MrsT85

Great idea for a thread, TS! Thanks for starting it, and good to see you here Here's one I found about a year ago, from the solo project of one of the members of fun. called Bleachers. It's written (I'm assuming) about his sister, who died of cancer when she was a young teenager. So even though it's grief in a different context, it still felt very genuine to me: And here's one from the same James album as "Moving On." It's the closing track, and when I first heard it a few months ago it just stopped me in my tracks. I was home by myself, just making dinner and giving the full album an inaugural listen. When I heard this song start though...I couldn't even split my attention. I just needed to stand still and listen. It might not seem "inspirational," but I don't know. It's devastating, but the last lines are still "I'm missing you and all the worlds you opened up to view, I love you, See you next time." I guess I find it comforting and inspiring because a silly part of my brain still feels like I can connect to him through music. I still feel a bit of his hand when I find new things that seem to speak to me so perfectly. It feels earnest and honest and painful and hopeful all at once.

What a wonderful way to put it. I too was surprised how upset I was when I learned of YWBB's demise. At first I thought, "I'm about to move in with my new fiance. I'm getting married again next year, so while I'll miss this little community, I don't think I really NEED it anymore." The more I thought about it though, the more upset I became. After a couple of hours of thinking about life without my young widow community, I was in a full-on panic the likes of which I haven't experienced in months. When the wonderful MrsDan texted me to tell me about the new site, my relief was just as intense as my panic. The mothership might be gone, but I have high hopes for this new rescue vessel we've all piled into. The crew cares a hell of a lot more and is much more present and supportive. I think I'll grow to love it here just as much.

I totally get this. My Tim and I would have almost the exact same conversation all the time. We'd often watch our friends awkwardly try to date or have a friend come to get drunk and cry and sleep on our couch after a breakup. Afterwards, we'd always have the same conversation: "I'm so lucky to have found you. I love you so much and know I'll never ever want to leave you. I'm so glad I'll never have to date again." And then he died. And it was my turn to run to my friends' arms and cry and get drunk and fall asleep on their couches.

Another user (I'm so sorry I don't remember who so I could give credit) shared this song on a thread on YWBB and I absolutely adore it. The video is also wonderfully heartbreaking - I was trying to describe it to New Guy a few weeks ago and started crying from just talking about it.

Welcome, although I'm so sorry you've had reason to join us here. I turned 30 in August, and my Tim was also studying to become a teacher. He'd been back in school for the majority of our 8.5 year relationship and was finally in the home stretch - he was three weeks from finishing his semester of student teaching and finally being done. But because he was almost done and working really hard, he was also very sleep deprived. Something I'm positive contributed to his accident, as all indications are that he dozed off behind the wheel. Again, I'm so sorry for the terrible loss you and your little ones have had to endure. This is a wonderful community and I hope you can find as much comfort and support here as possible.

I'm afraid to talk to them about it, because I don't think I was supposed to see the note I saw. To be clear, I wasn't snooping - it was out on the kitchen counter amongst notes they had left for the other housemate/tenant with instructions of how they wanted him to take care of their dogs. Just over a week ago, I got locked out of the home I share with them with no way to get in (all other gates/doors were chained shut) when the new housemate accidentally reset the keypad to get into the garage. After 15 minutes of trying to get a hold of BIL and his wife (and panicking all the while), one of them finally answered their phone and came out and let me in. Since BIL and his wife are out of town and new housemate would be the only one home, I asked SIL for his number in case something like that happened again. Plus, I was having my parents' come over on Sunday to help me start to move, so I wanted to be able to give him a heads up when they were there. Which would have been helpful for him, I suspect - a barely clothed lady friend of his left the house while my parents and I were in the backyard, so she awkwardly ran into us all. At first SIL said she'd have to check with him to see which number he was comfortable with me having, and then she said she didn't see him before she left for the trip and left him a note with my number. It was this note for him that I found just out on the counter - she told him that she didn't believe the reason I'd asked for his number and thought I had ulterior motives that I don't want to get into here and was trying to go behind their back to talk to him about it. Considering I had actually gotten locked out of the house less than a week before and have not given them one single reason to distrust me the whole time I've lived with them, I'm just incredibly hurt and insulted that they wouldn't just take me at my word and are trying to plant seeds of distrust with the new housemate. It makes me wonder if they only wanted me there for the help on their mortgage, and so now that I'm on my way out they no longer really care about me.

I already lost one our best friends last year (he too told me I was a trigger for his grief and that I was holding him back from "moving on") and feel like I'm on the verge of losing my BIL (Tim's younger brother) and his wife, too. I've been living with (and paying rent to them) for a little over a year, and now that I'm getting ready to move into my own apartment with my New Guy, it seems like they want less and less to do with me. I've been feeling for weeks now like they've been trying to distance themselves from me, and last night I ran across a note that they left for their other tenant/housemate that basically confirms my fears. For whatever reason, they don't seem to trust me anymore and if they don't trust me I'm sure they don't actually like me either. I thought they were a couple of my best friends. I thought they were family. They were a link to Tim that I valued so greatly. I've been nothing but a raw, open and honest nerve with them for the better part of two years and I'm deeply deeply hurt by how little they clearly seem to think of me. I came home from several hours of moving bins full of books and CDs last night, exhausted and sore and emotional and saw what my SIL had wrote (they're out of town, so I was upstairs in their part of the house letting their dogs out) and just sat and cried and cried. I'm sure that once I'm out of their house and no longer giving them a monthly rent check, they'll have even less use for me and I'll probably be all but cut out of their life. It's not enough the one person we thought would always be by our side left us forever. It's that even years later, there's still collateral damage and I'm still losing people I love who I thought loved me back. It's something I've been having a really hard time with lately too.

My story is still a story-in-progress, but I'd be happy to share. I was 27 when my husband was killed in a car accident almost two years ago. I've always been kinda a nerdy "guy's girl" in that I'm not into most of the stereotypical "girl stuff" (or as my friend Quinn sometimes says, I'm a "chick-dude"), so for all of my adult life most of my friends have been men. Which was fantastic for Tim and I - since our interests were almost identical, we didn't have "his friends" and "my friends" - all of our friends were "our friends" and a handful of them did an amazing job of rallying around and being there for me after he died. I had moved back in with my parents almost immediately after losing him, which almost immediately started to drive me crazy, so one of the biggest ways they were there to support me was to keep me out of the house and keep me busy. I don't have children to focus my attention on, so most of my time alone at that point consisted of drinking, screaming at an urn, and obsessively refreshing various ywbb pages. Three months after his accident, I was invited by one of these friends to a big pool party at his dad's house with a whole bunch of his other friends, many of whom I didn't really know. I didn't feel like going, but (never being the social one in the relationship) figured I probably should - if for no other reason, than as practice in just being out in public and making friends and talking to people I didn't know. I got there and over the course of the first couple hours made a few random and awkward introductions to these friends-of-friends, having each of those conversations last a couple semi-pleasant minutes before ending. Then, much to my surprise, one of these introductions turned into a rest-of-the-night conversation with a man who unbeknownst to me at the time was the childhood best friend of the dear friend who had invited me to the whole event in the first place. He was 32, never married, and childless. This hours-long discussion led to some online gaming, which led to some Skype calls, which led to a first date.... And so on and so on. Until this Christmas, when he surprised me with his grandmother's engagement ring and asked me to marry him. I said yes, and we're getting ready to move into our first apartment together at the end of the month. The wedding will be end of June 2016. While I feel so lucky to have met a nice, normal guy who seems to love me despite all my widow craziness, there have been several bumps in the road caused at least in part by the scars this trauma has left on me. In August, he was making it sound like he was thinking of leaving me because he could never be my "first choice." There's been some additional stress and fighting going on with planning this upcoming move because it's my third move in two years (the first of which was right after Tim died and extremely traumatic) and I'm emotionally exhausted just thinking about it and reacting to things in ways that I'm sure make no sense to him. I'd be lying if I said I didn't sometimes envy the wids who've found other wids and might therefore share a deeper understanding of the kind of emotional baggage it leaves you with, but the vast majority of the time my New Guy does his very best to be patient and kind and understand as best he can. And I'm quite a handful sometimes - especially in our early months together, since we met so recently after my loss. Things can still be rough sometimes, but I'm back on my way to building a good life with a good man again. I have a future to look toward and someone who wants to build it with me. We've been together less than two years (which - after my 8.5 year relationship with Tim doesn't seem too long) but so far we seem to be making it work And I'll make sure to keep you all updated - a remarried widow is still a widow, and I'm not planning on letting go of this wonderful community any time soon!

Hello all, I'm Rebecca. I was 27 when I lost my Tim in a car accident almost two years ago. He was 36 and was just three weeks away from finally completing his teaching degree when (we think) he dozed off behind the wheel. He was in the home stretch of his semester of student teaching and the workload was so intense that he wasn't sleeping more than a couple hours a night. He also had a Friday night DJing job he had been at and enjoyed for years, one that I accompanied him to the vast majority of the time. Well, the night he died I had made plans to see a live comedy event with another friend and decided to "take the week off" from karaoke with him so I could go. I've never in my life regretted a decision more. Had I been with him that night, I could have either talked to him and prevented him from falling asleep or I died along beside him when that car full of sound equipment hit that tree. He texted me around 3am, just minutes before he died to let me know he was going to stop for some fast food and to ask if I wanted some. I tried calling and texting back for almost two hours, getting more and more panicky as everything went straight to voicemail. By the time I heard the doorbell ring around 5am and saw the unfamiliar car parked outside, I had figured out what had happened. And sure enough, when I answered it was two police officers there to tell me the love of my life was gone. The last text I sent him that I knew he got was to tell him "please be safe." He replied "will do" and then was gone minutes later. We had been together since November 2004, when I was just 19 and he was 27. We were married on May 30th, 2009. I still find it a little eerie at times (and I have no idea why) that the time we got together - 8.5 years all told - is almost exactly the same as our age difference. I moved out of our apartment immediately. I spent about a year back in my parents' basement, then another year or so in my BIL and his wife's basement. Over the next couple weeks, I'll finally be moving back to a place of my own. Well, not really "my own" - I'll be moving in with my wonderful new fiance, who surprised the bejeezus out of me by giving me his grandmother's engagement ring on Christmas morning and asking me to marry him. ;D This has been one hell of a journey so far. I'm well on my way to building a good new life again, but things are still hard and I still miss him terribly. I suspect I always will, and he certainly deserves no less. I still cry most days, even if it's just a single tear when I hear a particular song or revisit a particular memory. But time moves forward, and even though I still sometimes occasionally feel like giving up, I know I have to move forward too. And I don't know how I would have made it this far without this wonderful community.

Beautifully said. It took me several weeks to be able to listen to ANY music again after he died, which only made me kick myself harder because it felt like the exact opposite of what he'd want me to do. He'd want me to surround myself with the music we loved and find comfort in it. Instead, I avoided it because I was so scared of what it might do to me. I'm almost two years out now, and there are still so many songs and bands I'm afraid of.

I miss the option of being able to embed videos. These threads just aren't the same without being able to get to the music right there on the page. If anyone knows if/how we can embed the songs right into the posts, I'd love to know! Anyway, I wanted to share another song I listened to a lot early on. Like many songs that I turn to, I'm pretty sure it's about a breakup rather than a death, but it's amazing how every song about someone "leaving" turns into a song about him in my head. Initially, the lines that hit me the hardest were these: "The little things that made me nervous, Are gone, in a moment. I miss the way we used to argue" I used to worry about so many things that were (in retrospect) so petty and so silly. And then he was gone, and all of those things ceased to matter. And I miss him so much, I even miss getting into fights with him. You know you loved someone when you even miss getting into shouting matches with them... And then the way it ends. Repeating "And it keeps coming, And it keeps coming, And it keeps coming, Till the day it stops" followed by "When someone great is gone." It seemed almost like a mantra in the beginning. Life just kept happening and will continue to do so until my time is over too... Here's the song and the lyrics: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bOHLeXxfNu0 I wish that we could talk about it, But there, that's the problem. With someone new I could have started, Too late, for beginnings. The little things that made me harassed, Are gone, in a moment. I miss the way we used to argue, Locked, in your basement. I wake up and the phone is ringing, Surprised, as it's early. And that should be the perfect warning, That something's, a problem. To tell the truth I saw it coming, The way, you were breathing. But nothing can prepare you for it, The voice, on the other, end. The worst is all the lovely weather, I'm sad, it's not raining. The coffee isn't even bitter, Because, what's the difference? There's all the work that needs to be done, It's late, for revision. There's all the time and all the planning, And songs, to be finished. And it keeps coming, And it keeps coming, And it keeps coming, Till the day it stops (Repeat x3) And it keeps coming, (Repeat x7) Till the day it stops. I wish that we could talk about it, But there, that's the problem. With someone new I could have started, Too late, for beginnings. You're smaller than my wife imagined, Surprised, you were human. There shouldn't be this ring of silence, But what, are the options? When someone great is gone. (Repeat x8) We're safe, for the moment. Saved, For the moment

Oh goodness. That picture of your sweet Cali kitten with curled up with your wife's ashes brought tears to my eyes. My Tim was very allergic to cats, so unfortunately for me - a life-long "cat person" - we were never able to have a pet together. Maybe if he had lived long enough to get past the "apartment life" phase of our lives together we would have eventually gotten dog, but we never had the chance. New guy, however, is also a life-long "cat person," so the plan is to rescue two kittens once we get all settled in to our new apartment. I'm sure I'll have plenty of pictures to share once that happens

Makes total sense to me. For about six or so months after Tim died, it truly felt like if I could just persevere and stay strong, I'd get him back. Like this was just a rough patch or challenge, and if I kept my head down and fought through it for X number of months things would eventually get back to normal.

We only wanted one child, but he died about 6 months before we had planned on trying to get pregnant. We were waiting for him to finally finish school and get into his first teaching job. His accident was 3 weeks from the end of his last semester. If our little one would have been a boy, he'd have been Ian Jacob. Our little girl would have been Morgan Margaret.

My Tim died in early April 2013. After almost a half dozen years at our old apartment, we gave them notice at the end of 012 that we'd be out be out by the end of May 2013. Tim was going to graduate with his teaching degree at the end of April, and then he'd have a full month with no other obligations to get our place packed up, since I work full time. Right after his accident, I asked if I could stay (and pay for, of course!) an extra month so I wasn't grieving his sudden loss AND trying to frantically pack up all of OUR old things without him. It actually physically hurt for me to be in the apartment for the first few weeks after he died - as soon as I walked through the door, my back would seize up and I'd break down into tears when I was hit with the familiar scent of our home. They told me at his funeral (verbally, of course...I should have gotten it in writing, those motherfuckers) that of course I could stay. To take as much time as I needed. Then they changed their mind when they decided I wasn't going fast enough and starting threatening me with legal action. Here's an actual quote from one of the emails they sent me: "We have both suffered through the loss of loved ones and certainly have no wish to add to your burden. However, you must recognize the potential financial burden and time line we are facing. You advised us in December that you would be terminating your tenancy and reminded us several times throughout the first quarter of this year and yet it appears that no effort to bring the apartment into compliant cleanliness was made." This was my imagined reply posted to ywbb, a little more than a month after his accident "Yes, we gave you a written notice in December that we'd be out of the apartment at the end of May. That was in December. Tim died at the beginning of April. So guess what, I'm not going to be out of the apartment at the originally scheduled time. Then you told my mother (who passed the message along to me) that as long as I paid the rent, I could stay and move my stuff out at my own pace. So now that I want to stay until the end of June, you email and tell me that today is my 30 day notice - I need to be out by June 11th. That's for the extra fucking week and a half. And yes, the apartment is a mess. I don't care that you can't show it right now, I'm dealing with some shit of my own. I don't give a damn about the money you might be losing, since the apartment is "prime real estate." You are a miserable old husband and wife that - guess what! - still have each other, two children, and grandchildren! So tell me again what parts of my apartment you're "disappointed" in. Tell me again which specific part of the apartment that I may have left in a state of disrepair is "really terrible." We were there for over 5 years. We were never once late with a rent payment. Have a little fucking compassion. Fuck both of you. You'll get your fucking money, just leave me alone. I don't care about grout, or mold, or greasy kitchen appliances."

MrsDan, I agree wholeheartedly. I understand sometimes tough decisions need to be made. But they can be made tactfully and thoughtfully and in such a way that would minimize harm. If this was something they had been mulling over for as long as they imply, they could have given us all a warning so we could co-ordinate our next move out in the forums and as a community, rather than frantically and getting the word out through alternate channels. I thank you personally for sending me the text and letting me know. I saw the news as I was leaving work Friday, and then started slowly melting down over a couple-hour long train commute out to the burbs. I was so relieved. It was a badly needed life-preserver just as it was dawning on me that I was still too far out from land to make it there on my own. The response, however? You all couldn't have been more inspiring! I went from crying panic tears to tears of gratitude and happiness. I got PMs from members I'd never really had any contact with, letting me know where our new home was. And the way Jezzy and her team just sprang into action to set it all up. Wow. There are still days that I find just getting out of bed and facing the day exhausting, and I'm twice as far out as most of you. My sincerest thanks. Truly.

The picture quality could not be worse, but here's me and my NG. We don't have many pictures together. We'll presumably have a few more after summer 2016, when I give this "being married" thing another shot

This is probably my favorite picture of my Tim, taken on one of our many trips to Galena. This was actually in Potosi, WI - somewhere we'd frequently day-trip to from Galena. And he's in his favorite hoodie - the Pixies one, from a concert he attended a few weeks after we met. I love the little smirk he's giving me. And here's one of my "obligatory wedding pictures." At "our" B&B in Galena, IL. God damn, he was so handsome. With all of the work/moving/general life craziness, I've been missing him even more than usual lately.

SVS, great post! I'm a big fan of Warren Zevon too, although I inherited that fandom from my parents. In fact, when I was a young teenager and first learning how to operate a record player (hides Millennial head in shame ), one of the first LPs I played with any regularity was his album "Excitable Boy." Totally separate from his excellent music though - I was equally impressed with the grace and strength with which he faced his own mortality. Hell, when he knew his end was near, he recorded a whole great album about the experience of staring death right in the face called "My Ride's Here." Here's the titular track: And speaking for great songwriters who confronted their own deaths with peace and love and strength and grace - one can't forget George Harrison. My Tim loved the version of his song "All Things Must Pass" from the Beatles anthology collection, and I share the opinion that it's superior to the album version. Just his voice and his guitar sound so earnest and sensitive and precious...I ended up turning to this song a lot in those early days.

This thread that Mac started over the weekend was really very good! I'm going to go ahead and copy all 10 entries from the proboard site (the "old new board ) so we can pick the discussion up right where we left off. ------------------------------------- Post by mac on Mar 7, 2015 at 12:34am When I was starting out on this journey, I use to listen to this. Hold on for one more day. Just get through this day and wake up to a new one tomorrow. Wilson Phillips - Hold On --------------------- . Post by Bear (aka Barney) on Mar 7, 2015 at 12:53am It was Emmylou and a six pack of PBR for me. ------------------------ . Post by Gabzmom on Mar 7, 2015 at 1:18am I listened to this on and on and on. I watched the movie, "Hope Floats," over and over again. https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=zbJ_XltgyTk ------------------------ . Post by LisaPop on Mar 7, 2015 at 1:42am this was my Widow Anthem ----------------------------- . Post by LisaPop on Mar 7, 2015 at 2:01am then, now, always ----------------------------- Post by mrstim85 on Mar 7, 2015 at 8:00am A couple of months before Tim's accident, I had made a 2012 year end wrap up compilation that I was actually quite proud of. It was a yearly tradition of ours For the immediate couple of months after his death, most music was far too painful for me to listen to. But that one 2012 year end wrap up of mine (along with another couple comps from around the same time) was one of the few that I could manage. And more than that, some of the songs gained entirely new and deeply powerful and cathartic meanings in the wake of my loss. Like I had been a bit prophetic in my selections only a handful of months prior and chose some songs that would be invaluable companions in those first horrible days. Here's the two best examples. I started the whole damn thing with this this song. Then there was this song. Good lord, did it sound like they had written that song from the bottom of my soul. Great idea for a thread. Thanks for starting it, I'm really looking forward to seeing what others will be sharing. ------------------ . Post by CBB on Mar 7, 2015 at 11:30am This was one I listened and played a lot. ------------------------------- . Post by CBB on Mar 7, 2015 at 11:41am This was another one too. Get the Kleenex..Damn! ------------------------------ . Post by mac on Mar 7, 2015 at 12:11pm https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=nFtfk0bZVRM ------------------------------- . Post by swilson on Mar 8, 2015 at 1:17pm Grief expression from long ago (warning contains Blue Grass) ---------------------------- Post by Gabzmom on Mar 8, 2015 at 11:33pm Love the cup song, especially Gaelic! My DD used to sing that all the time. --------------------------------- Alright guys, that's all for the old stuff Now post away

Onward! --------------- Post by tybec1 on Mar 7, 2015 at 4:55pm This song I heard within two months of DH's death. New to me. It is a Christian group, but you don't know it when you listen to it. It got me through some awful months. I found YWBB 6 months later. I don't believe in coincidences, and therefore, believe people are put in our path, not random. YWBB kept me from being "Alone" many days. ------------------------------------- Post by swilson on Mar 7, 2015 at 9:48pm Thank you for starting this. -------------------------- Post by soverysad on Mar 8, 2015 at 10:00am Thank you all for sharing. I have listened to this one several times over the past few months of this hard winter. My husband was a Zevon fan. Of course, he'll ALWAYS be in my heart. ------------------------ And that does it for the stuff from the proboard forum! I look forward to everyone else's submissions

Hello All, I'm going to go ahead and transfer this thread over from the "old new" board that was set up on pro-boards. I think my best strategy is to just cut-and-paste the old posts crediting the original poster, then hopefully we can pick up right where we left off Here goes ------------- Post by mrstim85 on Mar 6, 2015 at 9:29pm My Tim was fiercely passionate about music. It was the shared interest that brought us together, and it remained our most important shared love throughout our entire relationship. And even though it still hurts, I know that the best way to both honor his legacy and remain true to myself is to continue to embrace and share the powerful songs and artists that have meant (and continue to mean) so much to me. I?m honored to start this first music thread. Thanks for the gentle nudge, MM. I truly appreciate this opportunity, as I know Tim would be proud. My first submission to this list ? Jose Gonzalez?s ?Stay Alive? from ?The Secret Life of Walter Mitty? soundtrack. It?s a new favorite of mine. I think the mix of melancholy and hopefulness is a wonderful representation of my current emotional state and it makes me well up with semi-optimistic tears every time. https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=KZnu7fVRPIc So tell me ? what are some of the songs you turn to? Maybe some old favorites that bring comfort? Or the new stuff you?re listening to now that?s carving out a special place in your heart? Let?s break our new home in with some fun music talk, my wonderful widows. I?m looking forward to hearing some good stuff from you all ------------- Post by brokenheart2 on Mar 6, 2015 at 9:43pm So good to hear right now. Thank you MT --------------- Post by canadiangirl on Mar 6, 2015 at 9:55pm mrstim85- that was absolutely beautiful. I will definitely be seeking that song out. Thank you for starting this thread. -------------------- Post by littlebirdie on Mar 6, 2015 at 10:02pm This is an old song, but I still like it. -------------------------------- Post by LisaPop on Mar 7, 2015 at 1:50am ---------------------------- Post by LisaPop on Mar 7, 2015 at 1:59am https://vimeo.com/62577546 and, so simple ------------ That's all I have time for now, folks! I'll pick up again with the copying in pasting in a few houes when my lunch break starts