Ursula

whoops, I missed this thread completely, but shall joint y'all on the very next Saturday!!!

Joey, that is a beautiful metaphor, thank you.

Oh gosh, I gave a suitcase full of his clothes he had here to his family, because they can use them. I have a box with his drums and other stuff that I will send back home. I have yet to face an attic and cellar full of our combined stuff when I get back home t sort through. I will cross that bridge when I get there. But I plan to pack his stuff in a big box to keep for our son. I don't care if I have to move it a hundred times until he is big enough to make use of it. It is his right. And I can go and look at them, if I want to. I have carried my own stuff around with me from place to place, so I don't really care if there is a nother couple of boxed added to it....no, I won't purge. I am a gatherer.

Hi, I like Maureens' suggestion. Can you maybe team up with other parents in a similar situation and work out something togehter? I really hope something works out for you. hugs

Sorry , Icoxwell, that you feel bad. Understood. It happens to me all the time too. If only I could switch off my head then I could be at peace, but I can't. My thoughts trigger me all the time and there is no escape. What else can we do ? We only have the stuff to hold on to that we have got, damnit, of course we want to look at them, catch a glimpse of someone who was important enough in our lives to send us off spinning in this darkness with no end in sight. Hugs and hope the wave ebbs off soon.

The word widow for me has this stale , grey, lifeless, mate feeling, mouldy and sad. Not a good word. I can't really associate myself with it. It is the loneliness and the awareness that I will never see him again, never talk to him again that is so cruel and that cripples me. I think we should be called left behinds. In German, there is a word ' die Hinterbliebenen' which means ' those left behind' and that is kind of what I feel, left behind. Seemingly without a chance to catch up with the one who has gone ahead. It struck me, when I saw that he was dead and nothing was going to change that, that there was no chance in heaven or hell for him to be alive. When I wanted to scream the wold into peaces and tear life apart.

Hey, dear lady, I am glad you made it back ! I hope your health gets better super soon and that spring brings you some new energy and hope and peace at heart... I have the same feeling, I am sometimes away for days or just can't and when I get back on Widda, I realise how much I missed reading everybody's stories, comments. I miss people from the board if they haven't posted in a while, and they don't even know..weird that, but so it is. Many hugs to you. You have been here ever since I joined the boards and you are always so present. I am sorry you are not well. More hugs.

Jeepers, Photojunkie , you are a spring chicken!!! The suggestions from our fellow widows here sound like a lot of fun and you should have just that!! 40 - so what?? The thing is, on day 1 of your 41. year, the heaven is not going to fall on your head ... Hopefully you can plan something exciting, you deserve it!!

Momtokam, I am so sorry for the loss of your friend. We are so vulnerable and somehow some of us don't seem to get a break. I am glad you got a moment of peace. And it is ok that you did not give your friends family the standard phrases. You told them what you know and you believe and that is ok and they know and are likely glad that at least someone did not join in the general chant. Hugs and may you feel better .

Children are sensors of our emotions. Our son picks it up every time I am down and he will be hovering aorund me and start to talk to me. When I cry he knows why. He just knows .And sometimes he says, don't cry Mama, it's ok. Of course that makes me cry even more. He is 3 years old - damn !! I read him a bedtime story, that is so cute and innocent, it just ripped me apart, I had to stop reading for a bit. I don't think it hurts them to see us cry, maybe it will make them more empathic people? IT is just so bad that we have to cry and they have to suffer it and can't have the happy and energetic parents we could be...

Don't stress. He'll get it. I started by not putting on diapers at home and ask him all the time if he needed to go to the toilet. Initially he had a couple of accidents . I tried to never make a fuss, when there was one. He gradually learned it and now he goes to the toilet by himself, sometimes he climbs up to sit like mum and most of the time he stands, as he recalls his dad standing and because the childcare place he goes to makes a point of boys not sitting for peeing. No idea why, but alas. Summertime (or living in a warm climate) helps, I used to let him run around with a naked bottom at home, and if he needed to pee urgently outside, then that was no big deal. our boy is a bit over 3. I still put on diapers at night. Wearing real big boy's underpants was also an incentive, and yes, Lightning McQueen undies are just too great not to wear.

I teach at University, vet school, and do clinical diagnostic work, our boy is now 3 years old. At the moment I don't have to do night and weekend duties, but as I go back to my old job that will come my way and I dread it. I will go back to work part-time because if I were to work full time , I would spend that extra money on extra childcare, so I don't and I actually enjoy it. I am glad I can spend time with the little one and be part of his life. I have no great ambitions to achieve anything more in my job, that would be worth while being away from our son more. I want to be there for him, since he now has only got one parent. At the moment I work full-time, but have a lot of freedom what concerns time. I really appreciate that. I get my work done still. Many times at home, after the boy sleeps, but so far that has been ok. So when I get in later than others in the morning, nobody complains. That is nice, and I don't have to set the house on fire every morning to get us ready and out of the house. Keep asking myself, why I am leaving this place, but alas, have the option to come back. I don't make huge bucks , but I can keep us afloat so far, so I can't complain really. I believe the problem with promotions is, that in many places, if one is not prepared to put in the extra (over-) time, then promotions are unlikely. Don't beat yourselves up for not being a 100% parent and not a 100% workforce either, it is not possible. We cannot clone ourselves and do two things full on at the same time....

Kat, that sounds nice! Enjoy. It's nice to get attention from someone you can hava a conversation and fun with !!

Oh Maureen, I am so sorry. I am crying my eyes out reading your post. I totally understand that you want to be there for the funeral and I have been told by a Jewish friend, that the Jewish way of parting with a dead is very social and the deceased is celebrated and I believe strongly that helps and hopefully lets you go back home feeling more at peace. Many hugs, Maureen.

Fine grief counseling that is, just closing down. And besides, what kind of business was the YWBB ?? Did they go to Wallstreet? anyway, no warning knowing the situation we are all in is not good enough. Just because it was hard for her, does it have to be hard for us too? I have always found this the stupidest of 'explanations' for a shitty situation. It would have cost nothing to put up a warning, knowing that some people only post once in a while, or at least, offer to advertise the new board on the internet page that comes up , when you look for YWBB. Never mind, thanks to the new team we are not alone again!!

Jen, hope you are feeling better in the meantime (((Jen))). Yep, fiction ued to take me into another sphere, but can't read, could not all this year. I am reading a lot of psychological stuff. Can't deal with love and death in writing, find it hard enough when it appears in movies etc. Have been on an extremely low burning flame for the last couple of weeks too. Just don't even get the energy to do much besides watching movies in the evenings/night when baby boy is sleeping. And I have crying fits all the time and moments of real desperation. And yes, this endlessness, this limitless pain without hope of termination is debilitating and an emptiness that fills my heart , or the part of my heart that is his. Why do our hearts have to break thus, and keep breaking??

Lady, Amsterdam !!!! something to look forward to! even though it is flat as a cowpad there but then again, saves us climbing a mountain!! Sending a smile and a hug

I miss hanging out with you at the cafe and do silly things...

I don't know, but I feel, that the dreams I have had so far of A have been more than just dreams. I have never much dreamt of him when he was alive (I never have of any of the men I have loved before). In the dreams I have had during this last year and a bit, he was always very kind and loving and warm and it felt good. It has not always been that way in real life. I feel like he is trying to help me get through. But I haven't dreamt in a while and I miss it, even if it usually makes me feel even sadder the next day.... but somehow it is something of him, not the perpetual nothing....

Hey MarkB , it's a good place here. I have become mute for periods but it always feels comfortable just to read what people write even if I don't always feel that I have anything to say anymore. But this place makes me feel less alone, and that is good. I am also going to my first widowbago in July and I am really looking forward to meet all these people whom I have never met before. Good luck to you - you found this place!

Darn, Michael, my neighbour came over shouting rudely because the about 10 children I had invited for dinner, including moms, made a hell of a racket, but I believe that is totally legal between 6 and 8 pm, imagine what will happen if I start recording 'Heroes', my voice just does not do itso well...but I will try to give it a try. I say, I will try, I will try I am trying. Heroes, I just whisper it right now to avoid the showdown across the lawn....aaargh

Hola guapa, I hope the trip and change of air helped. 8 months sucks, I remember. Unfortunately it is not, that it feels that much better at 14 months....darn. Wishing you well.

That is great TooSoon, I will think of this when it gets rough. Keep going and YESSS, damn right, YOU made it happen. Hope your positive surge continues endlessly!!!

Hachi, go girl!!! That is a great post of positiveness! Haha, I can see that in the future 2 weeks will not suffice to fit in all of your 20-something personal wants for freedom....have great adventures , come back safely.

Jen, I am resonating with what you said. You know what? This: 'If I have to climb the mountain every single day, can I at least learn to enjoy the vistas? And... is it all right to harbor the tiniest hope that maybe somebody will want to climb with me, one day?' IS hope! It is there. You try to see beyond the dark and ugly fog and I am glad you do. I feel (from the outside and you may think, wth does she know) you have an incredible strength and will to survive and you insist on being happy again. Keep at it, you can do it. I get what you say and so many times when reading your posts I am nodding in agreement, but you've got it in you Jen, you will see the vistas, bit by bit. So, just as a companion on this weary journey, I join you on the way up, let's see if there is a vista once we get up there rather than fog and clouds. I believe we deserve to see the full on panoramic view (damn!). Ha, and then we can have a picknic hugs hugs hugs