Second year

Biker I don't know your story but do feel your pain. There is no solace. It is no help to you to know that some of us are in the same situation. Have you heard of the Compassionate Friends? It is an organisation for bereaved families, no matter what age the child was. Big hug.

Anniebach my dear, if there had been anything you could do, you would have done it.

Sorry about your loss Maw and how you are feeling. Having not been in your position and dread the thought of it, I can’t give any constructive ideas, but just wanted to send big hugs to you xx

Thank you Annie.
Hugs to you too. Xx

Biker, you may have felt you didn’t know what to say but you did say exactly how I feel . Please don’t hold back if you want to share your feelings and/or your thoughts.

My love and hugs x

I have hovered around this thread wanting to contribute. Even as a recently bereaved parent myself I still do not really know what to say to others. I can identify with all of what is said and my heart goes out to all of you.
We are all left here, living on, in a situation we could never have imagined. I find the future hard to comprehend without my child; every day I wake and think 'here we go again, another day'. I feel guilty seeing the sunshine when my loved one never will again. I dread being asked if I have children because I then make the person feel uncomfortable but I do not want to suppress my emotions because I need to pay homage to my grief and the love I have for my daughter.
We know that grief touches everyone at some point and despite how it feels the world keeps turning, unyet for us it has stopped.
My hope for all of us is that this pain subsides, we can accept that we couldn't have changed things, and we can feel comfort from the love we shared with our loved ones.

it may sound simple but dad always used to leave a radio on when he went out so when he returned the house wasnt silent its still hard coming back to a empty house but least its not silent

Dear MawBroon. You expressed exactly how I feel. Time hasn't healed anything yet, despite what so many people told me. It feels as raw as it all did 12 months ago.

A dear friend who lost her daughter to a random murder sent me this.

Grief never ends, but it changes.
It's a passage, not a place to stay,
Grief is not a sigh of weakness, not a lack of faith.
It's the price of love.

Anniebach is right. We have to be so glad for the love we had.

I send my love to you. XXX

Oh Annie, my heart aches for you, you have suffered more grief than anyone deserves.

Annie you must have been listening to my conversation yesterday! Of course you feel like that, parents always think they could have done something different, we all want to make everything right and I don't think many of us feel any different when they are independent adults. We still feel we should be able to kiss and make it better. However, there was probably nothing you could have done and we both have to accept that we can't bring them back. Beating yourself up and examining your past is not going to change a thing. Be kind to yourself.

I'm still haunted with the 'why and what?'. I don't think there was anything I could have done but will never know as I don't know how he died. I try to comfort myself that he is no longer in pain because he wasn't allowed to see his children. We have not only lost him, we have lost the GC too. Another comfort is that I am still hearing from his friends and keep finding out more about him and how good he was when anyone needed help or advice. I had no idea, he never said.

Difficult Nonnie, but your son didn’t choose to die, you are not left with that one question which haunts me ‘was there anything more I could have done to stop my child dying in a river ‘, I will never know

I understand that Annie. That is exactly my situation. I kept going because things had to be done, first the funeral and then selling his home, coroner's inquest, paying his bills etc. It all took its toll but kept me busy. Then it was all done and the emptiness was worse.

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 .

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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 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?

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

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.

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 .

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