully, this will be something for you ALL to look forward to in the coming months. I know CK UPenn has a spring event (a sort of reunion) - maybe inquire and see if your chapter has one and maybe you can take your daughters for a taste of Camp Kesem. Honestly, it is a wonderful, supportive and above all FUN organization - your daughters will have a fantastic time (and you will get a week "off"). Also, in many ways, my husband (GBM - brain cancer) was the primary caregiver for our daughter. When he died after 18 months with the disease, I was a wreck - working, grieving, trying to redefine my relationship with my daughter, while also pretending in public like everything was "normal" and I had it under control - I held myself to a ludicrously high standard and often beat myself up, I now see looking back, unnecessarily and to our own detriment. Please try to do the best you can at a pace you can keep for the long haul. I tried to do too many things, wear too many hats, please too many people and we really paid for that. This, for me, has been a marathon, not a sprint. Things eventually do level out and you and your daughters will find a balance. I know i have with mine (who is now 12 and slamming doors!). It looks very different than the relationship we had before but in time I learned that that is both natural and ok. Sending you support and wishing you peace. And I hope you will utilize this board - it has been a life saver for me and I still rely on it even now. It does get better.

Mike's post made me rethink mine: I am an educator and looking back, I was in no shape to be responsible for a classroom or to be shepherding the students in my charge. I, too, got through it but they deserved a lot more from me. Had I had a different kind of job, maybe it wouldn't have mattered as much but I regret that I couldn't give them my best at the time.

If you can take some time off, I recommend that you do. I took ONE week after my husband died so that my benefits/salary wouldn't lapse and I paid dearly for it later on in I guess what I would call delayed grief. If you can give yourself the gift of some time now, I would take it.

I am remarried and everyone kept the last name they already had. I, too, am an educator and my professional identity is tied to my late husband's name. Honestly, it hasn't been an issue and it hasn't been hard to explain. As with most things, when and if the time comes, I say do what feels right for you.

OK, so please don't crucify me for this but I had an affair while my husband was dying and after he died. It was with my best friend from HS who I have known since we were 14. We fell out of touch sometime during college and I ran into him by chance in a bar a few months after my husband was diagnosed with GBM; I hadn't seen him probably since 1992 or 3. We'd never had any kind of physical relationship when we were kids; rather, we were like siblings. Anyway, we started texting a lot. My husband was very ill, sleeping all the time and when he wasn't sleeping he was behaving erratically and aggressively and it was a scary, lonely time for me and so this affair just kind of happened. I'm not proud of it, and neither is he but there you have it. It took us a long time to disentangle ourselves from each other emotionally (honestly, the physical stuff was minor in comparison to the emotional/psychological piece of it) and while his moving to Colorado certainly helped (I live in PA) we never stopped communicating. And we've still not stopped communicating, though less and less often each year. In many ways, he really IS more like my brother than anything else. When I got involved with my now husband (A), I told him everything. I explained that this person still texts me on occasion because he cares about me and about my daughter (he went though this horrible trauma with me and was really my primary confidant throughout most of it) and he is just checking in. Or he'll text if there's any news on his end. Or if someone from HS does something newsworthy. He texted me a picture when they got a puppy. I texted him when I tried to make bread (he is a baker) and it was failing. Surely, when our parents die or something major happens, we'll tell each other out of that shared history stretching back so far. But the key thing here is, I told A. I told him that this affair happened but its long since over but I've known this person my whole life and he was there for me when my husband was dying and while I don't need or want to talk to him every day anymore, cutting off the oldest friend I have (who was there for me when my world fell apart) doesn't sit well with me with so much shared history and trust between us. But that's the thing: I told him everything, gave him the option to tell me he was not comfortable with that and if he'd had an issue with it we would have worked out a solution. But if I'm reading what happened with your partner correctly and if it was me realizing I wasn't being told everything there is to tell, I probably would have had a similar reaction. But..... That being said, you've invested a lot in this relationship and you have persisted through the times when you did not think it was going to work. And I do not think this ought to be the deal breaker after you've put so much time and energy into this and have discussed long term plans, etc, so just hear me out. I have to agree with Bunny - you've set your terms and you should give him an opportunity to meet them. Though difficult, I also think trying to put the lie/omission and emotional piece of this to the side for now (you've said that you've expressed to him how distraught you are about this so assume he's heard and registered that) and try starting from a place where you're going to trust him to do the right thing, do what you asked him to do. In this way, you can try to set this up to succeed rather than fail. Because, while I don't comment often, I read your posts and I believe you really do want this relationship to succeed. Good luck! (I hope this makes sense - and why so long? Sorry!)

I remember being so so so to the bone tired (my daughter was 6 when her dad died) - racing to get her to school, getting to work, racing to pick her up, take her to activities, shopping, cooking, cleaning up - and all the other stuff in between. And then repeat. It was relentless. I found that most of the time when I did have some time for friends, all I wanted to do was put on my pajamas, get in bed and read a book. I habitually committed to things with friends and then bailed - either because I was too tired or feeling too grief stricken to socialize. I found being the one young widow ("that poor woman") absolutely exhausting in social settings, especially family centered ones and I avoided them when I could. Anyway, over time, I think a lot of people gave up on me, which turned out to be fine because I made some new friends and really solidified my relationships with three families who are still my closest friends. They really stood by me then and in the six years since we've been through more deaths, cancer, graduations, weddings, so it sorted itself out in the end. I also think as my daughter (and I) got older, our priorities and the way we spent our time began to change and that group of friends I had back then really no longer made much sense. Sometimes I run into them now and wonder how I ever thought we had anything in common....anyway, I am rambling. If I may make a suggestion, perhaps you can identify one friend and explain to her/him how and why this bothers you so much and maybe enlist them to try to communicate that to mutual friends? I can think of situations where I should have tried to do something like that - like get someone to explain to the others why I bailed all the time and that it wasn't personal - but I never did. Not convinced we'd still be friends today if I had but it might have led to a healthier understanding and less awkwardness now when I see them at the grocery store........Good luck!

I agree with Mike. By the time any such event rolls around, I am sure you'll have figured out how to manage it. My daughter went to one of those things with a friend's Dad and it was fine - she was probably 6 or 7 at the time and has, I'm certain, zero recollection of it now. In the grand scheme of things, it was a blip on her radar (she's 12 now). Don't let something like those events factor into your decision making - choose the school you think is the best fit for her and deal with those kinds of things as they arise. Good luck!

Silverfish - I am going to guess our husbands had the same diagnosis - GBM? Everything you said in your post is eerily familiar to me. My husband was gone long before he died. In some ways he died the day they cut open his brain and took away his personality. He died over and over again over the 2 years we lived with this disease through both the physical and psychological shifts from the tumors and all of the different medications treatments. For two years, I woke each day not knowing which Scott my husband was going to be and with the 100% terminal diagnosis and 6 month prognosis, I woke for two years every day thinking, "Is today going to be the day?" I kept it all up outwardly but inwardly I was grieving the whole time. For him, for our daughter, for me. This grieving while he was still alive traumatized me with guilt while it was happening and it did not diminish my grief and panic once he was gone, even though those two years were terrorizing and even if I had been grieving all along. Its like the grief double whammy. Things are better now, nearly 6 years later, but I will never be the same again. Time has been my friend in this regard but sudden changes of any kind still throw me, and anything that feels like loss brings up in me a primordial and irrational panic and anxiety, both emotional and physiological. While therapists and doctors swear I did not and do not have PTSD, sometimes I have to wonder. I wish you peace and if you ever want to reach out, please feel free to pm me.

Just sending you a little wish for some peace today and always. Hugs right back to you.

My parents invited their probably 75 or so year old widowed friend and her 90 year old widowed boyfriend to join us for Christmas dinner. I've known her my whole life as I grew up with her youngest son, and I was so happy for her when my Mom told me she'd met someone in the community she checked herself into after her husband died. They were both married probably at least 40 if not 50 years, and so they - naturally - both talked about their late spouses a lot throughout the afternoon. At one point, I said to her partner, "Andy and I are both widowed, too." And he just said, "Yes, I know." and moved on. It was such a strange moment. I felt this little inner voice wanting to say, "But wait! Didn't you hear me?! We're widowed, too!" I was less than half his age when Scott died. No big deal ,and there's not much point to this post but I kind of wanted to assert my widowed status with this 90 year old (and I've got to say, pretty spry and with-it) man I'd only just met (which of course I did not do!). It was really weird!

I'm so sorry you both had to join us here. It will soon be six years for me, but I remember reading posts on the former iteration of this site who were like five or six years out and thinking, "There''s no way I am ever going to survive that long!" Yet, here I am - a lot of changes for sure but - still standing. While this page is not as active as the old board was, I highly recommend getting to know some other people in your same time frame/age bracket. Among many others who reached out to me, I found a diverse group of people early on and we messaged, texted and talked for hundreds of hours on the telephone for probably the first two years at least - our life stories and our circumstances were and are very different but our experience of the trauma of being widowed young was not - they "got it" when no one else did. I also met up in real life with widows and widowers who live near (or near-ish) to me - the first time I did this was at about 6 months. I was terrified, deeply grieving and never thought I would laugh ever again - but at that three hour lunch, I laughed more than I probably had in the prior two and a half years during my husband's illness and after his death combined. Though not as often anymore, I still message with my online group and other widowed friends and still get together with them and the local widow(er)s around here from time to time. I needed this support system badly those first few years. I am certain others here will agree - they honestly talked me away from totally falling apart (which also happened) more times than I can count. Sending you both wishes for peace and virtual support. Christine

Thank you for posting this. I just read your medium piece and can relate to it on so many levels, even if I'm only just now approaching six (exhausting) years. If anyone had tried to tell me that this is what my life would look like 6 years ago, I would have said, "Impossible!" While much in life now is very good, it remains difficult and disorienting sometimes. There was something that was, and it was real but it doesn't always feel like it was real anymore. And then there is now. I think the shock of the trajectory our lives have taken (my daughter and me) has taken a toll on me that is commensurate with the shock of my husband's death. In the beginning, I was very tentative and conservative about making decisions but once I started making them, it was like a tsunami of change and I am still floating in those flood waters, waiting for them to recede and allow for something that feels more like terra firma. I've had enough change for a lifetime. And I say this as a person who knows full well that, with three living, local grandparents edging up on or over 80 in my daughter's life, there is plenty more change on the horizon. I'm exhausted - in every imaginable way. Oh, and I still have a pre-teen to see through what will surely be a couple of *interesting* years.... Thanks for your post and sending wishes for peace right back.

I started dating a widower after a long correspondence on the former iteration of this site. We met in person six months later. I didn't tell anyone outside of my best friend circle for a very long time, until I was sure it was going to be serious. I told my parents because it was long distance and I needed childcare so that I could go see him, but I was much more delicate with my FIL, with whom I am close and whose feelings I did not want to hurt. I did not want him ever to think that my being in a relationship would in any way push him away (and it hasn't). In taking it slowly and deliberately, I feel like I was able to protect the people in our lives who mean the most to us. Its worked out pretty well in that regard and I am grateful. We've been together for nearly five years now; our correspondence started only 10 months after my husband died, when I was definitely not ready to date. So, long winded way of saying, I never dated but if I had, I would have told people right away that I am widowed. It is a huge part of mine and my daughter's story, a huge part of who we are. Do what feels right for you. Good luck!

in my experience, it depends on the persons involved, what their baggage is and where they each are emotionally/psychologically. I "met" a widower on the former iteration of this site. We started writing to each other when we discovered we had a lot more in common than our shared widowhood. My husband had only died 10 months before our correspondence started up; his wife had died nearly 7 years before. His children were nearly grown; my daughter was 7. We both had careers we were committed to. We lived on different continents. It was pretty much set up to fail, but fingers crossed!, so far it hasn't. We wrote for six months and then finally met when he was in the States for a business meeting (he is British). We've been together ever since - after three years long distance, he moved here and we were married nearly two years ago. It all started up five years ago nearly to this day, in fact! The logistics were (and remain) complicated and so were my emotions early on. Long distance allowed me to deal with some of my early grief stuff in private (which is how I needed to do it); our shared experience in losing our spouses (both to long illnesses) helped us through some of the tough relationship stuff; now it just feels like we've been together forever, marked by widowhood, able to move through its sneaky occasional resurgences, but it took us some work, some mistakes and yes, some unhappiness to get here but we have stuck together and made it through. Lest I sound like it has all been drudgery, it hasn't - we have also had a blast and many, many good times both just the two of us and with our children and larger families. That is our story, but we are just two individuals. I think the success of any relationship is entirely dependent on both the individuals involved and the logistics (kids, finances, geography, world view, baggage, expectations, etc.) and how much work, selflessness, love and forgiveness everyone involved is willing to put into it. I just wanted to tell our story so that you know that it is possible. Good luck!

Fantastic news! Congratulations! A 15 minute commute is worth its weight in gold where we live! Happy for you!

It will be six for me in February. There is much, very much, that is good in my life. My daughter just started Middle School (epic in itself) at the school where my husband once was the beloved art teacher. I must be incredibly naive and stupid not to even consider that this was going to be in some way triggering but I honestly didn't. But it is like one triggering thing after another, from a secretary crying when we walked into the building to the guidance counselor telling me stories he remembers my husband telling him. I don't mind it necessarily - and I know it means my daughter is well looked after - but it sure is surreal after spending all of these years moving forward. Really, I just wanted to send you a wish for peace and some empathy. I am happy but I get it, too.