Guaruj

stolendance -

I'm glad you found us, but I'm sorry that you needed to. It must be quite a shock to lose your husband so unexpectedly, and especially while he was in hospital care. My wife also died unexpectedly while in the hospital, but this was after 8 years of cancer treatment.

I don't know what city you live in, but you may find other here who live nearby. I hope, when you're ready, that your new city offers you some comforting diversions.

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Happy Birthday, Leslie!

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.....someone mentioned crime scene photography, which I have learned is now forensic photography   I jokingly said that I would love that job as I could play with my camera and get paid to hang out with cops all the time.

It sounds like an interesting job to me, too, and I have no actual photographic skills.

I started this thread last month after reading this newspaper story about a man who died in his New York City apartment and remained there for nearly a week before anyone noticed. It's a fascinating story, but I surmised that most members on this site found it too depressing to read. Do you feel the same way?

The reporter interviewed two city employees whose job it was to clean this man's apartment out. Both of them discussed the emotional impact of this work:

Rummaging through the personal effects of the dead, sensing the misery in these rooms, can color your thoughts. The work changes people, and it has changed these men.

 

Mr. Rodriguez, 57 and divorced, has a greater sense of urgency. ?I try to build a life like it?s the last day,? he said. ?You never know when you will die. Before this, I went along like I would live forever.?

 

The solitude of so many deaths wears on Mr. Plaza, the fear that someday it will be him splayed on the floor in one of these silent apartments. ?This job teaches you a lot,? he said.

I am glad that there are people out there who are willing to do jobs like this.

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I want to unfriend my sister from Facebook.  I know this may seem silly but its hard for me to do.

[...]

Do I just go ahead and unfriend now, or in the interest of not amping up the drama wait a week or two?  Perhaps at the new year?  I dunno.

[...]

When it comes to her I question everything and stress constantly and I would really like to reduce that stress for a while and take a breather.

[...]

... this relationship with my sister is so complicated and I feel completely beat down right now that I don't know what is right or wrong. 

Can you take a week or two off from Facebook?  Just make yourself "too busy" to look at it until after Thanksgiving (if you're an American).

The Facebook users here might also help you find a way to filter out your sister's noisy updates without antagonizing her.

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You don't call someone cutie, or sweetie, or any other term of endearment in your first message.

[...]

Who the fuck do you think you are?

I'm just trying to be a nice guy, cutie pie!

...but I agree, it's cheap and sleazy to talk that way to someone you don't yet know.

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Our 10th anniversary came 9 months after Catherine died. I took my mother-in-law out to lunch at a restaurant we all enjoyed.

Whatever you choose to do, I would make sure that it is meaningful to you. It will help if you know that it also has meaning for your late wife.

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It's November, and it should be cold outside here in Massachusetts. I always enjoy soups and stews in the cold weather. This year, I'm in the habit of making a large pot of soup on the weekend. I have a bowl of soup and a small sandwich for dinner each week.

Here's what I've made so far:

• Minestrone
  
• Caldo Verde (potatoes, kale and chorizo)
  
• Lentil Soup
  
• Leek and Potato Soup
  
• Beef Stew
  

I do my best to make soups that contain primarily vegetables, since I don't ordinarily eat enough of them. I made the beef stew when I had friends coming over. It made an excellent poutine sauce...

This article is about the fast-food dish. For the Russian President, see Vladimir Putin. For the Acadian dish, see Poutine r?p?e.

I want to visit Canada again soon.

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Hi Dan -

I also went back to work after 2 weeks. It is, indeed, a transition. I'm glad you were able to work from home today.

Are your hours flexible?  I found it helpful to get to work early and to leave early. I still do that, too. It gives me some quiet time in the morning to focus on my work before things get noisy.

For most people, the only reasons to get out of bed in the morning are work and family.

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Hi Karin -

I liked your story. I hope you will continue posting and tell us more like that one.

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earlyer i had to go to town and bloody hell couples doing xmass shoping i hated just walking past em,,,, just wanted to get out of town, its horrible  with out jo and  the future scares the hell out of me,, sorry for the rant, thanks again

Phil, I hated going out in public for several months after Catherine died. Do you have family members or trusted friends you can visit or invite to your home? That's the only kind of socializing I was able to tolerate during that time.

Of course, I did have to go out in public for regular errands. I tried to keep those outings brief. I also found that if I dressed well, people would treat me better. I could also keep my personal business as brief as possible.

I hope you'll stay with us. I'm sure you've figured out that Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Year's Eve aren't the happiest times for the widowed, especially during that first year.

Hang in there -

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I can both agree and disagree with this sentiment. It's been 16 months since Catherine died, and I honestly believe the quality of my work has improved since then. It was, in fact, improving before she died. I attribute part of that to the fact the she had a home healthcare assistant who also went to minor appointments with her.

After she died, I was back at work in 2 weeks. I started getting up earlier at 5:00 AM, visit Catherine's grave around 6:30 and be at work by 7:00. I still do that occasionally; I visited her grave this morning.

My job is writing specialized software for use in-house by my employer, which is a multi-national corporation. I don't have to spend a lot of time in meetings or talking to people on the phone; those are things that would interfere with my productivity. I'm comfortable working alone most of the day.

I'm a polite person, but I do have disagreements with managers now and then. I had episodes of rage last year towards one manager whose conspicuous incompetence compromised the quality of my work. I currently have a good boss, and I believe that good management is hard to find. I think an unfortunate part of a manager's job is to produce, consume and regurgitate bullshit. Much of their time is wasted in unproductive meetings, and they suffer near-constant interruptions.

I have no management aspirations. I have a lot of talent for what I do, and I know if promoted into management I would suck at it. Any corresponding increase in pay would be short-lived.

So, you could say I'm low on ambition in that I'm happy with the job I have. I have to constantly learn new skills but that's fine with me. If I must give a lot of attention to contrived and degrading bullshit like "personal branding", then my job performance will definitely suffer.

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It sounds like both of you are interested in each other. I hope something good comes of this.

I have talked to him about going up to his shop so he can teach me how to make sausage.

I could say so many foolish things right now, but I'll just let you know that this is my favorite quote of the weekend.  ;D.

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I have a "lonely widower" confession of my own to make.

My co-worker is an amateur classical pianist. He invited me to see him perform at a group recital weekend. At first I begged off since I don't listen to classical music and typically do other things on Sundays. I later changed my mind, though, because this was an opportunity to meet new people.

I arrived at this public hall on Sunday and was surprised to find a nearly full house. I didn't meet any one who was single, though. A woman sat down in front of me with her husband. Since everyone was seated in folding chairs, I could see she was wearing jeans without a belt. She also seemed to be on a commando mission.

So, I confess that I was distracted by the moon as it waxed and waned through selected opuses of Brahms and Chopin. All I could do was smile and listen to the music.

My co-worker played his two pieces very well.  And though I didn't make any new friends that day, I was entertained beyond my expectations.

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Don't worry, Donswife, I've managed to create a pretty real (in my mind only) delusional parallel life where I actually live in a little brick row home in south Philadelphia where I can live with no car, buy all of my food at the little shops near by and spend my weekends in city parks or walking along the river or taking the train to the shore or going to museums and shows and street fairs.  I could go on - this alternate universe is highly elaborate and crystal clear in my mind.....sadly, only in my mind for the time being...

 

This is pretty funny, because I went through a period where I was obsessed with tiny houses. I would fantasized about living in the woods, with my own compound: my tiny house, a tiny guest cottage for when my daughter would visit, with a third common structure for dining/entertaining occasionally with a full kitchen. Living off the grid, or as near to it as I could. Saturdays spent chopping wood for my wood-burning stove. A real hermit's life.

This is pretty much what I did for the first several months. Catherine and I used to watch a Canadian TV show called Survivorman. Each week, the host chose a different wilderness locale to live in alone for 7 days. He took all the camera gear with him and had an ostensibly random assortment of items to survive with. He always built shelter, started fires and foraged for food.

After Catherine died, I watched a lot of TV, including Survivorman. I went to sleep each night imagining that I was sleeping in a tiny makeshift shelter that I had built in the woods.

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We have a "Quote" button which we can use to create a public response to a thread post, with quoted text.  Sometimes I would prefer to send that privately to the author I am quoting - I'd like a new button to build the quote and send a private message to that person.  If I want to do this, especially with quoted text, it's really quite the pain to do thoroughly by hand.

It is possible to do this, though I admit it's not as straightforward as it could be. You need to open at least one additional browser tab or window to do it:

[*]View the thread you wish to quote from.

[*]Open "Send Personal Message" in another tab (Ctrl+Click) or window (Shift+Click).

[*]Click the "Quote" button in the original window.

[*]Select all the quoted text (Ctrl+A).

[*]Copy the quoted text (Ctrl+C).

[*]Paste the quoted text (Ctrl+V) into the personal message form.

This environment doesn't support direct quoting between threads, and that logically extends to personal messages.

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I do find myself looking for a "New Posts" button that is non existent.

The "New" icon appears beside every thread containing at least one post not yet read by you. That icon is also a link. Click on it and it will take you to the first unread post in the thread.

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My wife, Catherine, died in July 2014, 8 years after the discovery of her first soft tissue sarcoma tumor.

After being on this side of the fence, I am so bothered by all the "cancer lore" - such as all the stories in the media about the cancer fighters who win with their positive thoughts. If optimism was a true factor, my husband would have lived till he was 105.

I agree with this completely.

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I just discovered this morning that the temporary offices are actually in the empty offices of the PT place.  So now I will be working in the offices that the last time I was in that room was to try to keep my wife walking and stable enough to be able to go to the kitchen on her own. 

 

Maybe I am just being silly, it is just a room after all right?

This would bother me, too. It's been 15 months since Catherine died, and I still have strong feelings about certain places.

I guess the question is do I even say anything to the people I work with?  Would they get t?  Do they care?

If this happened to me in my current job, I would explain the situation to someone.

Do you think you get used to working in that space? Have you tried visiting there on your own since your wife passed?

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Hi Meg -

I am so sorry that you lost your husband, especially so soon after losing your father. Any reasonable person should understand that this is a difficult time in your life. Nobody should expect you to be "all better" after a few days or weeks.

I feel embarrassed and so ashamed. I am socially awkward my friends are planning weddings and kids and here I am trying  to cope with grief and frantically trying not to forget the memories.

There's no reason to feel ashamed. You're enduring something that most people can't imagine.

I knew that I was "socially awkward" for months after my wife died. I didn't socialize much during that time, and I also limited the amount of time I spent in public. I suggest that you be very selective about who you spend time with right now. I can understand why it's hard for you to feel happy for your friends who are planning weddings.

I hope you continue post here.

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Hi Phil -

I'm really sorry that you lost your wife. It sounds like the pain of this is still fresh to you.  I'm glad you found this forum; there are a lot of good people to talk to here.

I hope you're eating and sleeping enough while you're going through this. You don't need any unnecessary physical stress right now.

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Hi -

I enjoyed your video. I agree with you that hope is matter of perspective. My own perspective may be a little muddy and warped, but I seem to do OK with it.

I also sent you a message about this - please check your inbox.

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Makes a powerful argument for bouncing the last check!

Bouncing a check is one way to get somebody's attention, and that reminds me of another scenario. Sometime between 2000 and 2003, I read multiple stories of people in Germany who died alone, and yet their regular payments - mortgage, utilities, etc. - continued unabated for months or even years. This was because their pension checks were automatically deposited and their regular expenses were automatically paid from the same bank account. I won't dig up the specific stories because I've already posted a very sad one, but they read like science fiction.

One of the ironies about George Bell is that there was one woman who had always loved him, and he loved her, too. The end result was tragic and also profound. I don't want to spoil the story for anyone who hasn't read it yet.

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In this story, they were able to weave together quite a narrative from bits and pieces.  Incredible!

I found it interesting, too, how the author uncovered so much George Bell's personality in his younger and more active years. There's also an odd and poignant irony regarding who finally inherited his money.

I recognize a little of myself in that picture of him pouring scotch into the mouth of a freshly-caught bass. Not that I would treat a fish like that, or waste good liquor like that.  I just recognize that kind of wild weekend with my buddies. Maybe that's one reason why I took a little time to do some housework tonight.

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Hi Donna -

I have it on my calendar. Thank you for setting this up.

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This article from Friday's New York Times is long, tragic and also fascinating.

• Don't read it if you are uncomfortable reading about dead bodies.
  
• Don't read it if you are terrified by the thought of dying alone and unloved.
  
• Don't read it if you're already having a bad day.
  

Still not discouraged?  Here's the link:

    The Lonely Death of George Bell

I spent the entire weekend wondering whether I should post this. I decided to do so because of this conclusion I drew: We all lost our spouses, and it's hard to shake the grief that results from that. But you can take some pride in knowing that your spouse did not die alone and completely forgotten by those around him or her. The biggest reason for that was you, the surviving spouse.

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