ieh21

I wish you all to find someone, a family member, a friend, a pet, to tell you you are loved on this Valentine's Day. You all deserve to be told.

I would like to be recoupled, but I have no intention to cause my life to be disrupted by an active search for someone. So unless someone is thrown at me randomly... On the one hand, I'm pretty satisfied focusing on work, on th girls ans on my life. Pretty comfy making my own decisions. However, sometimes I wish there was someone in my life. I think it's a waste of my romantic potential to be single. I'm also missing the physical part. I'd like an adult to comfort me and damnit I hate changing lightbulbs! But I also know the sotry of a man who died at a 100, widower since he was 40. Raised his three sons alone at a time when everyone thought this was not possible for a man to do. He made the decision to focus on his sons. He's a friend's grandfather. I never met him but visit him every time I'm at the cemetary. It'll be ok, he silently tells me. And I get great comfort from it.

I can do it all. I certainly have. And what I can't do, I can outsource or just let go without feeling guilt. Yep. I can. Except I can't buy a new computer. And I can't deal with all the different crisis at work. And a moral dilemma I find myself in currently. And feeling isolated as everyone's life is too busy to spend time with me. There are times when I cant do it all. And I know it will pass. And I keep doing yoga to keep me calm. And I keep reaching out because if I don't make an effort, I will always feel isolated. Yet I cried today. I cried a tiny bit when a friend told me his wife felt his stress and exhaustion and took the kids away to the cottage so he could have a relaxed weekend. What an awesome wife. How amazing to have her in his corner. I want one of those. Help and support I don't need to organise. Then I dried the tears. I really need a new computer. I need to make a decision. One at a time...

Loved it thanks for sharing. I too lost my CTO, and have become surrounded by the obsolenscence of what was all the rage in 2010...

Sounds like a normal evening amongst wids! The world has been feeling more peaceful recently. I know why now!

Isnt it liberating to accept help? It's so easy to try to do it all, requires less coordinating and planning but you know what, an hour while someone else is in charge, that's priceless. Good for you: yes you can do it ALL. But there isn't a gold star handed to you for succeeding. It takes a village...

My daughter had to do a project about her family. In it she had to write a blurb about each of us. Of me, she wrote "my maman is as patient as an owl". I laughed and hugged her and asked "Uh, H, have you met me? Patient? Really?" Then I read on and it explained I am patient because I rarely scream. I've been spending the past five DH-less years bemoaning how much I lose my temper with the children. So this statement was a real surprise. Then she explained "you dont yell as much as you could. I know you make an effort." My daughter...

I'm glad that the situation seems to be a bit better. Cats become part of our lives (all pets really). Our cat got ill when DH started being very ill. Then DH died and the cat died soon after. My only relief was that he was euthanised as I held him in my arms and I told him to let Joe know that we miss and love him. He was my furry messenger. Good luck to you and your kids dealing with this.

That is amazing. Amazing that you were strong enough to face all of these emotions and still do what's best. You never cease to impress me. You are such a great parent. The bright side for the three of you is that this might bring you even closer. Or at least it can give you more opportunities for one-on-one time. Plus, this is simplifying your life a little bit at least, logistically, no? Anyway, nothing I say will make it fine that he is elsewhere, I know. And I understand that having been the only witness to his dad's life, there's a special bond there too. Something very special. You did well, sadly you've acted against your own immediate self-interest. Slow clapping from me. And hugs too.

This is a great story!! Thank you for sharing it. I love stories of women who break down barriers, and I love it even more when they include men who arent scared of supporting them.

That's exactly it, eh? Everything is balanced on a very thin thread. Even Plan B can unravel...

I feel like I would love this except it feels so fabricated. My DDs havent asked for it, so I haven't offered. But my very Uber-hausfrau friend who had been inundating my FB with pictures of infinite varieties of Christmas cookies has also gotten into it. Kind of fun to follow.

Welcome back. I used to wonder why people hung out at ywbb so long. But now I get it. Glad you found your way back.

My Eldest DD had her third birthday the day after DH died. My mom insisted we host the birthday party we had planned. A small gathering of friends at my house. People were asked to show up despite the circumstances and it was fine until I announced it was enough and you can't imagine a crowd of 15 people dispersing faster. I hadn't told DD about the circumstances of her third birthday. This year she will turn 8. She had no memory of her father, other than he existed in her life at some point. For the first time, I told her about the fact that the anniversary of his death is the day before her birthday. A measure of how young she really is is how little she reacted to this. She certainly didnt see how much of an effort it was to celebrate her in 2010. And that is good. I am glad that she is shielded from all of this. She's just a happy kid who is turning 8 on Saturday and expects a fun treasure hunt during her sleepover with friends. Good for her!

These are the last few days leading up to the 5th anniversary of Joe's death. I've been pretty zen overall, but of course the last five days are not cheerful. However, now I learned that a chronically ill friend of mine has taken a turn for the worse. Not sure if he'll make the week. Of course I feel terrible about this, I feel terrible for his children and his wife, also a friend. But for very selfish reasons, I feel bad for me. I feel crappy admitting this, but I really want him to wait until Saturday to pass away. I want Friday to be about Joe. I want Joe to have that. We are getting together, friends of his and me, to go have a beer in his memory. Both my ill friend and Joe share the same group of friends. I was really looking forward to this. I understand of course that I might lose that now. Maybe some of you will understand the feeling. Or maybe I'm really just a shit for thinking like this.

That is the worst. One night I was hit with really bad food poisoning and as I was being violent ill all I could think of was "thank goodness it's the middle of the night and no one needs me!" Hang in there. They get older and can handle more on their own.

You are incredibly lucky to be feeling this way. Embrace it and be thankful but no need to feel guilty.

When the loss first occurs, we hang on to the thought that time passing will dampen the extreme pain. But we don't really believe it and we're not really ready to let got of it. And then, well time passes and when enough of it has passed, we realise that yes, the pain has dampened and time passing has indeed done its work. It's amazing and I'm so glad it's working for so many of us. Happy Christmas!

My Eldest DD is struggling at school. Aces math but reading and writing are difficult. She's got a special plan and the teacher is all over it. I've got a tutor for one day of the week and the school has a volunteer service for help with homework once a week. Still. She's improving and working super hard but I am starting to worry. I think she might be dyslexic. She inverts her 3 sometimes, she's 8 so we should be past that. Her spelling is improving but it's never easy, and when she acquires words, it's hard to make it a long term thing. She gets 33% more time to do work and exams, she gets reading assignments in advance and she's a real trooper. But tonight I could see it is starting to wear her down. She complained that the other kids don't need special homework tutors and the school does it only to kids who have trouble. It's the first time she kind of acknowledges negatively that she has a problem. I quickly responded by saying that since her nanny doesnt have French as a first language, it's ME that needs help with her homework, not her. That her younger sister would get the same treatment once in school, whether or not she has a harder time learning. I can't be there to help every night and it's important that homework is well done. I told her that even if her dad was alive, he isn't a French speaker either, so I'd still need help. She seems to have been convinced. But my heart breaks and I feel overwhelmed. The teacher and special needs specialist are telling me that she doesnt need to be evaluated yet, to wait until February to see if all the measures put in place get her to improve. But I'm so afraid. I don't want to make a parenting mistake that has a lasting effect on her education. And on top of that, there's a teachers strike where I am so almost every week is interrupted by a strike day. My parents are no help. My father is set in his old school ways and just keeps complaining about the new teaching methods (ok maybe the methods are wrong but that's the system she's in so stop grumbling about it!) and my mom is anxious so freaks me out when I talk to her. Plus she doesnt want the girls to have anything but fun when she's with them, so she's not much for insisting on homework being done when Eldest DD spends a weekend at her house. Anyway, much rambling... Sorry. I just want to protect her from difficulties, I want to give her all the tools she needs but right now, I feel I'm really not helping...

I was promoted when I came back to work after Joe's death. I was horrified. I didnt want to do it, I wanted to coast. I dont think I do as good a job as I would have had. I lost part of my self-assurance and drive. I have to be a leader and have strategic thoughts but I've become all about operations and solving logistical difficulties because my life with two children is like that on a personal level and has morphed into that overall. But bottom line, I have reached the top rung and do not feel the satisfaction I would have felt five years ago.

Dont worry about venting here. It's hard to move forward. If ot helps you to talk to us, that's a small step... Hugs to you.

Yes emotions play tricks on us. When I went back to work, five months after the death, I'd be at business-related events and business acquaintances would come up to chat and offer their condolences. Instead of politely nodding and talking about something else, I would go on about grieving, my DH's experience with cancer etc. i dont know why I thought this was all appropriate and I dont know how I got through life at work. People around me must have been really feeling awkward!

Well I am in the run-up to the Fifth Anniversary. It is surprising to me how much less affected I am by this time of year than I was in past years. The sadness about the loss, the disappointment in what is, the fear for what will be, it's as if it's all become kind of moot. Life is being lived, experiences are being embraced, disappointments are no longer tragic, they just are a part of a normal life. Even the traditions I built to help me get through the first years, the relationships that I was reliant on, they are evolving, disappearing, changing, because life doesn't stand still and there are very few things that are permanent. And while this would have destroyed me last year, the year before, now I understand, I am more patient with other people's lives and their own priorities and the effect this inevitably has on me. For instance, we started to take a one-week trip to Maine every summer with this one family the summer after Joe died. For the past five years, I've held on to that trip, it was central to my year, it was essential to me. Summer of 2016 might not happen. For all sorts of reasons. It will be sad if it doesn't happen, but I no longer see it as a harbinger of a life of loneliness and disappointment. It doesn't represent anything other than an unfortunate scheduling conflict. Also, I threw out all Joe's coats in one fell swoop, without paying much attention. I needed space and out they went. It's only after that I realised why they were still there. What it would have meant to do this last year, the year before. Now it just means I have more space in the closet and hopefully a homeless man will be warmer this winter. So all my feelings about the need for things remaining untouched have kind of mellowed out. That's a good thing. I saw a video of Jonah Lomu's funeral. He was a rugby player from New Zealand, died in November, I think he was 40. They did several hakas in his honour, Maori warrior dances. It was beautiful. They showed his wife. And my feelings went out to her, I wish I could reach through the screen and hug her. Standing there, bravely, with her two young sons, enduring it all. I could imagine all she must be going through and then I realised that these feelings are no longer my primary feelings at all. I have to recollect them in much the same way I have to recollect memories from any past event in my life (my graduation, my first day on the job, my wedding...). It's not longer "like I am there right now". In a way, that's really all I would need to tell her. One day, you will see footage of this funeral and it will be a memory, not a recurring experience.

Interesting thoughts. I have the opposite attitude. I think that it is so statistically improbable for my children to lose two parents from unrelated causes that I feel pretty protected by probability. Having said that, I do have more fear of flying than I did before, probably because when I am traveling for work, I feel more vulnerable. And I'm a lot more mindful of my health for health reasons, which might also be because I'm now in my 40s.

serpico Indeed, hence the paradox. I've thought about the situation itself, and I think an adult equivalent is an old man who was otherwise successful and yet is completely unable to take care of himself when his wife dies. Or my very intelligent PhD supervisor, a great chemist with very broad cultural interests, who couldn't pack for himself to go on a trip or make dinner if his wife was away. My child is independent in the sense that she is a free thinker who challenges things that she doesn't agree with intelligently, without timidity. I trust her to interact with adults so that for e.g. when we go to the amusement park, I give her money and she deals with waiting in line and purchasing tokens herself (been doing that since she was 5.5) In other words, I'm very keen on teaching her at a young age how to deal with the world around her. This in my mind makes her independent. She doesn't always need me to deal with the world. However, I've never really taught her to deal with the minutiae of life in a timely, organised fashion. Unfortunately, to be a successful student, you need both types of independence.