Second year

That posted before I had finished - just to say thoughts are with you too.

Sorry you are feeling alone ....I am planning to buy a retirement flat just so I can have company when I want (ha ha ...have a friend living in one who avoids the 'communal lounge' like the plague as she says it is only for everyone to talk about everyone else !) but I hate being alone at night, so for me this would be the answer ......and there is always someone on hand for small maintenance jobs ...only snag is the astronomical charges ......might only have to live a few years whilst I could afford it ! after then ....who knows ! c'est la vie ! [grin'] good luck ! Thought also I could volunteer (whilst still able to !) at a hospital, hospice, WRVS meals on wheels, or some such ...cat rescue, animal shelter, food bank, etc etc ...your local library (IF YOU still have one !) usually has lists of things you can volunteer for ...even Silver Line phone ins.....

I feel for your sadness Mawbroon bereavement is a long lonely road. Many people concentrate so hard on getting through the milestones of the first year that they don't or can't think of the second. Bereavement research has found that actually most people find the second year harder than the first because you realise yiu haven't got to get through those special dates only once but every year so what you are feeling is difficult and raw but normal. Cruse Bereavement Care is something I would recommend I worked for them for many years perhaps think if it might help you, they will visit you for appointments at home and are a national charity so will be available wherever you live. Do be kind to yourself . Please pm me if I can help

So sorry for your grief Mawbroon
No medicine has ever been invented that can ease the pain of bereavement.
I feel that the second year can often be the worst. Shock wears off, milestones like birthdays and Christmas pass and are endured, and somehow we think the next year will be easier, but it’s more of the same weary agony.
You don’t get over bereavement, but you do get used to it. You may wake one day and feel more peaceful, or hear a song, or smell a scent which has brought painful reminders, but will suddenly bring a happy memory.
The changes are subtle and gradual, but they do happen. As my very wise Aunt once said: “Just keep on living until you feel alive again.”
It sounds as though you had great love with your late husband, and that love won’t ever die.
I hope very much that you will find some ease and comfort as the year moves on, and that your life will become joyful once more.

"Weary agony.."
Those two words sum it all up for me.

When our firstborn was on his way, I was so proud, we would chatter away making plans, delighting in the future as much as the present, and looking forward to showing my Dad his first Grandson. He had been denied that pleasure, I was due to be born in the December but sadly my Grandfather to be died unexpectedly in the October.
Our son was duly born in November, healthy and strong, but my father too had died suddenly one day in August.
I was wrought by emotions I had no name for and the co-incidence to me had almost the makings of a curse..
Life though, did go on, a daughter was born too, we were all happy and healthy and life was fine, but I had a dread of being too happy, almost as if it attracted death....
After one very good day together I felt compelled to write, a letter to those left behind if such a fate befell me...

Its hard to love so Dearly, in a life so short as this,
for the deepest pain and emptiness, seem payment for perfect bliss....
But this to you I give my loves, a legacy of my all, so you will know I’m never really gone, and I will always hear your call,,,,

And You will know me in these ways:

These ruddy reds and golds of my skin, I will give to the sunrise for each day to begin,
The strength of my arm I will give to the trees, the breath of my laugh I will lend to each breeze,
The hue of my eyes I can give to the skies, so a grey sky in winter will be no surprise!

And you’ll see the smooth and the white of my teeth, laying serene on any winters snowed heath

And what of my warmth?...My freedom to run? These will be shone from a Midsummers sun......

Though the scale of my virtues registers small. with bright birds and strong flowers, they are yours and yours all.
But all I can give you are mirrors of me, for once I have been, I will no longer be.....

But the most magic rainbow, and the gentlest dove,
Will never, cannot ever, with the utmost endeavour................
Reflect even dully,
Part or piece of our love..........

I have been reading this thread all day and feel so sad for everyone living with bereavement either in the real sense of as with Ann60's version.

How you must feel is unimaginable and I admire the way you all cope and especially admire the fact that you open up about it thus allowing other people to open up to.

That's not much help to you though is it?

That's beautiful.

Still feel the lonelinesss after 10 years of widowhood. I have several good girlfriends to meet for coffee and /or lunch quite often and I also belong to 2/U3A. groups and join in With various related groups.That is fine , but the lonely feeling is whenI return to my apartment with no-one to talk to or generally share life with. Holidays and outings are much more difficult -and cost more when single!
I have some family nearby and some 300miles away. I don’t even see the local ones very often as ,like everyone else ,they are very busy juggling their work/children and home life constantly.
Most of my long time friends still have their partners and are often away on holiday or busy together with their own families. Being alone is not easy ,as I’m sure others will agree.

This is my fifth year. Thought I was approximately coping, although the first year was full of violent tears and anger and guilt, but I also joined a health club and swam, and even tried dating. I then hit massive health problems, and facing these alone has been something else (at present I can barely walk, so surgery is on the menu which means hiring a carer - a stranger when I'll be at my most vulnerable)

It's that totally private relationship between two people who meant the world to each other that I miss, but also, the friends inexplicably lost - the good friend who dominated the gathering after the funeral, but who couldn't be bothered to pick up the phone afterwards and ask me how I was (haven't heard from her since) and the even closer friend who'd lost her ex - they'd been divorced for ages, and the relationship had always been, according to her, disastrous - and to whom I wasn't sympathetic enough, so she dropped me.

And oh, the idiotic and insensitive things people said when they didn't know what to say, like: 'Wasn't he lucky to go like that?' (He had a massive heart attack, and must have been terrified and in pain). Or, 'He had a good innings' (he wasn't that old, and why should I be grateful?) Or, 'You had a great marriage and some people don't' (all the more reason for me to grieve.) The perpetual and ongoing silence in my house is something else, too, so yes, I do understand where you are, even five years later.

I really feel for you Mawbroon. Your post brought tears to my eyes. I can't offer anything but my heart felt good wishes that eventually you will find peace and happiness.

I was widowed 26 years ago,and found the second year worse than the first, and so did my mum when she was widowed. It's no comfort MawBroon and others, I know, and I tried to think why? I think it's definitely a feeling of
" this is it, it won't get better" and also I was led to believe I would feel better after the first anniversaries, birthdays etc, and I didn't. It seems to be a common thing. A friend who had been in a violent relationship gave me some advice which did help and I felt it to be right( her bereavement was that she lost the person she felt should have been ). She told me "you don't get over things, you learn to live with them". You do, and I think time does heal, but it's slow. This time of year doesn't help either, even though I am in a very happy relationship now, post Christmas is an odd time, it's gloomy and odd. All the best Maw, I hope something comes along to make things better for you.

Sorry, too many 'odds' , but it is!

When my husband died tragically in 1998, it was a long time before anything seemed to make sense.
You never get used to it, you just manage it, if you can.

I was offered medication but didn't want to go that route and had to stay positive for the boys, even though they were grown and didn't live with me by then.

Four years down the track, I dared myself to open a photo album and look at happier times and although I cried buckets, some of it was remembering the crazy, funny things he used to say and do and all the love we had for so long.

I think what I'm saying is, eventually I got to the point where gratitude for what we had and enjoyed, became stronger than the grief. I knew then I'd turned a corner.

I do hope this happens for you Maw .

I think they may be different kinds of grief as there are different kinds of love. The loss of a child would I imagine brings a different grief to the loss of a husband.
My DH and I have been together since I was 16. We do everything together and always have. Our time, thoughts, everything has always been together. I know many other couples who have been married a long time but perhaps have different interests or activities which involve them with different groups of people. We do not. Since I retired, we have spent almost 24 hours a day together. It’s how we both want it and what brings us happiness. It does strike me at times that when one of us dies the other will be lost.
For all of you who are suffering grief, loneliness, anger,dread,fear or all the other emotions that go with loss I send you my sincere sympathy. How you cope I do not know. I just hope that when the time comes I will be as brave as you.

I've just read this whole thread and am struck by the love people are showing for one another; that's really wonderful.

Try a few sessions with CRUSE. People have told me they are very good.

I'm also widowed and found the second year harder than the first. Almost 20 years now and it does get easier, much easier.

I am curious. People are saying that the second year is hardest and that is why this thread was originally posted. Why is this? Is it because friends and family gave gone back to their own lives and feel the bereaved person should or have moved on too? Is it worse than the original shock and loneliness?

I am approaching the first anniversary of DH's death, (next month), and I just do not want to remember the days and weeks leading up to it. I threw out last year's calendar and diary with all the reminders on them, but I know that in my heart I will remember.

But like Maw I too keep thinking this is it. My life changed in a millisecond the time that DH drew his last breath, and I just want him back and things to be like they were. I will never have him back and have to live with it but it is so difficult. Nothing prepares you for it, and I look at all these happy couples together and think that one of you will be going through this one day. The grief is unimaginable. I could choose to go under, but what keeps me going is the thought that dear DH would have wanted the best for me and I owe it to him to live my life as best I can.

I have made myself get out and about, I do things on my own and have been lucky enough to make new friends, and friendships with old friends have been rekindled. (I have been out to lunch three days in a row this week). And today one new friend (who lost her DH about the same time as I lost mine), said that the one reason she gets up and comes to a yoga class on a Monday is because she knows I am going to be there.

I have booked a river cruise on my own for my birthday and also an ocean cruise in the summer, and will just take things as they come. I try not to say no to anything.

My motto is 'sink or swim - and I don't intend to drown.' But the grief is there all the time, just inescapable. And I have to live with it and cope with it.

I lost my husband fourteen month's ago and it feels like yesterday. My married friends still phone but I only see them during the day, whereas we used to see them on evenings. It all changes and I have tried to make new friends. I have never been one to spend all my time in the company of women, but it seems it's us women who get left. I had nearly fifty two year's of marriage and miss what I had. I get up as late as I can to get through the day. I go over the last days I had with him and think what could I have done differently . . . but know that cancer is a killer, and sometimes you can't win the battle. We just have to adapt in whatever way we can and hope that the pain lessens. The lonliness and frustration will always be there. When I see old couples together, I think he wasn't old, and he should still be here. Unfortunately, he is gone forever but I know he would want me to go on with life.

Pastel not it’s not worse but it’s a different kind of pain. The pain the comes with finally accepting that this is the way it’s going to be from now on. That that person really has gone fir ever, and ever.

Pastel, I wish I could be there to give you a big hug in person. Since I can't, here is a huge, virtual hug. (((((((+))))))). I've found gransnet to be a wonderful place with lots of wise advice given by those who are further down the same path you are on. Honey, you are not alone. Many of us have lost significant others in our lives and it's no piece of cake. But you can still have a wonderful life ahead of you. It will be different, but can still be a good life. Let yourself grieve as much as you want to. Eventually the grief will lessen and you'll be able to start doing things you never thought to do before. Take a class in learning something new such as painting or pottery or Yoga. Put yourself in position to allow new doors to open in your life and tell yourself it's okay to walk through them. And stay on Gransnet for support and encouragement.

When someone dies there is so much to be done and it takes so long that I think we are able to push some of the emotions to the back of our minds without realising it. When all is done those emotions hit us and it is hard. I suspect there is more to do when someone, like DS, dies unexpectedly and with no explanation of why. He had made no preparations, expressed no wish about what to do after his death. He didn't expect to die before his parents. I don't think it is any easier when we expect someone to die, don't think it is something we can prepare for mentally but it may be that some of the practical things have been anticipated are therefore easier.

Lunch yesterday with a friend who, like me, is coming up to 5 year anniversary. We both agreed it really doesn't get any easier, you just have to keep putting one foot in front of the other and exhausting yourself with activities/housework/socialising. But that empty house.....I wonder if anyone else sits during the evening, subconsciously waiting for someone to come home. Or checks the shower room before they go to bed .Starbird, I resonate with everything you say. There are a lot of us walking wounded; a hug for every one of you.

My husband died in car crash so no expressed wish. My darling daughter took her own life and this left me with so
Many questions which will never be answered and I feel at times, she isn’t living or dead .