Feeling like a stranger...

[Chrispy89]

I try to remember his face and I can't always visualise it in my head.. I watch videos of him and us and it's beginning to feel like it was all a dream. Day to day I am feeling stronger, but it feels like he is fading away. That's scary. He didn't deserve to sacrifice his life for someone who is struggling to remember his features after 7 months.

[Jess]

I can totally relate to this, but it was a bit earlier for me. I found I had trouble recalling him from the time he died and to a certain extent, still even now. It feels almost like being brain damaged. Memories of him have been coming back and he is getting easier to remember. I think it is just a coping mechanism our brains auto initiates. He is in there and when it is right, you will get the memories back- at least that is what people tell me.

[donswife]

this has just started happening or me also.

I so remember all the things we did and feel him around

but just recently I try and picture his face and can't

I look at pictures (and talk to them :)but when i try and visualize him it just fades

I hope it comes back for all of us

so know you're not alone

[Jen]

I'm there as well-- I can almost convince myself that Jim was a dream I concocted to cope with the dysfunctional mess of my first marriage. The four and a half years we had have blurred and ran like a watercolor left in the rain. I have bits and pieces, and some of them make me smile, but right now I can't really recall our day-to-day life together. Or rather, I can recall what we did, but it's like watching a movie of someone else's life (and I know that phenomenon isn't unique to me)-- there are virtually no emotions attached. I've gone numb, except there's a constant ache... This is all so miserably confusing. Sometimes I wish I could just forget altogether, which is completely unworthy. He deserved so much better.

[Mizpah]

I remember very distinctly the feeling in the beginning that each moment took me further and further from him, that I wanted to stop, I didn't want to feel better, because I wanted to stay as close as I possibly could to him.

 

Certain memories will stay and become even clearer.  Others will slip away.  Memory is a strange and slippery thing.  I spent a lot of time writing down everything I could possibly remember, but so much of the stuff that really matters - the texture of a person's existence and experiencing them, the way they move, the way they smell, the way it feels to be near them, to interact, that amazing fluid space between two people - can't be encapsulated.  And this is what we mourn. 

 

But he didn't *sacrifice* his life, it was taken from him.  You do nothing wrong by being human and having a brain that acts strangely and that we do not understand.  You loved him and you love him and he loved who you are, so he would love what you are doing, how you are surviving, and the way your mind works.  None of this is your fault.  You are a victim, too, of what took him, only you survived it to have to live without him.  Be good to yourself - he would be good to you if he were here.  But now you must do it for him.  xo

[Chrispy89]

Thankyou mizpah that was so sweet and heartfelt. The strange thing is if I concentrate I can remember his touch... And the nicer than normal kiss we shared the day before he died. I just can't see his face... Then I'll stumble over a picture and go oh Yeh that's him, with an accompanying stab in the heart. The mind is a weird and "wonderful" thing...