Next stage of bereavement?

This how I see grief. No stages but

One thing I learned from my husband's death is never to have angry words with someone without making up before you leave them. The morning he died I got home from work and he hadn't been out for milk, and I was cross with him. He went out and got some, but when I took the dog out for his walk, didn't call goodbye as usual. Little did I know I would never have the chance again, it is something I will always regret.

Yes I agree, I don’t think we can ever truly get over losing our life partners. It is still very early days for some of you. It’s 10 months for me & I’m still trying to adapt to living on my own after 44 years, I think about & miss my DH every single day, I try to stay positive but still have times when I just sit & cry. The life you had planned has been snatched away & there is nothing you can do. DC, family & friends have been great & I try to get out & about as much as possible but still find it hard coming back to an empty house. My lovely little dog has been a Godsend & he gets me out every day in all weathers.
There is a lady on You Tube called Karen Sutton Widow Coach, she is a young widow herself who now does grief counselling, I find her vlogs are very helpful, supportive and reassuring.

Jade4 That's exactly how I feel. My husband's sudden death 9 weeks ago meant I never had the opportunity to say goodbye properly.
I try not to dwell on it and I know it's early days yet. Friends and family have been very supportive, it's hard though isn't it?

I will never get over loosing my beloved husband with whom I shared my life for over sixty years. He simply sat down and died after a game of scrabble, dinner and a drink. We never were able to say goodbye which seems to make it more unbearable

Shandy57. How like your experience is mine, lights on at night, radio on all day. I fear I still cry a lot. My husband and I both loved classic music especially Opera, can’t bear to hear it now. I try to do things, I paint and am learning the piano, but all the time the pain of not having my dearest husband overwhelms me. Hearing your experience has made me realise other people are feeling the same.

Like Esspee and karmalady I don’t see grief as having consecutive stages but it is important to remember that while I do not think anybody can understand bereavement “from the outside”, even from within this “group” which none of us has willingly joined, we are all different. And my experience is not necessarily yours. Which is why I have avoided widows’ or bereaved partners’ groups .
There are many wise words out there and some may help for you, but for me, I feel like an amputee who is learning to live with one leg or arm, but I am still not complete.
knspol and those widowed recently to you. You will still be in shock and nothing anybody can say will take the pain away.
For me it felt like walking along a stormy seafront and every now and then a huge wave of grief would wash over me, maybe even knock me down. 4 1/2 years on I still feel something like a punch in the solar plexus when the grief takes me unawares. I live with it, because you do. . But dont let anybody think you get “over” losing your life’s partner, just better able to cope with each day as it comes.
The kindness of thoughtful friends has made a massive difference too.

I've just remembered the very best gift I received just after my husband died - an electric blanket. It made going to bed a lot easier.

We crossed posts Jade4.

It's a big adjustment living completely on your own, but now I'm widowed, I realise a lot of people do live alone.

I carry my mobile in my pocket at all times, just in case I need help. I don't climb ladders or put myself into any situation where I could hurt myself.

I was very frightened to be alone at first, I hadn't ever lived on my own. Our house was very large and we didn't have streetlights there, we did have a lamp post in the garden which I kept on all night. I also left the radio on all day, for company, and if I had to go out at night, left the radio and a light on. I started carrying a torch in my car as well, and signed up for AutoAid, who offer HomeStart/will tow you if necessary.

At night I always double checked the house was locked securely, as well as windows, and kept the landing light on. In the first few months I was up and down like a yo-yo because of 'noises'. I have now moved to a smaller bungalow, but still have a light on all night. Luckily I have a small dog, but when he passes, I will get a burgular alarm.

Eventually shopping and cooking for one becomes 'normal', but I had a wobble at the recent Jubilee party as everyone arrived with their partners.

My condolences knspol, remember to be kind to yourself.

My husband died suddenly and unexpectedly six years ago. My children were 20 and 22. I couldn't sleep, eat or think straight for months, the 'Ball in The Jar' article really helped me.

Please take each day as it comes, and accept all offers of help. Do try and eat a little, and if like me you cannot sleep at night, try and have a nap in the day if you are able to. I joined an organisation for widows called WAY UP and received a lot of help from other widows in the early days, I do recommend the group.

Ball in the Jar

"One day I saw a notice for a talk on helping children through bereavement by Barbara Monroe, the Chief Executive of St Christopher's Hospice in London.

When I arrived, what I saw resembled a physics lesson. On the table before her was a very large glass jar. Beside were three balls: one large, one medium-sized, one small.

Without a word, she began to stuff the large ball into the jar. With a great deal of effort, she wedged it in. 
'There!' she said. 'That's how grieving feels at first. If grief is the ball and the jar is your world, you can see how the grief fills everything. There is no air to breathe, no space to move around. Every thought, every action reminds you of your loss.'

Then she pulled the large ball out of the jar and put in the medium-sized ball. She held it up again, tipping it so the ball rolled around a bit. 'Maybe you think that's how it will feel after a time - say, after the first year. Grieving will no longer fill every bit of space in your life.'

Then she rolled the ball out and plopped in the small ball.
'Now, say, by the second or third year, that's how grieving is supposed to feel. Like the ball, it has shrunk. So now you can think of grief as taking up a very small part of your world - it could almost be ignored if you wish to ignore it.'

For a moment, considering my own crammed jar, I thought of leaving. 'That's what everyone thinks grieving is like,' the voice continued. 'And it's all rubbish.' I settled back into my seat. Two other glass jars were produced from under the table: one larger, one very large.


'Now,' she said, imperiously. 'Regard.' Silently, she took the largest ball and squeezed it slowly into the least of the three jars. It would barely fit. Then she pulled the ball out and placed it in the next larger jar. There was room for it to roll around. Finally, she took it out and dropped it into the largest glass jar.

'There,' she said, in triumph. 'That's what grieving is really like. If your grieving is the ball, like the ball here it doesn't get any bigger or any smaller. It is always the same. But the jar is bigger. If your world is this glass jar, your task is to make your world bigger.' 
'You see,' she continued, 'no-one wants their grief to shrink. It is all they have left of the person who died. But if your world gets larger, then you can keep your grief as it is, but work around it.'

Then she turned to us. 'Older people coping with grief often try to keep their world the same. It is a mistake.

If I have one thing to say to all of you it is this: make your world larger. Then there will be room in it for your grieving, but your grieving will not take up all the room. This way you can find space to make a new life for yourselves."

Do post on here for support, it does help.

My beloved husband died seventeen months ago,we had a game of scrabble a drink and dinner, as we washed up he said he was tired, I said sit down and I’l bring you a coffee. He sat down and just stopped breathing. I find it very hard to live without him, we had been together many years. How do you learn to live alone?

Thank you all for sharing your stories and feelings. As a former bereavment counsellor, the ‘stages’ need not happen in order, and there is no set time when you should be ‘getting over it’, so please allow yourselves time to grieve without any wee feelings of guilt.
Like Luckygirl dementia had taken the Bodach before the melanoma killed him, then came Covid, so I see now I was in kind of denial. I’m at present on my second solo holiday, albeit to a place I know well, but that brings its own challenges. For example, I held it together on our wedding anniversary, then the next day looked at the empty bed next to mine, and had a storm of tears.
It was probably easier for me at the beginning, as he had become very troubled and aggressive, and then in some pain, so it was a relief that that was over, then I forgot about the alien person, and I think it was only then I could begin to grieve.
My thoughts are with you all.

CrazyH ?. Grief is the price for love. Some people have 50/60 years with the love of their life, others very little time. Some people go on and have a very successful 2nd marriage. Grief and the los is different for all of us. Eventually it gets easier and you adjust, when I get lonely, which is not every day as it used to, I think back to how it felt to be important to my other half. He would have told me to move on and make a new life, which I have to some extent, but could never imagine myself with someone else.

My DH passed away just 10 days ago, still can't use the D word and after over 50 yrs together I'm just lost. I'm so very grateful my son and family have recently moved to this area and they've been so good but apart from all the legal and official stuff to be done I just don't know what to do with myself. Any books or advice would be gratefully received. We've moved around a lot and I don't have any friends locally.

Espee
It's so interesting to read all your comments. Karmalady on the bus, that's just the sort of thing I would do!
I've now crashed with hay-fever (tested so not the C) so been giving my body a rest, just picking up positives on the way. I actually find myself feeling stronger mentally for coming through that stage, at the moment anyway!

fiorentina51 ?

Like karmalady I don't believe there is a last stage. It has been 18 years for me, I've made a new life, have a new partner who has been very good for me, I am getting old but I'm happy and settled.
Yet sometimes, out of the blue, something sets me off. It could be someone commenting on a daffodil, a recent example. I ended up in tears as it took me back to us being in the queue to be served at the fruit shop and I asked him if he could pop across the road and buy some daffodils. Off he went only to return in a minute to check what colour I wanted before he crossed the road. It was, as they say in Glasgow "the talk of the steamie" once he was out of earshot.

Two years on and I still struggle, but I guess grief is the price you pay for love.

To love and be loved - that's what all you sweet ladies have experienced. You were No1 in your partners' lives. You are blessed. Some, like me have not experienced that. I am not jealous of you but so happy that you had that luck.

Such sad stories Esspee I too would urge men to get a PSA test. I don't know why these tests are not given routinely, like mamagrams. Fortunately when my husband felt that something was amiss he saw his GP. It was indeed prostate cancer and thankfully he was saved. Prostate cancer is the cancer that kills more men in the UK than any other. Urge your menfolk to get tested if they can.

Thankyou for your posts today Karmalady and Luckygirl for sharing some of your experiences to help others.
I empathise with the not wanting to do the things we did together. I am trying to see the world from my point of view - no longer "us"

I have noticed many more people live alone widowed or otherwise single than I had realised, rather like when you are pregnant, suddenly the world is filled with pregnant women and with babies!

I am not lonely and I am always busy but I miss him very much despite that (his words) he is always with me.

* I have to be content with my life now, it is what it is and I just get on with it*
As for being alone, that is a fact of life, the world is made for couples

I so identify with these sentiments.

For me, my grief is not "clean" - it is not as simple as loving someone and then they are gone and you miss them. In one sense I do not miss my OH - the man I married had vanished some years before. The man who died was beyond difficult - his behaviour towards me was deeply unacceptable. But I knew he could not help it - that the disease eating away at his brain had taken hIm away.

But it does make grief more complicated because it is impossible to pretend that his death was anything other than a huge relief - for him, for me, for all of us.

I try very hard to remember the good times, but it is very hard as his difficult behaviour was so all-encompassing, filling my every waking moment. And there is the guilt and worry as to whether I could have dealt with it all better in some way.

Living life on your own is a challenge, but I have so much going for me: wonderful loving daughters, neighbours who could not be kinder, a role within our tiny village (running a choir and a mini arts festival, part of a group of women setting up community projects), happy to dine out or go to concerts on my own (that has ben my life for a long while) and I live in what I consider to be the most beautiful place in the world.

But, just as I feel I am beginning to surface a bit, I have been hit with medical problems that are eye-wateringly painful so the chance to be out and about enjoying myself free from caring responsibilities has gone down the pan.

Nothing to be done but count my blessings and plod on, as we all do.

I send all good wishes to those struggling in similar situations.

Yes there are stages but every stage is completely individual, the `last` stage is supposed to be when you have moved on and made a life for yourself. It is not really like that, it seems to others that we cope but as whiff says, the grief is still there and always will be. I know I married for life and will never be with another, my husband is in my heart and travels with me wherever I go

I have been widowed for seven years and two months, he went out for a cycle ride as usual and a policeman came to the door, air ambulance had taken him to hospital but he died before I got there. A sudden death like that is so very traumatic, my heart went into overdrive and I heard the pounding in my ears. The first stage is to be sure to look after yourself, I just sat and gazed at some trees and I meditated and did calm things and one day that pounding stopped, I stopped slamming doors and my recovery started

I went on a bus, wanted to know that one day, things get better. I sat behind two older ladies, seemingly widowed, I asked them and they said that I would learn to cope with it. It does not get better but we adapt, we don`t forget but we do learn to live with it. Then I sat in wells cathedral for a while and let the peace and ambience and healing wash over me

As for being alone, that is a fact of life, the world is made for couples. I have only been out for a meal a handful of times, no point just sitting there to look around. I don`t go on holidays by myself now, I did a year after my husband died. I took the safe option of a saga cruise, it was a change but not a holiday I would replicate and very expensive to go solo

I had a fleeting thought of getting a small campavan once but the reality hit, the lovely views, by myself, no-one to share the driving

So life had to change, it did after year 3 and I decided to be sensible and move away from a small village with three buses a day and no shops. There was so much to do, by myself again. The lockdown came but in a way that was good as I was able to keep to myself without guilt and that helped move me on through more stages, by myself but always talking to my husband, who sent me a fluffy white feather from time to time

I don`t feel lonely which is a negative emotion, I have a life full of hobbies and cycling and lovely good neighbours. I am not a group, coffee morning twinset and pearls person, would rather be out in the fresh air or gardening on my hands and knees. I talk to people, anyone I pass gets a good morning but I have to be content with my life now, it is what it is and I just get on with it

I hope you are alright today TillyWhiz and those recently bereaved.
Times when everyone else is absorbed with their loved ones and families is often the hardest.
I shall be missing DH today.

Espee Yes I feel anger. Not for the same reason as you but because he left me with problems to deal with 'because I'm going to die anyway so I'm not going to bother'. I know the pandemic hasn't helped in sorting things but now I have to and it does feel overwhelming at times. I realise as always I take on other people's problems too so I'm taking a step back to help myself.