MrsT85

We did the same thing, but with our beloved cat, Jingle. She was 18 years old, sick, and we took her to the vet to have her put to sleep. My two sons and I cried our eyes out in that vet's room, when the vet said to pet her for the last time. I told her to go find Daddy's lap.

I seem to be more prone to tears lately, but good lord does this have me going good this morning  :'(  What a sweet and beautiful thought

I just wanted to post this link to a clip from the Vice President on the The Late Show with Stephen Colbert.  As TS mentioned, they are both quite familiar with life shattering grief - Biden has buried two children and a wife, and Colbert lost two brothers and his father in a plane crash when he was just a child. 

I know it's a rather odd thing to say, but I really love and appreciate the way Vice President Biden talks so openly and honestly about grief.  He's such a good, genuine man....

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/joe-biden-stephen-colbert_55f221ace4b002d5c078e29f

I went from a 1-2 cigarette a week smoker (mostly pawned off and snuck with a friend) to a 1-2 pack a week smoker for the first 12-18 months after he died.  I'm back down to just a few a month - usually with that same friend.

But oh boy...did my alcohol consumption pick up after he died.  Holy hell, have I become good at drinking cheap tequila! And while I don't feel the need to get fucked up right after work every day or need to drink myself to sleep every night anymore, I probably still imbibe more than I should. 

I remember thinking early out "Who in the hell would want anyone like me now?" I knew that it would be a rare person that could handle the fact that I would always love LH and more than that, I would always be his widow.

...

Finding new love doesn't erase grief and is not a panacea, as much as I think we all wish it could be. The struggles continue, but more than that, the struggles change to take on new kinds of widow issues such as balancing your new love and your grief. Needing the support of your peers as you move forward is something he may not understand, which is okay, but you can explain that to him.

I was going to write up something along the lines of what Jess posted, but I honestly don't think I could improve upon her words.  My Tim has been gone almost 2.5 years now and I've been engaged to my NG since Christmas, but I still often find myself soliciting the collective advice of this board and wanting to hear others' stories or share my own.  There's really no way for me to "leave behind" the "Tim's widow" part of my life (even if I wanted to, which I don't!) and leaving this board behind would only hinder my ability to deal with new and unexpected facets of this journey because I wouldn't have the support you all provide. 

My NG knows I'm still on widda.  When YWBB shut down earlier in the year, it was him I turned to when I was melting down.  I think he realizes how valuable you all are and how much you all can help in the one area of my life he neither understands nor can empathize with.  I suspect he appreciates you all for giving me an outlet too...

With DH, within hours, I felt like I'd known him forever and that we were extraordinarily fitting, we were perfect for each other ... I had it really easy.  This one is work.  I think any relationship, after the kind I had with DH, would be more "foreign" than ours was, because nothing was more instantly or more intensely home - I don't think anything could be.

Mizpah - this is how I feel about my NG as well.  I'm constantly second guessing myself now because this relationship sometimes really feels like work.  There's none of that effortless "clicking" that happened with Tim and I - which I often remind myself was likely as effortless as it was because of how young I was when we met (19) and how all of our interests and aesthetics aligned perfectly.  There were a few standard things we'd fight about (the usual - money and sex) but when it came to our preferences for almost anything and our values and priorities there was rarely any daylight between us.

It's not the same with NG.  We fight about misunderstandings and misaligned priorties far more often.  But then I have to remind myself - judging by what I see from other couples around me, what Tim and I had wasn't the norm, it was the exception and any of our friends and relatives would be able to tell you that.  And expecting to find something like that again...I guess my "reality check" mantra has become "don't let perfect be the enemy of the good."  I had damn near perfect with Tim, and now that he's gone holding out for something that's not just good but that feels as comfortable and natural as our marriage would be an exercise in futility. 

Maybe things with NG will eventually feel like "home" to me, but not yet.  I feel like we're still on two different pages when it comes to a lot of things about the future, and maybe these foreign feelings will begin to dissipate once we're better aligned about such things.  Or maybe I'm just a naive 30 year old who got really lucky once and has unrealistic expectations on a whole host of fronts.  I wish I had some advice to give, MAW.  But since I don't, I just wanted to chime in with a "good luck" and an "I think I understand." 

Hi Anne -

Seems we share a birthday - I turn 30 tomorrow.  It's my 3rd without my Tim. 

I will echo what others said above - as well meaning as your family and friends may be, as much as they might want to "take your mind off it" for a few hours to enjoy yourself (not understanding that it's not possible to get your mind off your loss at this point, even for a second) - if you don't feel like going out please tell them so.  Being out in public and putting on a brave face at this point is probably exhausting to the point of impossibility to you right now...if you tell them that, they should all understand.

I don't honestly remember what I did for my first birthday without him.  I know I didn't want anyone to acknowledge it.  I think I may have just locked myself in a room with his urn and a bottle of something.  That's the one route I'd recommend you NOT take - isolation and intoxication were a horrible combination for me early on and tended to cause me to spiral out emotionally even more than I already had.

If people want to do something special for you, I would suggest that maybe you all order in from a favorite restaurant?  Maybe (if it's tolerable, of course) even one that was dear to your and your fiance?  And if you want, see if they'll just keep you company while you do whatever it is you need at the time, whether it's talking about your beloved, crying and screaming, or just starting at the wall - all of which are valid and totally understandable things to want to do. 

Good luck tomorrow, whatever that happens to mean at this messed up time.  I'll be thinking about you tomorrow as I'm gritting my own teeth through this no-longer-feeling-special day.  ((HUGS))

What amazing and thoughtful words for both your sweet wife and your father in law.  I'm sitting at my desk at work with tears welling up in my eyes.  What a lucky woman your Chanty was, to be loved by such kind and intelligent souls like your FIL and yourself.

My fianc? passed 8 days ago and it feels like I'm drowning. I wake up to a nightmare I can never leave. What am I supposed to do with myself everyday without him. I'm 27 and moved back in with my parents so I don't have to be in the apartment we shared. The pain is so deep I fear it will live inside me forever.  He was my best friend and soulmate and now he is gone. forever. 

 

I had a dream last night that he was still with me. Laughing and joking and bringing me home treats for the store after he was done work. I woke up.... And back to the nightmare that is my life

 

Someone please help me.

Oh sweetie...I'm so sorry you've had reason to join us, but so glad you've found us.  I read your first paragraph and instantly found myself transported to 4/6/13 - I was 27 too, and I had just found out that my husband had been killed in a car accident on the way home from work.  I too picked up and immediately moved back into my parents' house - it was just too painful to be in our apartment alone, and I was so so scared I might wake up in our bed and - just for a second - forget he was gone.  I was terrified of what it might do to my already extremely fragile psyche to think that he might be back, only to have it all flooding back to me that he was gone forever.

I found the precursor to this board at just a couple days out.  The most helpful thing (for me, anyway) was to realize I wasn't alone.  There were other car accident widows - some around my age, even - and that fact alone, combined with the dozens of others' stories that I read in those first few days, helped me realize that as awful as this was I would likely one day make it out from under the deepest throes of my despair as well.

You've already been given some fantastic advice from some other wonderful members - I second it all.  The next year or two (or longer) will be confusing and hard and you'll over-and-over think that you're going a little bit crazy.  That you aren't reacting in the "proper" way or having the "correct" emotions for your timeframe or whatever.  When you do - come here and tell us about it.  I promise you you'll have multiple people chiming in with ((hugs)) and "Me too's!". 

I know I didn't really start to feel like a person again for about a year...please be patient and kind with yourself and lean on those who want to and can help you.  I felt more like a child that first year than I ever had in my adult life - relying on my mother to by-and-large take care of me, waking up back in my old high school bedroom every morning, spending way too much time on the internet obsessively reading the old version of this site.  It was terrible.  I hated it and myself.  But I made it through and 2 1/2 years later I'm well on my way to building a proper life for myself again.

So yeah.  I've also been that 27 year old on the receiving end of the worst news I could ever possibly hear.  I get it.  PM me if you want - I'll be happy to give you my cell# and you can text me anytime

Thanks for sharing!  Your story paints quite the amusing picture and made me smile 

And as an aside (and one of the many reasons I love our little community) - it's only here that you could start a funny story with:

Last Sunday I went to the cemetery to visit and clean my husband's grave. 

and not only not scare your audience away, but have us all nodding along and smiling with you.

((HUGS)) MS.  I'm so so sorry to hear about your sweet girl.  For those of us without children, they really do become our babies, don't they?  :'(

Oh JJ, that's just so awful.  To lose two sweet baby girls in one day.  Oh god.  I'm just so sorry.  NG and I  adopted two kittens in June, and just the thought of having to say goodbye to them one day brings me to tears.  Our cats are just such dear, wonderful little people and mean so very much don't they?

JJ, I'm so so sorry about this newest loss you and your children have to face.  Our wonderful, warm and loving little balls of fur are so important and such dear parts of our family.  Having to say goodbye to them - especially when we lose them in such a horribly tragic manner - is just awful.  On the list of "bug hurts" we've all had to endure it may comparatively be near the bottom, but there's no denying it's a big hurt nonetheless, especially when piled on top of our other losses.  I wish you the very best of luck (whatever the hell that means in a f*cked up situation like this) in telling your little ones this afternoon.

I hope that if there is a little bit of each of them still out there in the universe, Jim and Peridot have found each other.  It sounds like there was so much love in your household. 

I'm just so so sorry....

Sounds to me like good old fashioned emotional exhaustion. 

I'm about 2.5 years out (lost him on 4/6/13) but I still regularly go though periods where I just feel worn down and defeated, especially if I'm stressed out or worrying about something else.  I'm going through one of them now, in fact, and have been for a few months because things at work have been just awful.  So I'm finding myself back in the familiar headspace where I'm crying to myself every morning on the train and longing even more intensely than usual for my old life back.  I'm just exhausted, and because I don't really have an emotional buffer anymore to handle that sort of thing, it means I'm back to crying a lot.

And this is coming from someone without kids.  I can't imagine how exhausted you solo parents must be all the time. 

 

This widow thing is weird. Some days I can have major, or minor, things happen and shrug them off with a "hell, I've been through worse. This is small shit and I no longer sweat the small shit because I know what is important in life." Other days, a little thing like a bear in my trash can send me spiraling into "I can't take one more thing that I have to deal with because I have too much on my plate already. I've overwhelmed and exhausted and just can't do it."

 

Why am I able to see things in perspective some days and not others? No idea. But I think we all can empathize with that feeling of wanting to just throw up our hands and yell "you do it because I quit!!!" 

I'm with losttogether when it comes to that bear-in-the-garbage not being a little thing   I live in an apartment in the middle of Chicago though, so I think a bear wandering down my alley would mean civilization has broken down and I have bigger things to worry about! 

But yeah, I do the back-and-forth with being bothered by things too.  Sometimes I am lucky enough to posses both the perspective and proper state of mind to handle small things with grace, but sometimes (especially lately) I feel like all of the awful things I've had happen to me have completely worn away what I think of as my "emotional callous" and every new upset will have me in tears, questioning what about my life is even still worth the effort.

It's been almost two and a half years for me, and I still struggle with just being flat-out emotionally exhausted most of the time. 

OMG... I think that one article contains virtually everything I've been trying to say for months. Thank you for posting it. So much truth, at least for me...

 

Lately I've been worried that there was something very wrong with me. Someone told me that I was "over it"-- my dh's death, I mean. That hit me like a ton of bricks. Is that the impression I give, even to those with whom I open up completely? That I've gotten over it, past it, beyond it? How would that even be possible?

 

I was crushed by those words, because they felt like a judgment: You're over it. Your love for your husband has ended, your grief has been put aside-- the implication being that said love and grief are finite, that they can run out. But surely we all know that's not true?

 

I'm not over it. I will never be over it. I may be over the screaming, clothes-rending, flesh-cutting phase, but the love and the grief never end. And please, please, may I never be the person who suggests or implies to someone else that they should be over it, because I know better.

I know, JJ.  Me too.  Whenever I see an article that says what I know to be true from personal experience - that there are some losses that you just never get over, that you'll never be at peace with, and that it's okay to feel like that - I feel so much saner and far less alone.

I think that's the main reason I'm still hesitant to tell people that I'm getting remarried next year, even though I've been engaged since Christmas.  I think others assume that it means I'm all better now, that I'm not still sad and that I don't still wish with every fiber of my being that Tim was still here with me.  People tell me how lucky I am, how good I look now...I get the impression that they think I've moved on with my life and am over my loss.

I'm not all better.  I still regularly examine my new life and - even with all the good in it - want my old life back.  I'm not moving on, I'm not over it.  I'm going forward and trying to live my life the best I can because what other choice do I have?

What a wonderful article.  So many parts of it ring true for me.

Thank you for sharing it

It was a few years before his own car-crash death and he was never in danger at the time (although I still find it unsettling), but my husband actually watched someone die in a car crash right outside our apartment one night.  A young man was driving hope from a bar upset and drunk after an argument and ended up flipping his car and crashing it head-on into a building on the corner across the street from us, killing himself instantly.  As Tim would later tell me, he watched the whole scene unfold from our second story window - his friends following him and then finding the wreck, the wailing of his loved ones when they discovered he hadn't survived, the arrival of the emergency crews.  He said it was a loud, hectic and terrible scene.

I was asleep in the next room at the time and didn't hear a thing.  When I talked to him the next morning, he was shocked that I hadn't been aware of or awakened by the accident.

A few years later, he'd accidentally kill himself by driving his own car into a tree on his way back from his DJ shift at a bar.  It was one of the few nights I didn't accompany him.

I don't have any idea why I'm so unsettled thinking about it, but I am...

TS - thank you for posting that link.  I do love that song - and you're right, it is a really affecting mix of melancholy and hopeful that both comforts and tears your heart out in equal measure.  The part that really gets me is this, as I often find myself imagining my Tim talking to me through music and lyrics:

Guess that this must be the place

I can't tell one from another

Did I find you, or you find me?

There was a time Before we were born

If someone asks, this where I'll be, where I'll be

....

I'm just an animal looking for a home

Share the same space for a minute or two

And you love me till my heart stops

Love me till I'm dead

The first time I heard it after Tim died, I said to him - "I'll do even better than that.  I'll love you till MY heart stops.  And well beyond that, if any piece of me still exists after I'm dead too."

And while the original is great (as is that Iron and Wine cover - thanks again for sharing), I'm particular to this cover that Kishi Bashi did with a string quartet.  The first time I heard it on Spotify radio it literally stopped me in my tracks - I felt the need to focus all my attention on it and immediately listen again. 

OMG, Jess.  You have the cutest dimples   It's so nice to see you and Justin looking so happy!

I'm not in this picture, but I wanted to share anyway.  Here's my New Guy/Fiance with Flint, one of our two new little kitten babies.

And here's me trying to take a blurry selfie with our other little kitten baby Tinder.

Apparently we're already that crazy cat couple who can only take pictures of ourselves when our pets are involved

I get this. I sometimes feel jealous of my friends and family that are still married and doing well. I am in my mid 30's and good things usually happen to people at my age.

Yep, I get this too.  I'm turning 30 next month, so all my married friends have been putting down roots for their adult lives for the last couple years.  Tim's best friend and his wife just had a baby and bought a new house.  My BIL and his wife bought their first home last year.  I was just at a party with my New Guy on July 5th, and it was just a swarm of young married couples with toddlers.  Had Tim not died and all had gone according to plan, he'd be well into his second year of teaching and we'd have a little one who would be turning about a year old now. 

Instead, I'm "just starting out" again with NG.  Thinking about "ifs" rather than "whens" concerning things like even having the ability to start a family, own a home, etc.  It's occasionally rather soul crushing. 

My life should be so much farther along than it is.  And I should be building it with my Tim, the person who I remain wholly convinced was my soulmate if such a thing exists. 

So yeah. I'm jealous all the time.

Wow, thejourney.  A lot of what you wrote really rang true for me too.  I got engaged on Christmas last year to a (usually) very sweet and kind never-married/no-children/non-widowed man after dating for a little less than a year and a half.  I was just three months out when we met, so to me it didn't actually feel like we had been together very long because I was kinda out of my head for the first several months of our relationship.  To him, especially as a never-married man in his mid-30s, I'm sure it felt like plenty of time.  Anyway, it all happened way sooner than I wanted it to, so I asked that we not actually get married until June of 2016.  I wanted some time to live with him and actually combine our lives, to make sure that this is something we both actually have the desire to follow through with.

And while much of it has been great, there's been plenty of times that we've butted heads and had our share of tensions.  Honestly, it's far more difficult than it ever was with Tim.  I *think* it's because Tim and I were just such a good fit - we had pretty much identical tastes and interests and started dating when I was just 19, so I grew into an adult with him as the most important person to and influence on me.  NG found me as a fully formed, badly damaged 27 year old, so I never really expected it to be as effortless as it was the first time around.  And he's also the first and only person I've been with since Tim died, so I don't really have anything to compare it to, in terms of what's "normal" relationship troubles and what's something to be concerned about. 

But yeah.  I have the same thoughts.  He's a good guy.  He loves me and accepts me.  That's enough to make me pretty happy most of the time.  The relationship is work at times, but from what I understand of most other people's relationships this is pretty normal.  I sometimes think I was spoiled, finding someone so goddamn perfect for me so young.  And I tell myself that if I hold out for that again, I'll be chasing a fantasy, a person who doesn't exist.  And life is too short for a fool's errand like that.

I've been an athiest-leaning-agnostic my entire adult life, and nothing about losing my Tim did anything to shake me from staying firmly in that camp.  I know Tim was a hardcore atheist, but I myself have never been comfortable saying that - definitively - there's nothing or no one out there.  I'm comfortable knowing that at the end of the day, I'm simply a very high order Earth animal, and if there is something out there that created us and all of *this*, it's so far beyond my ability to wrap my head around that it would be akin to the tiny intellect of an ant trying to understand the reasons and motivations the scientist had for constructing a vast ant farm.  The only thing I feel 100% confident about is that anyone who thinks they know all the answers to what is all out there and what this all means must be wrong. 

I cannot believe for a second though that losing Tim was part of some just, master plan.  And if it was - if someone or something out there decided the correct course of action in the universe was to take a 36 year old soon-to-be public school teacher from his chronically ill 27 year old wife six months before they were planning on trying to start a family - that's not any kind of higher power that I feel deserves my love, respect or devotion.  I think it's far more likely that our existence is simply random, and that some people (myself certainly included) just roll snake eyes a hell of a lot more often than others. 

ps - Mark, "Dear God" is a FANTASTIC XTC song.  Both I and my dear Tim loved it. 

Huge hugs, AW.  It sounds like you and your Alex had such an amazing, storybook romance and it's so unfair he was taken away from you.  Especially with you both being so very young.

I'm glad you're able to find moments of joy and hope you can find more and more as time goes on.  I understand how the emptiness remains even after we start filling our lives back up...you so badly deserve nothing but happiness.

Love and best wishes as you face this incredibly difficult week.  I know in the past you've written about how clear your memories of your last week with your Alex remain.  I hope you can revisit and take comfort in the happy ones, knowing how clearly you made your love for him known.  He must have felt like on of the most cherished, luckiest men in the world having you as for a wife.  You both deserved to have each other for so much longer.

((AW))

Is it just me or aren't we all kind of 'on the prowl' almost all the time?  Maybe not actively looking but secretly hoping.  Hoping that almost  by accident we will find that someone that will fill the gaping hole in our lives.

 

I think we have multiple motives for checking out those fingers for rings, and at least subliminally part of it is wondering if this one could be the one to make us whole again.

This doesn't sound creepy at all.  I found myself doing the very same thing - almost immediately - and for a while was very upset with myself for doing so.

I think for me, it was more of a "what kind of single people my age are even still out there" thing, wondering if even be able to fill that yawning abyss losing him had blown into my life.  I was 27 and hadn't thought about dating since I was 19.  I figured that by most people's late 20s/early 30s, most of those who were actually good catches AND had the desire to settle down would be married already, and that I'd likely need to wait 5-10 years for some of those marriages to start ending in divorce before it freed up a few of the desirable age-appropriate men my age. 

I am tired of the new life right now. I miss coming home to a feeling of utter homeness, not a new guy. No matter how lovely he is, I still go to bed crying some nights (including last night) over how new everything is when I used to have something so solid. Sometimes I am tired of all the logistics of letting a new person in and trying to share my life events with him. It's not a criticism of our relationship to say I really miss the feeling of having a person who was already 100% an insider in my life.

...Yep....

I think that once we've had that one person who knows us inside and out, where the routines  are established, the roles are clearly defined and a history is shared we want to fast forward to having that again.  It took years to build that relationship but now it takes so much energy.  My new guy gets tired of hearing me say "I never used to be like this" or "I used to be so much better about...".  Just tonight he told me he doesn't care about who I used to be because he fell in love with who I am now.  Now that was extremely sweet and wonderful of him to say but in my head I'm screaming "but I want to be HER again, not this broken version!!"

...and yep again...

No words of advice, just understanding hugs and support and solidarity.  Even with a new great guy, this can be so difficult and so frustrating.  I often find myself nodding at the computer screen when I'm reading posts from you two especially.

I wish you the very very best of luck figuring this beast out, and I hope things start to go a little more smoothly soon for you both.