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rifatheroffour

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Posts posted by rifatheroffour

    ...does not mean triggers don't rear their ugly heads

    in Beyond Active Grieving

    Posted

    It will be five years in two short months.  I have to say that my day to day existence while far from happy and joyful is also just as far from woe and dread. There are many happy moments with my kids, being proud of their accomplishments and even some glimmers of hope for a future personal life.

     

    That said there are triggers that come when you least expect them and I feel like sharing in hopes that the more I embrace them the less awful they become. There are two things in particular that get me more than anything else, kids accomplishments that DW will never see and old couples that I will miss out on.

     

    The latest of the former happened a couple weeks ago during my kids last band competition of the season.  My second son now does tech/coaching for the HS band that my youngest two still march in.  He spent the last two summers marching in a DCI Marching band and has learned a lot. I remember watching one of their warm ups last summer.  As I now watched #2 warming up the HS band in the same manner that he learned it struck me how much he has grown and developed a passion for band and I was so proud to watch him in action...of course with that comes the realization that his mother never got the chance to see any of this progression from a quiet, reserved and often challenged young boy to a passionate and confident young man. Even as I write about this my eyes are moist.

     

    The other major trigger, older couples, hit me this morning.  Our scout troop was attending mass as part of a new flag dedication at our sponsor church.  I have not been very good about getting to church, a completely different rant for another time.  During communion I noticed a much older couple making their way up the aisle.  He was pushing her in her wheel chair.  I immediately flashed back to wheeling my wife around the hospital to get to appointments etc. I just had to put my head down for a bit to compose myself.  I would have given anything to keep taking care of her into those much later years. I wonder if the older gentleman realized how lucky he actually was to be able to care for her into their later years together.

    What will my next year be

    in Shock Wears Off, Reality Sets In ( 6 to 12 months)

    Posted

    Echoing above, never feel guilty for crying or any other emotion you find yourself in.  I'm approaching 5 years and most of the time I'm ok.  There still come times though where the grief monster sneaks up on you. I had a small episode this morning but it went as fast as it came.  I have found the fastest route is straight through, let the tears come and cleanse and move forward from there.

    • Like 1

    Connecticut Winery Bago Sunday, September 24th

    in Widowbago Meetings

    Posted

    Well...I guess I have to go now! Lol

     

    Hope to see many of you there. If you've never been to one please consider coming. I remember my first bago's, I was nervous and not sure what the heck I was doing meeting up with these people I barely knew over the internet. Turned out to be one of the best post widowhood decisions I have made. I've been hooked since!

    Curious as to why this board is so quiet

    in General Discussion

    Posted

    AMEN Adley!

     

    I've been trying to determine how to respond to this thread. I am one of those nearly 5 years out now, I read often but rarely post anymore.  Life is hectic, messy and just too damn busy most days, my need to be cocooned from the world and focus on sharing my feelings or validating others has been overshadowed by my need to survive work and 4 children.  Like many I think about responses even type some out but others have said what I was thinking so I delete.  It is occurring to me that that may be part of the problem. Not enough voices echoing reasonable civil discourse can lead to those occasional posts that may appear insensitive or an overreaction to drown out the fact that we are all linked by one lousy event in life and we don't all have to agree on everything. We will have different approaches to life and what we think should work for others may not always be the case. I have been blessed with meeting some of the most wonderful people in my life now through this board and ywbb. I am far from perfectly aligned with all of them, religiously, politically or socially. But I can get along with them and accept them for who they are and what they have survived.

     

     

    I'm a prude

    in Social Encounters

    Posted

    Yes, I think for me holding hands would be an intimate and an overt symbol to the world that we are a couple. So it would depend on the circumstances as well. I was involved with someone for a short while and we were very private about it. We were in NYC at one point far from anyone who would know us and we did hold hands while walking but that was it, no where else and then it was over shortly after that anyway.

     

    I tend to be shy and introverted in public and with those I do not know well. So I wouldn't look at it as prudish but rather guarded.  That said I held my wife's hand anytime or anywhere I could... 

    The little things that will never be shared again...

    in Beyond Active Grieving

    Posted

    I continue to find, yes at 4.5 years out, as I clean and clear through the house little things like cards and notes in an effort to try to get mementos of a former life all in one place.  BUT as I find these things that are wonderful I am continually reminded that there's really no one to share them with.  My kids don't want to know about the father's day card from 2005 where it explains that she loves me because I'm a good husband, father and person and the cute tush is just a free bonus! I also doubt a future love will really care to reminisce with me over them.  So there's the problem, these things just die with me and I so want to revisit them with her but that time is gone...and it makes me sad.  Not sobbing over it, I can't remember now when I was that upset last but just a melancholy feeling that life as I knew it has changed so much and forever and I can't change it...

    Ashes (again)

    in Beyond Active Grieving

    Posted

    As in all things widow(er)hood do what feels right.  I am approaching 4.5 years as well.  Fal died suddenly without the benefit of a conversation about what to do with her ashes.  She was from India so the Ganges was a given...when is a completely different matter.  I started with the idea that I would spread them wherever I felt were important places to us.  I also talked to the kids about places they thought were important.  So far she rests...

    on the side of a hill over looking the Caribbean on St. John,

    under her bench in our local park overlooking her space in the annual art show,

    in the rose garden park where I proposed to her,

    in the pond of the scout camp I spend a week at each year,

    in Lake Lucerne, Switzerland where we spent many vacations together,

    around a memorial plaque at another local scout camp.

     

    I will get her to India someday,  for now the rest wait in an unremarkable music box with an Eagle statue on top, she was crazy about eagles, in the living room where only we realize she is there.

     

    My kids will have explicit instructions to blend what's left with my ashes and put us in the same places as well as any others I get to in the future.  Of course should I be so lucky as to find chapter 2 someday I will have some of me set aside for her to use as she sees fit.

    Sexy Widowed Valentine's Day

    in General Discussion

    Posted

    Hello there, it's been a while since I've posted.  I have a love hate relationship with this day for the last 4 years.  I of course make my living partly based on this day but have no desire to celebrate it anymore.

     

    I'm also on the couch with my computer doing "work" but mostly watching Chopped with my daughter and eating ice cream together.

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