Dear Ravenclaw,

Your words remind me of the days I felt as you do, just existing during the grieving process. No zest for life, no desires, void of purpose, and your own physical issues on top.

I assure you that you WILL feel differently in time but that is hard to even imagine at this time. I am not sure everyone recovers fully from such a devastating loss, but it does get better and we adapt and learn coping skills that make the loss more bearable.

The ONLY thing that helped me was when I finally convinced myself that my loved one would not want me to stop living because they were no longer here. THAT would have made them very sad. My lost one would want me to live the rest of my life, not just exist. It is something that I have to keep reminding myself of even now after many years have passed.

The road from existence to living, crossing the bridge of grief, is long and hard but we will walk it with you.

It is my belief that we will be re-united with our lost loved ones, but it is for us to live until that day comes for us.

It is OK to miss his smell, the sounds of his breathing, a simple touch of hands. The pain is so deep to be without all those little things that we cherish so much, we shut down in order to cope with pain. It helps protect us as we move into a new life without them.

Hold your loved one tight in your heart. I read a few poems that touched me and I will post them in another thread for you to read if and when you wish. I hope they will provide some comfort for you. I don't know the authors so I hope I won't be plagiarizing anyone.

Keep posting when you feel it helps. We will be here.

Thank you very much for those poems. I've read them a few times already.

I live my life automatically these last few days. Get up, eat, sleep, etcetera.
I don't feel sadness. I don't cry when I'm with others talking about him. Sometimes I cry when I'm alone. It's not that I'm ashamed of crying or something, it just isn't there when I'm with others. Everyone is saying how well I cope and that they're happy to see me still enjoying things.

But, I don't....

What I do feel is guilt, anger and most of all confusion. This is my main emotion. Why doesn't my heart clench watching at his pictures? Etc.

I enjoy people around me, the ones I love. What I can't stand however, is people from "outside". People asking, is he gone? (They talked to others or noticed something). Or asking anything about him or me really. It makes me want to puke and I really can't handle people who don't have the right to ask those questions. I want to scream: go away, leave me alone!
It's too personal and I don't want to talk to people about more than "nice weather, good day" nonsense if I only know their face and name because we're neighbours.

I hate myself for me such an anti-social cranky person, but I really can't seem to face people who ask me those questions I don't think they have the right to ask imo. I don't know I must me crazy or depressed.
I need him so much

Dear Ravenclaw,

NO, you are NOT crazy, depressed,... probably and rightfully so. Anger is a part of the process in grief. Someone we loved was ripped out of our lives. That makes us angry. We need a place to PUT that anger and people have various avenues from which to choose.

You are also not an anti-social cranky person. You are a person in grief.

EVERYTHING you are feeling is natural and a means of coping with your loss.

The feelings of guilt are the ones I personally found most perplexing in myself and my journey through grieving. I hear so many others going through grief express the same feelings of guilt. I am guessing that is just a part of the process.

While the death of our loved one happened at a specific time and date, the grief of those left behind is not a single event. It is a process that has no time limit or "end" date. It can be slow and long. It is a gradual movement toward a new life without our loved one. Grief is a process, a long journey. You will experience a lot of emotions that you don't even understand. You will lack emotions that you feel you should have at this time.

How much and when you cry indicate nothing other than your body's attempt to cope with the devastation you feel. It is OK to cry at what you may perceive as odd times. It is OK to feel a numbness looking at photos. All your feelings are valid. It is also OK not to understand them.

Thanks for sharing your feelings with us. I hope you will find some comfort in sharing your pain even if only for the moment you type the words to express them.

I feel fairly confident to say that you wish someone could take this pain and emotional turmoil away from you. I wish we could but since we don't have that ability, we can be here to listen and offer our support and caring.

We are so sorry for your loss and hope that the days will get easier. Please know we care. Oh, and living on auto-pilot is also very normal.

Yesterday it's been a month without him. It's like I'm not even really getting it. How is it even possible, a month? I stills see flashes of our last week together, and the day he died. How he died, how he felt when he was gone.
I still want to hold him in my arms, just once, to touch him or his hair.
It has been a month and his smell has left my house. This is probably another weird thing, but for this seems important. The first days there was always stuff like, finding a pill he just to take, finding a hair, his smell on his bed. This is all gone now. My house is so empty, I feel so alone.
I have people over, but my house isn't the same anymore since he has left it.

Thank you, Hopeless. It makes me feel I'm not totally messed up feeling and thinking those things. It does seem to help to write a little here. Just to put my thoughts into words, it seems to do me some good.

Dear Ravenclaw,

Thanks for keeping in touch with us. Everything you are feeling is very normal but oh, so painful. It will take time to adapt to all the changes and you are so correct, life HAS changed and will never be the way it was. (Sorry about the poor grammar) I know that sentence is grammatically incorrect.

Did your husband use a particular soap or aftershave? If so, you may want to put some of it on the bed to regain the smell until you are ready to let it go. I, too, missed the fragrance I associated with my lost one.

The stages of grief are not "steps" we take to get to a place beyond grief. We seem to revisit them all over and over and some simultaneously until we develop ways to cope and begin a different life than the one we know with our loved one.

It is not uncommon to have some feelings of denial even a month later. Numbness will stick with you for some time, also. We can surround ourselves with many people and still feel VERY alone. Your loss is very personal and no one feels as YOU did about your loved one. Every relationship is unique unto itself and so is the grief one feels for their loss. The symptoms of grief are shared by many but your relationship was unique.

Give yourself time. A month is but a second along the road of grieving while at the same time the pain may seem like an eternity. We will walk with you. You will smile again but until then, know that you are in our thoughts.

Hi Ravenclaw
 

hi Debi. i hope you know that you are no alone as long as you have your friends here at NT. i feel like NT is a family of mine too. i couldn't get though without all of your support and i am here for you if you ever need a friend to talk to.

i am sending healing thoughts and soft hugs to all of you who are missing loved ones right now. (myself included). i believe they are always with us still because we can still feel them, even if we can't still see them.

i cannot read the in between
all i can say is
LOVE
ME

hi ravenclaw. i hope you are having a better day today. just wanted you to know that you were in my thoughts. sending soft hugs your way.

I still haven't had the strength
 

Dear soul
I would like to say writing all down
Sharing
Having love ones on this forum who just know and are blessed
To have and say just the right thing
Fill your heart with the love
And one moment at a time
Here always a shoulder you can rest your head
Love
Me

Thank you, for sharing it all. I too have his shampoo, I put it away because I can't look at it. I want to smell it, but still haven't tried because I'm scared of what it will do to me.

I seem to be feeling different. I cry more, but it's not like I can explain why exactly. Just that I feel sad, hopeless, full and empty. I'm just, I don't know.
Sorry again if it doesn't make sense. I hate it's getting further away from the date he passed, because at first everyone was you know, giving me hugs and wanting to take about him, grieving with me. But they all just go on with their lives, and I understand that, but somehow it kind of hurts me.
Not that there's a time limit, but most seem to think it's easier for me now. I got people to say, it's good you still have a healthy appetite, when my loved one died, I couldn't eat and lost over 20 pounds.
It confuses me. I eat but I'm not enyoing it. When I make dinner I cry when I'm alone. How do they don't get not all sadness is visible?

I'm so scared of time. Now it's been over 5 weeks. What if I forget him? What if everyone around me forgets him? What if I stop feeling sad? What if I never stop feeling sad?

Sorry for this I don't know, nonsense, I just feel so depressed. I just really, really want to sleep and never wake up. Finally at peace. This battle is to hard for me to fight alone. I need him so much.

Dear Ravenclaw,

Again, what you express is very normal and natural and the pain seems just too much to bear but I promise you that it WILL get better, but it may never go away. I understand everything you have expressed.

I remember not caring if I lived or not, but I was not suicidal. I just did not want to live and I know to many people that makes no sense. Only those who have had those feelings understand them. I was not going to take my life in order to join my lost loved one, but I was feeling like I would embrace dying if that were to happen. Just no desire to live. If dying would allow me to be with the one I lost, I was all for it.

And how could others just go back to their lives? Didn't my loved one mean more than that to them? What a slap in the face. Didn't they care more than that? MY life had stopped dead in its tracks. How could they just pick up where they left off. Once the funeral was over and a little time passed, it was like everything was back to normal for everyone else. NOT me.

The very first words I uttered unknowingly spilled out of my mouth when my loved one died was, "MY life is over." It wasn't anything I thought, it just came out of my mouth.

Time did not seem to be my friend at all. It wasn't making anything any better.

It has been years since the loss of which I speak happened. I STILL feel sad at times. I STILL miss my loved one. I STILL have times when I think I can't get along without the one I lost. The pain is STILL with me but it just no longer rules my life. Some where along the line, I started to have a desire to live again but it wasn't something I even realized because it happened so slowly. Today I have a STRONG desire to live.

Grieving is a process, not something you experience for a certain period of time and then you are all better. It can be a very long slow road to travel for some of us and that is OK.

You will NOT forget him but you won't always hurt to think about him. The more time that passes, the less others understand your pain because they DID go on with their lives while you are stuck in grief. YOU are the one that is alone with your grief. Yes, many of those that were there for you suddenly have disappeared. Too busy with their own lives to see how you are struggling to cope with your grief. While they may not forget your loved one, it is NOT the same for them. They did not have the same relationship with your husband as you did. They may be sad, too, but they do not feel your pain.

When you want to talk about him, please talk with us. We are here to listen. We would love to hear about the man that filled your life and now leaves the hole in your life. If others are not willing to talk with you, we are.

There is nothing I can say to make your pain and heartache more bearable. Just know that we care about you and understand your feelings.

It can be very confusing to feel so many emotions that you just feel like you may explode and we don't even understand ourselves when we are in the throes of grief.

I am glad to hear that you ARE eating now, even if you are not "enjoying" it. You need to take care of yourself even if you don't have that desire.

You may feel alone, but you are NOT alone. You have a family of friends here. I know you need more than that, but we will try to be what we can be for you.