anniegirl

Leslie, the loop. I remember it. It will stop someday. But I find that sometimes, when I am upset about totally unrelated things that loop will try to reassert itself. I can stop it now. It doesn't own me anymore. robunknown, when I found SemperFi's post, I hesitated to repost it. She hasn't been an active member for a long time and I didn't know if I should share it without her say so, but it's so powerful and we caregivers need to hear each others' stories - imo.

You are welcome. I rarely tell my story either and certainly couldn't in such detail. It's too hard. I don't think I have enough words anyway. I understand the need to tell it. Thanks for sharing.

The board will be kept open until March 20th. After that it will vanish. Some of the inactive YWBB members put enough pressure on one of the founders to get her to inquire about the possibility of the site being maintained as an archive only. Lauren's FB note was the response to that. The board will disappear. Anything that remains will be what members have gone in and salvaged - and there are people doing that. Frantically. I was rather surprised when this post was pinned and am glad it was unpinned. It needn't be a controversy but everyone has the right to express their opinion about the closing of the board and the way it was handled.

When I need to get things done and I simply have no "give a damn", I make lists. Daily and really short. And I won't let myself do anything distracting or fun until the list is completed. It's not foolproof. But often, I end up getting most or all of the things I need to do finished even if it takes me a couple of days to get everything crossed off. However, sometimes, tasks just sit no matter what tricks I use and then, I have to ask myself why? I mean really ask and really honestly answer. The answer is not always what I want to hear. At work, maybe the list thing could help you. Or maybe there is another department you can transfer too? A change of scenery? Outside of work, perhaps you need to ask yourself (or have your friend ask you), what has to change about life to get you involved in yours again? I wish I could be more help. Jump-starting oneself is kind of an individual thing.

Admin edit: This post originally contained a post brought over from YWBB by another poster, who has respectfully requested that her specific words be removed at this time. Our goal is to respect the healing journey of all members here, so we are editing the post that contained her words. Thank you all for your understanding.

My husband (also a widower) and I decided not to have any more children (he had 2 grown and I had a four yr old, whom he has adopted) but I have (probably not surprisingly) a fair number of friends and acquaintances from the old board and in life who have had kids post widowhood. Some of the parents were both widowed but I have FB friends who married widowers and have new babies and toddlers (sometimes both). Congratulations!

Yes. That. Thanks for saving it and sharing.

Difficult to pinpoint because my LH was terminal from the day he was diagnosed plus he suffered from progressive dementia - even before we knew what was wrong. When he died (three years later), he'd been nearly vegetative for 3 months but totally unable to communicate for well over a year. And for the last year and a half, he'd been either in a nursing home or hospice. So I know that anticipatory/pre-grief is not the norm but in cases like mine, it's not uncommon. Consequently, when I found the YWBB, I spent far more time lurking and than posting in the Social and BAG sections than anywhere else. My grief was more about me than LH. He'd been "gone" from any active/positive place in my life for nearly three years by the time he died. And I started dating early. Signed up on dating sites by six months out. Met the guy who I would marry (at the YWBB) at 11 months out. Was married again at 15 months out. But I know several widows, whose spouses died suddenly or after shorter illnesses, who were married within the second year - more or less. I think when the future is more of your focus than the past. When you can deal in the everyday and it's more than just surviving, you are "beyond" or making progress to it. But one thing I have noted is that this is not a linear journey and it's not without plateaus. We double back or take side roads. Sometimes we stop for periods of time. Adults are more caught up in their sadness than children but in some ways we do grieve like kids because after the initial body blow, our every days lives and the taking care of business aspect do pull our attention away. Kids are more open to letting themselves live. Grief isn't such a job to them. We (not trying to over-generalize though) put grief on our "to do" list. Maybe that's where we get into trouble. I think, just a personal observation, that it's a mistake to believe that there's an endpoint or a tipping point. One day - you just become aware that you've arrived. Partly a fake it til you make it and partly because it's difficult to see yourself change while you are changing. You can only note it after the fact. If you are reading here, you are working towards being here, imo.

My late husband's father was killed in a car accident when he was seven. His mother (my MIL) was just 33. She dated but never remarried and is still alone (as far as I know b/c she isn't part of our life - long, irritating story). LH was always sure he would die young, "All the men in my family do" he would say and sure enough he was right. However, he had definite ideas of what I should NOT do as a widow based on his observations of his mother. My MIL has issues that she carries from childhood that widowhood simply made worse, but three things that she did as a widow really formed LH's opinions of do's/don'ts. She stayed single. He thought this was a mistake for her and for him because there was never really any happiness as a family again for either of them. Just loneliness. Feeling different and isolated. And, financial struggle (not endorsing LH's opinion that marriage is good for financial reasons but that's what he believed). The other thing is that she "sainted" her LH, who was anything but a good husband/father (he was barely a decent person just judging from the stories LH told about him). She set him up as to perfect to replace and this made it difficult for her to date or for LH to bond with the one guy she did date seriously. The last thing is that she expected LH to grieve as furiously as she did. LH was seven when his dad died and the man was abusive. LH's feelings were always conflicted and his mother's expectations of preserving a false memory of the guy didn't help. So LH told me, "if I die young, I want you to date, marry and allow your next husband to be a father to any kids we have." Basically he said, "don't get stuck". It's interesting in retrospect because my widow role models - while most didn't remarry - were strong, vibrant mostly happy confident women. Widowhood was just something that happened to them but it didn't beat them down. Does that make sense? So between LH's "blessings" and advice and my own family observations, I viewed my own widowhood has simply something that I needed to make my way through to the next chapter of my life. I was impatient and I had missteps but I never doubted (completely) that I would not date, remarry and build a new life. This is an interesting conversation because I think how we saw widowhood before becoming widows does impact our path.

Chrispy89, the FB group is called YWBB'ers. I don't know who started it. It was a bit derelict and when the board closed suddenly, someone began adding all the former active members to the group, which is how I got on. It grew by about 150 over the last weekend with people just adding as they were added. It's mostly old members. Anyone is welcome as far as I know. One thing to add about the abrupt closure, which I have mentioned to a few ppl privately but didn't want to speculate much on in an open forum (because it's just guessing) is that there may be legal actions going on that the founders aren't able to discuss. Just a "food for thought". But that shouldn't have prevented a bit more kindness in the way things were handled.

There's no pressure. No hurry. The one year mark has such an epic milestone aura about it that we forget it's only one day more than yesterday and one less than tomorrow and nothing momentous is likely to happen or change from yesterday to tomorrow accept that a couple more days have passed by. When the time comes to write, paint, sculpt, create whatever to express yourself and what your time together, and now apart, has meant - you will know and the expression will come. Numb is normal. Getting to this day is exhausting in many ways. You did good. And if you want to sleep in another room or on the sofa - do it.

I still feel thrown back when I encounter people with dementia. My husband suffered from it as part of the progression of his illness. I can't even watch movies or tv where a character has any kind of memory loss (and it's often used for comedic purposes, which makes it even worse). Sorry you had back to back rough encounters. Good to hear that your Mom is going to be okay. It gets easier over time but there might be things that are always just uncomfortable or hard. You learn to deal with it though. Or avoid. I like avoid but I can deal too. It's just a time thing.

I'm hanging about for a while. I feel quite strongly about this board getting off the ground. But those of you who are newer, do me this favour? Remember that you know you best. Feel free to take what you can relate to, what fits you and your life, needs, values and hopes and no more. Honour yourself always because your gut (like mine was) is probably your best guide most of the time anyway.

Widowat33, we probably could if we had that kind of time on our hands. I think there might be someone who is trying to save some of the longer, long standing threads. I will ask and see if they have gems to share. In the meantime, no one should be shy. No, wait. There were shy ones. They would create alias accounts to post their racy stuff ... and not just on this thread.

lcoxwell, I can't even count the number of days my students didn't get me at my best. You did better than I did on the first anniversary. I called in sick. I was but in better times it wouldn't have kept me home. You did good!

Been so long. I forgot that Pentha started this one. Thanks for the reminder. My favorite (because I could relate to it) was about clothes: If it's on the floor, it's dirty. In the basket, it's clean. And all these years later, this is probably still true. At least about clothes in a basket. My family has had to adjust to the new normal of wrinkled clothing.

Well done. Again. I know I said I wasn't going to post :-[, but it looks like I am - for now - because I agree that posting is what will build this site and establish it as a good place for widowed. 7 months, eh? I thought you were an old hat. Grace under pressure for sure.

Professional widows! LOL. You go girl. I know exactly who you are talking about. I am friends with a few of them even (and yes, they know how I feel about it.) Just my two cents? I haven't posted publicly at the YWBB since 2008. I even deleted most of myself when I left. So I get completely what you mean when you talk about how disturbing the shut down has been. I was a lurker and not that often but it's like "a great disturbance in the Force" the past couple of days. And by the way, I do remember you. Stay. I am. Til the transition is done. This new place is good and it deserves a good start. A base for the history that it will one day have. There are a few other "old folk" posting. Eventually this place will be up to speed and we go back to lurking, posting maybe or sending the occasional PM. Leaving, to me, means that the professional widows win. The founders told us on FB to send folks to Soaring Spirits, a bastion of professional widowhood if there ever was one, and while those entities have a place, I prefer (and think) that organic sites like this one are really best. Where real connections are made and where even the darkest feelings can be shared - because you know someone else is going to say "yeah, me too." Stay. Be a founder.

Anniversaries sometimes bring me around to peek in. Read. Sometimes I find myself wondering about this or that person I met here but lost touch with, so I check to see if they've posted (sometimes they had) and the interesting thing about the closing of the YWBB is that I have rediscovered people who I thought I'd never "see" again. A strange but welcome bonus. Mostly, though, the board was a real place for me. It's where I met my second husband. I liked knowing it was still there. The absence of it going forward is very real for me. I want this place to flourish and be a real place for others, so I will stick around a bit before going back undercover. As a newbie I liked the BAG section. It was more hopeful than not. I liked seeing that there was a future and people living it. I still like the BAG section best. Because of the hope but because it's also a place where - occasionally - one can still look back. Marvel. Regret. Wonder. Question. And know that probably someone can relate. No matter where they are at on the journey.

This was just shared on the YWBB FB group. They gave permission to share. 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. I had noone to connect with, no local groups, and nothing on line. I created it out of need. that will happen again. 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, and it's not that we stopped caring or have moved on and forgot about anyone. I am so beyond touched that this little idea of mine has grown to help so many. I'm glad I was able to help. Now I am helping in other ways, I run several local young widow support groups in my area. You and your buddies and the newbies.... I assure you someone will step up and create something even better than the ywbb. it was amazing at the time, but its time, not ours, has come. Thank you for reading this and understanding that it was a business decision made based on many factors that not everyone is aware of. Please feel free to share this message. thank you, Lauren

He was 29 when he was finally diagnosed. A very rare metabolic disorder that resulted in his immune system attacking his adrenal function and stripping the myelin covering the nerve endings in his spine and the dura matter around his brain. His initial symptoms mimicked mental illness and he was mis-dignosed (when the DRs even believed there was anything wrong with him) for nearly a year and a half before he had a complete collapse and I forced a very dismissive ER doctor to do a complete medical work up. By the time we were referred to a neurologist, all the man could do was apologize profusely because it was too late to do anything. His company had fired him when his illness began to progress. They had no choice, I know, because his behavior was scary, but it left us with just half our income. I came very close to losing our home but for my wonderful auntie who paid our mortgage for the 10 months it took to convince Social Security that he was dying and to put him on disability. Fighting with Social Security and the state social workers was nearly a second job for me during that time. He was nearly blind. He had dementia. He lost the ability to control his limbs. Was incontinent. You haven't lived until you've changed your baby's diaper and your husband's every morning before taking each one to their respective day cares and going face school full of junior high kids, teaching all day long and then heading back to the day cares to pick up them again. That was my life for a year and a half before I was forced to put my husband into a nursing home because the doctor told me it simply wasn't good for him or I to continue keeping him at home. Aside from my best friend and her husband, I had no help. My own family lived hours away and his family was useless (when they weren't interfering or complaining to anyone who would listen what a terrible wife I was). The second year was me alone. Still barely making ends meet. I borrowed money from my parents to go back to school to get my masters because I needed to replace the income we'd lost and advancing my degree was the only way to do it. I worked. I parented. I took weekend classes. I visited my husband in the home. Watched as he forgot how to walk, talk, eat. Become this inert mass that was once the man who I loved and who could love me back. Who changed my life in ways I really had given up on believing in. All slipping so slowly away. I wondered if he was still in there. Did he understand? Did he hate me? There was no way to know. No way to communicate. He spent his last three months in a hospice. He couldn't swallow normally anymore. I wouldn't let them put a feeding tube in him. He wouldn't have wanted to be kept past his time. He had a horror of this kind of lingering death and had made me promise - long before when we still thought we were invincible - that should something happen to him, I wouldn't let them "keep him alive" if there was no hope. There was never hope. There was only what happened waiting for us. The night he died, it was just he and I alone in his hospice room. I could hear the woman in the room next door. Death rattles are loud. They fill a room. Spill into the hallway. We'd been at the hospice so long that even my then three year old daughter could recognize it and would say. "That person won't be here tomorrow, will they Mama?" I never shared my story - not much anyway - at the YWBB. It was too soon. Even typing this has reduced me to a puddle of regret and pain. Even after nine years, I can't tell this story and not feel it. Which is why I don't tell it. Because you can't live in the past and you can't settle in the sorrow and hope to move on to where you are supposed to go. And because telling it honestly makes it feel like a contest. It's not. It's just what happened to me. To us. It's our story. Like your story is yours. My life has changed a lot over the past nine years. I've married again. I moved to another country. Life is better than I ever dreamed it could be again. Mostly the scars don't show and mostly, I am the only one who can see them when they do. I worry a bit that if I had to do this again, I wouldn't be able to. I don't know that you can know ahead of time how you will fare. Even now. Even after having done it, I can only hope that I am stronger than I think should lightening strike twice. My first husband died twice. First dementia and then pneumonia. I think the first death was the hardest for me. The death of his body was freeing. For us both. If you've gone through a long illness before losing your spouse, I know you know how exhausting it is emotionally and physically and that recovering from that is just as much work as grieving the death is. Those of you who are new to all of this widowhood stuff? Whatever you are feeling, it's normal. It's not just you. You are not alone. And someday, when is different for us all, things will be okay again. It will never not hurt. But it won't hurt constantly. It gets better. Really.

It's a real thing but I don't think it's a given in situations when a illness is terminal. As Barney points out, correctly, where there is life there is hope, but not all illnesses offer much of either. By the time my husband was diagnosed, he was suffering from moderate dementia. His illness had defied the doctors ability to pinpoint for so long, there was nothing that could be done except wait for it to run its course. And it was a long course. Three years. That's a long time when you are living with someone who isn't the same person and really doesn't know who you are anymore. Has forgotten the name of the child you share. So for me, pre-grief? Oh yeah. Whenever things slowed down between full-time job, raising a toddler on my own and taking care of a man I didn't know and who didn't know me - I grieved. Hard. I grieved the life that was gone and the future that wouldn't be because all there that was left was a limbo like now. I would guess it is very different when your spouse is still your spouse and your marriage is still your marriage, but in situations like mine, where everything is gone but the day in and out of care giving, anticipatory grief is very common.

Thanks, MissingJoan. I didn't know Kristin but she touched a great many lives through her posting and it's good to see this particular one saved. I hope everyone knows that this is now theirs to add to now. Take it and make it your own.

Thank you Jess for your quick thinking and action (again - lol). I am not an "old-timer" b/c I wasn't part of the founding set of the YWBB but I am from a time before the majority of you and my account has been dormant for a while. I peeked in from time to time but didn't want to intrude. I did re-up, as I hope others will, but haven't any plans to add to the conversations (beyond maybe at some point sharing my story) b/c I think that sometimes, it's better (maybe best) for people to grieve and heal with other who are "in it", and for those of us who are many, many years past and on to new lives to just keep our opinions to ourselves. But that's jmo. I can tell you that the founders didn't close the board lightly (though I think they should have been more upfront with the current active members than they were). They would have kept it up if they could have. But if I were you, I'd be angry too. A lot of history (and I spent a lot of time searching the old post at YWBB) will be lost that is valuable and helped me a lot. So, this is probably my only post (again). But I wish you all well in your journeys. It is a journey, imo, though one that no one signs up for or enjoys. You will get through it. Everything will be different, but someday it will be okay again and it might even be better than okay. Back when I lost my first husband in 2006, the only thing I wanted to know was "when?" will it be okay. Where is the end of this? There's happiness again, right? It does. There is. I can't put a finger on when that day arrived. Not even in retrospect. It sneaks up on you day by day. But it arrives for the vast majority of us. Most of the people I met at the YWBB, and still am in contact with, are settled and well today. I am married now (to a fellow wid I met on the YWBB). Life is good. Never let anyone tell you there is a right way to grieve or rebuild. There's your way and what's right for you is right. Don't compare yourself to others. Don't worry if your drumbeat is different. Don't ever doubt that you have something valuable to share or that what you share isn't the one thing that someone else really needed to hear today. Good luck. As the venerable Ann E. always reminded us way back in the day "be gentle with yourselves", and remember, even when it doesn't feel like it, it is going to be okay again. Really. It will. Annie