mikeeh

This such a stupid thing, and maybe a little pathetic. I just finished watching the final episode of Mad Men. It was such an emotional and devastating event. It was the last of 'our' shows still on the air after almost 2 years. She loved the show and it was such a great show to watch together. I can remember sitting with her and watching with her and commenting about what we were watching. She loved the fashion and the home design, decore. Of course she didn't mind looking at John Hamm either. Such a contrast of watching so much of this series together and watching the series finale alone. Nobody to talk to about how it ended and what happened with the characters. Nobody to share the loss of a whole cast of characters that we have gotten to know and invested in over these many years. After almost 23 months it is like losing one more little piece of her, one of the few I have left. I know it is stupid to invest so much into a tv show. Some people had vacation homes or trips or maybe more significant things to signify their relationship and what they had. I guess we just weren't that adventurous or exciting a pair, which made us a good couple. We had neither the money or ambition to be world travelers. Between work and our son our bonding experiences were through the incredible tv shows like Mad Men. Now it is gone and I have nobody to hare that loss with because it only highlights the bigger loss that already happened. I could almost see her sitting with me watching, almost hear the comments about the dresses the ladies were wearing or the furniture in the houses. All this over a stupid TV show.

Fellow Wid parents, a question for you. How, or do you have a social life now that you are a single parent? I have one son and he just turned 16. He is old enough to be home alone if I wanted to go out and do something. And a couple nights a week I do go out for a little bit. Once a month I have dinner with a widow group I am a part of, but none of it is really social like dating or anything. Being an only child if I went out I would be leaving him home alone. Again he is old enough that it would be okay. But there is a kind of symbolism to leaving him home alone that I can't bear. He has already lost his mom and now am I leaving him too by going out for my own social life. He pretty much hangs out up in his room and I don't see him much but I feel I have to be there when he does come out of his room. I expect that fairly soon he will get his own social life and start going out himself, which I guess would free me up to do the same. So are there any other Widows/widowers that have come up with a way to have your own social life if you are the parent of a teenage child? Thanks

So my son, our son, turned 16 yesterday. The day after mothers day. What a terrible thing to hit such a landmark birthday without his Mother. What is worse for me, but maybe better for him, is I don't even think he realizes what he has lost or what he is missing by not having his Mom here for such a significant birthday. I can only try to remember and think about how happy and excited she would be to be here for her son's 16th birthday. It has been so long, gone for almost 2 years and so sick for years before that. It has probably been close to 6 years since the happy, loving, nurturing mother was a part of his life to shower him with love and be the emotional foundation and rock solid support for him and the whole family. Over a third of his life and I doubt if he even remembers what it was like to have a Mom that would hold him and hug him. The mom that would sit with him in a chair when he didn't feel good under a blanket and he could just curl up against her and feel better just being close to her. I know what he is missing though. I can picture what it would be like if she were here and healthy. How proud and happy she would be to see her little boy growing up to be a man. A man getting his permit soon. He wanted his mom to teach him to drive. I guess he was afraid of me being too impatient. I guess he has no choice now.

Happy Birthday Maj.

I think we all do it to ourselves at one point or another. Sometimes I feel that if the pain goes away then I will lose what I have left of her. I will spray her perfume in our room too sometimes. As I approach hitting the two year mark, just under 2 months from now, it all just seems to be slipping away. It already is starting to feel like that part of my life never really happened. Just a movie I saw that I have a very vivid memory of seeing. I think one way I have of twisting the knife a little is taking my ring off on the 2 year anniversary date.

This is why it just burns me when people try to compare their losses to our loss of a spouse. Nobody feels the loss like a spouse does, from the second we wake up in the morning to the minute we fall asleep at night. It may flash into their heads that their parent/sibling/friend isn't there anymore but it is a constant screaming neon sign in our head that only gets brighter the more we need someone to talk to. Sorry for the suffering and the loss. We all know we are alone on this trip and it is just more obvious at those 'special' times

Excellent description of the sneak attacks that our widow brains launch on us when we let our guard down Just Jen. It may not result in a torrent of tears but the gaping maw of emptiness vastly expands inside me and takes over what little I have left inside me. It isn't even a trigger event sometimes as much as the perverse wandering of our my mind and thoughts. I was walking the dog tonight thinking about getting home and making dinner. Also thinking about the 2 new shirts I have in the bag that I have to iron before I can wear them to work I have had them for 2 weeks but with fighting off a cold last weekend I didn't feel like ironing last weekend. Not a natural thing for me to do. That's when the mind wanders to when I would have her to iron my new shirts, or make dinner or both. The days when I had her to help me pick out new shirts and help me pick the right size. Not to mention help me with some soup or something when I had a cold. Maybe mine wasn't one of your griefquakes as much as a grief eclipse. I hope yours pass quickly Jen, and you are able to get your normal mask back on when you feel like wearing it again

Hope you day went okay despite being the day it is to you. It is funny how we prepare ourselves and steel ourselves for the 'big' days like the 1 year mark or our first anniversary without them. It is these slightly off, unusual anniversaries that can really knock you for a loop. Something that people who aren't in our shoes don't really understand. They can't figure out why 13 months is so hard, and really we can't figure it out either. We just know it is. So again, hope you day was okay.

"Who will post for me" Wow Jen, never really thought of that. It is hard to realize that when I go nobody will care. Nobody will be devastated and destroyed and their life turned upside down. I guess that is a good thing because it isn't a good thing to be the one whose life has been devastated by loss. I always said when she was at her sickest that at least she gets to die.

The additional problem is that death is no longer an abstract concept for us, or at least me. The idea that you will be in the position to need that kind of help is much more of a given having been through it once. It happens, most of us know it happens because we just got went through it. The idea that it will happen to me isn't an 'if' it is a when. Those of us who are facing illness, like Maureen, have had to deal with the question in actuality and not just the 'what if'' speculation.

A widow/er's brain is a dangerous thing. So random, so uncontrolled. I was getting in the shower this morning and for some reason a strange random thought wandered through it. Maybe because I cleaned the tub, maybe because I was wondering how to sell or donate the tub bench we used for her. In the shower this morning I remembered helping her in the shower getting her in and out and helping her wash up when she was in her later weeks/months/days. I remember helping her because she was so unstable from the neuropathy in her feet. I was thinking about how often I would have to assure her and let her know "I got you." as I helped her in and out. How scared and unstable she was and how many times I had to assure her, "I got you." Then the lonely, selfish widow brain kicks in and make me wonder, whose got me? Who will be the one to help me in and out of the tub, or bed. Who will help me up the stairs when the time comes that I will need it. There will be nobody to be there for me when it is my turn, but as bad as that it I am glad it won't be her having to go through this for me.

I am just over 21 months and it has never seemed more unreal than it has felt lately. There is the disbelief that anyone this close to me and as integral a part in my life could have died. That death could have hit this close to me and my life. There is also the feeling that the whole 22 years I had with her was either a dream I had or a movie I saw. That the security and and feeling of contentedness that I thought I had for all those years with her never really happened. This emptiness and loneliness has just always been my life. That time that I had someone to talk to and someone who cared couldn't possibly have happened. All just a dread, or a very good movie that I have absorbed into my own memory.

I am thinking that the ring will come off in the spring. At almost two years it may be time to start getting rid of stuff like her vanity. As long as I am going to stop pretending that I still have a life I may as well go all the way and take the ring off too.

I seem to remember hearing or reading someplace that oncologists won't take chemo if they are diagnosed with cancer. Mabe not as an absolute but a very high percentage like 75% or something like that. What does that tell you about their opinion of chemotherapy? I think the wear and tear of the chemo on my wife's body helped greatly to shorten her life. The chemo finally stopped because her body couldn't recover enough to be able to take another treatment I know I always wanted to know as much as possible about what was going on but getting a straight answer from the Dr was almost impossible. I think there is a very fine line between hope and them avoiding the difficulty of giving a more realistic prognosis.

I often think that I don't really expect much of people. Yet I find that no matter how low my expectations are of people they manage to continue to fall short. I guess the only way to not be disappointed or hurt would be to not expect anything from anyone and not let them get in a position to hurt or disappoint me. Sure sounds like a lonely life but that may be just the question of lonely with periodic bouts of pain or just lonely.

Being my first official post on the new, new board I must first thank those wonderful people who stepped up and started a new board for us. I was not very active on the old YWBB board lately but almost losing the forum I guess has spurred me onto be more active and 'coming home'. I am 21 month in this new 'life' of mine. Just a few months shy of finishing year two. A couple pieces have just fallen into place and I realized that I don't think I could ever trust anyone enough to not be alone again. I think that many of us have experienced the loss of friends or distancing of family out of awkwardness or fear about what you are going through or hae gone through. I think maybe mine was an extreme circumstance. During the 5 years of my wife's illness I heard little or nothing from any of my friends or family. In the later years when he decline was significant and care giving much more hands on and involved I heard nothing from my family or my friends. As a result when I finally lost my wife I decided that I would keep in touch with all of those who were there for me and there for my wife during her illness and eventual death. For those keeping score at home that would be nobody. I have not talked to any of my siblings for over a year and a half. My 'friends' I have not heard from or wanted to hear from since the funeral. It has just recently dawned on me that the result of this betrayal is that I don't think I will ever trust anybody to any significant degree again. Not only in establishing new friendships for just hanging out and doing anything, but also for any other 'soulmate' or partner that I would hope to find to spend my life with. The actual realization that I will be alone for the rest of my life is quite the bummer.