Missing someone

Hugs and Miss Adventure

I think hospices, however tranquil and beautiful, are sad places.

This time of the year is such a sentimental time, but I seem to cry at the drop of a hat, these days.

I think you were marvellous to be able to attend the candle service; I don't think I could, nowadays.

It's as if someone literally turns on taps in my eyes, and a lot of the time it's nothing particularly that reminds me of my girl.

Keep on trudging forward, it's all we can do, eh? X

I’m coping a bit better thank you. Still cry every day at some point but some days I manage to be interested in what I’m doing which is an improvement.
Went to candle service at the hospice yesterday. Really lovely but sad at the same time.

Thanks, Doodle

How are you doing?

Pandapatch I’m so sorry. Can’t imagine how hard that is for you. You too MissAdventure

pandapatch, I'm glad you felt able to talk abut David here.

It must have been so traumatic watching him suffer, i know.

I wish I knew some comforting words to say, but I don't.

It's just too cruel, the death of a young person, but I do hope he is flying free, as you say.

My daughter was 35 when she died, and it's been 7 years now, so very similar, so I have a little idea how hard it is.

Thats all I can find to say, nothing wise, or comforting, bur being able to share, I hope, helps a tiny bit x

pandapatch your pain and grief must be unbearable. I don't know what to say as I haven't had to face your grief. What a lovely memory of him eating all the chocolates and shutting the doors .

I talk about my husband all the time . I can't not talk about him. I am an atheist but my husband is with me everyday in my mind and heart.

As your son is always with you. I hope you talk out loud to him everyday. I know talking to my husband gives me comfort.

I hope someone who has a child die can find the words that would help you . Words I don't have . 💐

Just got the Advent calendars out ready for tomorrow. Always have a cry as my son loved Christmas. He always ate all the chocolates, carefully shutting the doors thinking I wouldn't know!
David died 6 years ago, aged 34 (impossible to think he would be 40 now). The last few years were very hard as he had had a long battle with paranoid schizophrenia and self medicated as the meds he had to take made him feel so numb.
I try to think of him finally flying free, but miss him so much, especially at this time of year.
I don't talk about him so much anymore, but think of him always and it's good to remember him here

Today I put my tree up ready for my grandson's to decorate tomorrow after we have been to see Santa. My husband loved Christmas. Normally I feel ok putting up the tree . But today an overwhelming saddens washed over me . Our last Christmas was 2003 and after lunch and my husband had had a sleep we talked about his funeral and he wanted to reach his 47th birthday 2nd February and we promised to get him there and we did he died 4 days later.

I don't normally feel this sad until Christmas eve. I made a pact with myself once he died never to be too be sad on Christmas day and I have kept it .

So I am writing down here so it gets out of my head. I have had a really good week and went to the Brain Charity event on Thursday and the 90 second video I made . It took a hour take it . I knew it was going to be launched on Thursday but assume it would just be on the website. But there it was being shown on 2 large screens to a room full of people but I did feel a mixture of surprise but also pride I did it . All I wanted to do was hold my husband's hand watching it together . The man in front of me who I had been talking to earlier turned round and squeezed my hands and congratulated me . He's caring made me feel better.

Knowing this thread and all the threads here makes me feel less alone . I am lonely but only for my husband. I like living on my own and since moving here my life has been full. Had another diagnosis this week my third I have Osteopenia in my left hip . But on the high dose calcium and vitamin D tablets and been doing load bearing exercises to help strengthen my bones .

Thank you for being here 🤗

I think that's one of the hardest things, looking around an empty place that was once home.

It's just made me cry, thinking of how it felt, and once again, I'm surprised - it crept up again.

Somebody wrote on here once that they saw some nice beetroot in the supermarket, thought how much their mum loved a cheese and beetroot sandwich, and started crying to think she'd never enjoy another.

I understand well about items you have that belonged to your parents. I have and treasure items that belonged to mine. I’m sure that many others here have some, too. If they bring comfort, then why not? I do not think you are putting too much emphasis on those items madelene - they are memories of your loved ones and, as you say, a connection.

I feel as if everything that belonged to the person is deleting them when you have to sort out their belongings. I couldn’t even go to my mum’s sheltered apartment to clear it because of this feeling. When I went there after my husband did it for me, it was empty and I cried. Everything was gone. I felt as if she’d been rubbed out. Also, it was my own fault of course, by letting my husband do it, some items that I especially wanted to keep, got taken to the second hand shop or the tip. That still grieves me greatly. It’s my own fault of course. The things I did manage to bring home, little things like a glass bowl that was a wedding present to my parents, I just love using it, and some other items that were theirs. Maybe I put too much emphasis on these items, because they’re just things, but I feel a connection to my parents by using them.

No, grief is an uncomfortable burden, always there, lurking around, making itself known, lest you should ever forget for too long.

Grief is such a strange bedfellow, isn’t it? It can be raw and cruel, or subtle plus all things in between.
I continue to miss my brother after all these years (over 50 now, unbelievably). He was a young man, in the prime of life, with a rosy future, but cancer had other ideas. I often wonder how his life would have evolved and how he would have looked as he aged (he was a very handsome young man, the girls chased him 😊). I can weep quite unexpectedly, all these years later.
Like so many of you my parents and parents in law are gone, two good friends are gone, too, plus other close family, as well - but that is life, of course, and we have to try to cope whatever way we can. But that grief fellow never goes away, does he, and sometimes, it’s just so hard.
💐

Oh, the messages,
That feels as if you are deleting the person, I've found.

Very, very difficult: I've not managed to do it yet, even though I can't bear to read them,

Lost my brother recently and it's the most heartbreaking experience I've ever been in. I still can't bring myself to delete his messages 😭

Whiff given my numerous typos, do not apologise for your very occasional one.

M0nica apology I spelt your name wrong I put O instead of 0. We had a spate of imposter posters on support thread on estrangement forum. Where they alter 0 to O and changed 2 to 7 , plus other such little alterations. It's only because of an eagle eyed poster who spotted it those posts got deleted as they where not nice to say the least.

You are right there is no such thing as perfect and if things and people where perfect what a boring world it would be .

Your friend was lucky to have had you in her life for all those decades.

My parents told us we where loved everyday ,even when mom's dementia killed her she said to me everyday I love you mom . So she still remembered what love was. We always told our children we loved them everyday. I still love my son and my 3 grandson's even the one I don't know . And tell my daughter,son in law and grandsons I love them . Do to rest of family and friends I love .

I have no regrets about my parents as I told them I loved them everyday even when mom attacked me and wrapped her in her duvet to stop her hurting herself and me. I never hated my mom just the violence but it wasn't her it was the dementia. I thought of it as a doppelganger of my mom . My husband thought of the cancer as this black thing inside him eating him alive . But we all view things that's helps us cope.

If I had found out what my disability was while my parents where alive I would never have told them it was hereditary and they where both carriers for it. As that would have been cruel . My dad blamed himself because he had Dengue fever in the army he always thought he had passed something on to me . But I always told him it was just me I was weird . Pointed out my brother was fine if it had been him we both would have been the same .

If we had our time over we would still do the same things as we are the same person. Even as we get older we do get wiser in some respects but still make mistakes it's human nature . We are flesh and blood not robots .
💐

Many people talk about regrettingthe things they never told their parents. I understand this but I think people are wrong.

Except in the most exceptional circumstances, if you haven't told your parenst something by the time they die, then the chances are you would never have told them.

I had a wonderful loving mother, but we came from different planets. Some time in my 40s,I gave up trying to explain to her how or why I did things and just accepted that she would never understand how my mind worked that my choices and decisions in life would always perplex her, but this never stopped her loving me and I know she worried about me, quite unnecessarily.

When our parents die, or anyone dear to us, we remember them best by accepting in life is perfect and if you had righted one problem, you wuld hv ehad others to replace it and simply remember and rejoice in all that was good in the relationship and accept the rest as adding lighht and shade to the relationship.

Miss A when you find that department let me know. As I rant at my husband but he never fights back 😥. We had some hum dingers of arguments never about anything important always something stupid and of course followed by make up sex. I know to much information 😉. I think he used to pick a fight on purpose sometimes. Think that's what really broken him . We always knew he would die . He refused to get his hair cut before palliative chemo as he said why waste £7 when it's going to fall out. Ironically the only 2 side effects he had where the 2 he didn't want . He lost his sense of taste and he loved his food not that he ever put weight on . And he became impotent. That really broke him. He said I am dieing and can't make love to you and he cried. My husband wasn't the sort of man to cry easily a man's man . No idea why that has popped into my head this morning.

MOnica your friend most likely felt like a sister to you . The one friend you could always count on and your left feels empty without her. As together you have weathered good and bad things in both of your life's. I have a best friend like that . We met at college aged 18 both 66. We live in different counties but have always been their for eachother. It will be the 2nd anniversary of her husband's death next week . Which is going to be harder than the first . But at least I know what she is going through. Even though it's been lot longer since my husband died heading towards 21 years . Real friendships like you had are precious because you choose to be friends and 50 years is a long time and you knew eachother inside and out . And your grief runs deep . Your friends husband dieing this year has brought everything back for you which has made you feel the grief as raw as when it was new.

When I friends husband died my daughter took me to the funeral. We had allowed 2.5 hours for the journey it should have only taken 90 mins but when we left here it was 0° when we got to the village it was-5° and snow everywhere. We got into the church just as the vicar started the eulogy. Sitting at the back of the church I could see her and broke my heart as she cried and I did to. When I saw her in the graveyard as it was a burial she had aged 10 years and just held eachother. No words where needed .

At the wake I made her laugh as both our husbands loved their food and said P would love this food and have his plate piled high. We had decided not to give Christmas presents that year but knowing she wouldn't have a surprise from her husband , they were never able to have children. So I made up a big hamper of all her favourite things and a rose quartz crystal for healing powers . I don't believe in it but she does . While saying goodbye to her, my daughter gave it to her nephew to put in into his boot and my daughter told him not to give it to her before the 23rd December. She still carries the quartz with her and holds it when the grief gets to much .

She said having the hamper made her feel better as she knew I did it out of love . She visited her husbands grave everyday for a year as it's what she needed, but I told her to stop and only go on special occasions as he wouldn't want her to keep doing it . She agreed .

Your friend is still with you in your mind and heart and I bet at times think what would she do or say to too you . 💐.

madelene your grief for your parents runs just as deep. Yes it's different to that of a husband or partner dieing as I felt half of me die with my husband and haven't been whole since . But the bone crushing grief a parent like Miss A and others here feel is the worst kind of grief . A grief I haven't had to face .

My dad wanted to die as he hated his own body . The Wednesday before he died mom had gone to get the pensions and he pointed at his chest and said this isn't me and I will die soon take care of your mom . I told him he knew I would and we just held eachother and cried . He died in the early hours of the Friday morning while mom slept beside him . What was worse for my mom she didn't realise he was dead. She thought he was asleep. It was only after she got dressed and walked round the bed and touched him he was cold . She phoned my brother who came for me and I had to tell her dad was dead . The only time I gave ever lied to my mom she says do dead people look like that . Dad must have had a massive heart attack by the look on his face and he died in agony and his bladder had voided. My own husband had died 3 years before at home with me and the children with the same look on his face and voided his bladder.

Mom never knew as soon as dad's body was taken away I stripped the bed and clean the little urine ,my brother flipped the mattress and we remade the bed. Dad was 80 same age as mom . If mom had died first we knew dad wouldn't have lived 6 months as he would have pined away for her.

Mom lived until she was 90 and lived the last 18 months of her life with me . Mom had cancer and dementia. Mom died 4 months before her body did. I used to hope every morning she had died in her sleep sounds wicked but it wasn't my mom anymore and the dementia made her violent . But dementia violence is out of fear mom didn't know who she was ,where or who I was she thought I was her mom . I looked after her on my own and couldn't put her into a home . I am proud of the fact when mom was bed ridden I made sure she never had a sore on her body. Mom's biggest fear was of wetting the bed so before the dementia killed her she insisted on having a towel on the pressure mattress under the sheet and wore a pad but it was only a thick tena lady. Dementia took everything from my mom but she always knew when she needed the commode and never wet or soiled herself. And went she died the pad absorbed the urine so she got her wish she never wet the bed.

I took me a year to stop thinking of the violence and remember my mom as she was .

Grief is the price we pay for love as without love you can't grieve well that's my experience. Others may differ. But I gladly pay the price as the love for my husband is as strong today as it ever was but the grief gets worse each passing year . But I am very lucky to have loved and been loved in return. The other half of eachother and the only person who knew the real me and me him . He wanted me to find someone else but told him no . He was my one and only my one true love .

Ah, it's horrible realising you've mo mum, isn't it?

I think mums are quite overlooked, and I regret not appreciating mine more, over the years, when I had the chance.

I can always picture her, on a sunny day, doing her garden, looking fit and healthy, with the cat lying next to her, watching

I think I might find a nice photo of her, and put some flowers next to it.

I’ve just read through this entire thread, all eleven pages of it, and it’s brought tears to my eyes, reading all the truly heartbreaking stories on here. I’m in awe of you all.

I’ve experienced the deaths of a few people over the years, but for me, the worst was losing first my dad, and six years later, my mum. Much I loved them, and miss them, and feel guilty that I should have done this or that, or not done this or that, reading about the loss of a child, or husband, is so much worse. I’ve yet to experience either of these devastating losses, and I hope I never experience the loss of one of my children or grandchildren.

I’m amazed at the resilience you all show. I’m in awe of you. You all keep putting one foot in front of the other, and you carry on. I frequently cry when I think of my parents. It was mum’s birthday on the third November and by my side are the flowers I bought in remembrance of her. I can’t put them where her and dad’s ashes are scattered because she wanted them scattered near the village where she was born, and it’s 250 miles away. My niece went and put flowers there though.

I’m so sorry that so many of you have lost your beloveds. Come back to this thread. MissA you did a wonderful thing to start this thread. It’s so needed for so many people.

Thats an awful lot of years of friendship.

I think, as well, women tend to confide in each other, so there are no secrets between good women friends.

How lovely to remember her laughter, as devastating as her death has been.

I wish I had sustained a friendship for that long.

Two years ago one of my dearest friends dies suddenly. We had known each other nearly 50 years, since we met at a mother and toddler group.

I was truly shocked by how devastated I was by her loss - and still remain. This year her DH died. Ours had been a family freindship and it brought all the grief back again. Both were only in their mid-70s when they died, a good 5 years younger than us.

This last week I have had a feeling of unease, there was something I should have done? would have done? in the past. Then I remembered it was my dear friend's birthday on 4th November, and of course, what I wasn't doing is buying and posting her a birthday card.

This friend is not the only friend whose death i have experienced but her death has devastated me totally, even just writing this, has brought tears to my eyes, but also her laughing face. This is how I will always remember her, laughing, as we got up to more mischief.

I'm feeling distinctly nasty these last few weeks.

I need to find a department of arguments, I think - get it out of my system.