Topic : Overcoming Grief

On Monday Labor Day my husband and myself got a call to see if our 69 year old friend was ok. His girlfriend was unable to reach him and she lives 70 miles away. Rich was like my dad to me he was our VERY good friend. He WAS our Dr, Phil. At 1:15p.m.  we arrived at his house. We found him dead on the floor. Through process of elimination we came to the conclucion that he died Friday. Rich called me Thurs. and asked me to come over and make him my famous "smashed pototoes". We were on a job and wouldn't be home till Fri. so I told him I would call him later. Later that day he called my husband and asked him if he could come over and look at his new motorcycle it was having a problem. Again we informed him we would get a hold of him later. Saturday we called and got no answer. We assumed he had gone to see his girlfriend for the holiday weekend. We were wrong. I loved this man so very much and I miss him even more. I can't forgive myself for not going by on Friday I might have been able to save him rather than let him lie so long the funural home people wouldn't let me see his face and tell him I was sorry before they took him. I know there are much greater losses than this but I am having a really hard time dealing with my oun guilt that I know Rich already  forgives me for. He was like that. I guess I just needed to talk this morning as I am on my way to his house to go though his thing and donate what I can. Thanks for listening.

Paula

   It's been only a few days over a month since I buried my mother. Growing up, she was the conventional  1960's mom. Always cooking, cleaning, running a house hold. I have very few memories of  the two of us spending any time together. It was always about the house and Tom (my biological father).

    After I grew up, moved away and started a family of my own, we became much closer. We talked on the phone at least 3 times a week as schedules would allow and we enjoyed our mutal visits back and forth.

We would tell each other we loved each other more now than in my entire life and we meant it.

   In July I went home to see her. She had been ill for a several weeks but the cause hadn't been discovered until two days before I arrived. She had multiple myloma and it had traveled through out her body. I knew the minute I laid eyes on her I wasn't going anywhere for awhile.

   I promised her that I would not let her endure any discomfort or pain and I assured her that I would make her dying wish come true, which was to go in her sleep in her own home. With the help of an unbelievably kind, compassionate group of people that came to us through hospice I had support and a certain degree of relief. I will never forget them or what they did for us.

   Thank you for letting me write this and thank you if you've taken the time to read. I just feel broken inside and I don't know how to get the pictures out of my head. It helps to get it out. A little at a time. Grief is universal and yet individual to each of us. One thing I do believe is, in time comfort will come.

   If anyone would like to read a short "poem" shared to me by one of the hospice staff I would be happy to post it here. It's titled "Gone From My Sight" and it's truly beautiful and helpful.

 

 

 

I haven't been on here for awhile either and was glad someone was here that remembered me too!! I did something that was very hard today! I did just what you are doing and I went to work. Today my daughter would have been 27. I thought I could do it. On the way to work tears were running down my face and I didn't think I would make it. I called work and they walked me thru making it to work. I have alot of supportive people at work. It was so very tough. I just had to do it for me and my family. I think I have spent the last 2 birthdays in bed. I really don't remember. I know that we don't change the calender anymore in the living room thru March (which is the month she died) And Sept. This is so I don't have to dwell on looking at it all the time. I am so glad you came back on here. It has helped me so much. If you would like to email me you can. I will do my best to keep up on things. I am glad things are getting better. Staying busy is what I have to do to. If I sit for to long I loose my mind in grief. Take care and hope I hear from you soon. My email is in my profile. Linda

Two and a half weeks ago I found emails in my husbands account from another women. They were both telling each other that they loved the other and sending xo's. I can not even begin to explain how much pain I was in after realizing the man I have loved, have been with since I was 15 yrs old, and have been married to for over 20 years actually broke my heart and betrayed my trust. This was an emotional affair and not a physical one though as I told him either way, it is cheating/infidelity. I have been depressed and I have anxiety most of the time. We have two daughters 17 & 15 and they are just devistated that he could do this. He says he shouldn't have done it and it just got carried away. He has trivialized it in his mind as a game that went too far. He has a computer game addiction or as he calls it an escape from dealing with the reality of his life. I try and try to talk to him but he says he doesn't know anything about thoughts or feelings. He tells me he loves me and wants to try to work things out but on the other hand tells me he doesn't know how he feels. In my mind I feel like such an idiot to allow him to control my future or that I would allow him to get angry when I have questions or want to talk about what happened. He has never been a communicator so this is nothing new watching him shut down. My head says find a lawyer and my heart says try to get him to go to counseling with me.  My whole being just wants to shut down and never feel this pain again!  How will I ever trust him again? One of the reasons I married him was because I felt that I could trust him with my heart and that we were raised with the same morals. Has anyone been through anything similar???

Almost three years ago my father commited suicide.  We were a trypical middle-class suburban family living in a quiet small country town in Vermont.  My parents were married for 25 years when my father passed.  What I believe brought this on was the fact that my brother, sister and I had recently moved out of the house considering the fact that we were either continuing with our education or moving on in our own endevours.  My mother also had recently seperated from my father due to his on going alcoholisim.  It must have seemed pretty odd for him a house that was once filled with four other voices was now empty and quite.  Now that I look back it must have seemed pretty lonely.  My father was a workaholic.  He would wake at the crack of dawn and not come home until dark.  It was a daily routine for him to work all day and then soon "hit" the bottle right after.  One day while at work I decided that out of the blue that after work I would go over to my fathers house to visit and have dinner with him.  I showed up and spent some time with him.  I later left to go meet up with some friends and told him that I would return in a few hours and spend the night at the house.  When I returned home I noticed that my father was acting weird and stumbling around.  I chalked it up to the fact that he may be drunk.  My mother had called shortly after and asked me to check his medication bottles.  I thought that was a weird request but she soon explained to me that he had called her cell phone and left her a message that he was threatening to take all his meds if she didn't call him back.  Sure enough he had taken all his medication.  To make a long story short my father was on life support for one week before he passed.  Towards the end of that week he was able to write a small amount on a pad of paper, he asked my mother for us kids not to see him in the condition that he was in, and that we wanted to just be taken off life support.  It was needless to say the toughest week of my life.  The day before he passed I remember being on the phone with my mother in the hospital and she told me that my father was awake, she put the phone to his ear and I told him that I loved him and that I held nothing against him, nowing that he felt ashamed for what he did and that he did it out of pure attention that he was trying to get from his family.  My father passed on April 29th, the day after my mothers birthday.  To this day we all believe that he held on for just one more day so that he wouldn't pass on my mothers birhtday..... god works in mysterious ways, and one day I know that I will see my father again.

My husband was diagnosed with severe CHF in 2000 at age 52.  Our local doctor told us with medications he may live another 10 yrs. and suggested that we go to Duke Univ. and speak with doctors in the heart transplant clinic.  My husband had open heart surgery to repair a valve on September 26, 2001.  The day before we had been in bankruptcy court.  Although we had paid taxes all these years we didn't get SS Disability for months, almost a year so we fell so far behind on everything we could not recover.  I can't tell you how ashamed we felt. 

 

In 2002 my Father passed away at age 83.  We all were home and planning to celebrate his and Mother's 63 anniversary.  He had dinner with us all, played his harmonica a little, stretched out in his chair and didn't wake up.  Going through the funeral made my husband unstable so I had to leave the day after the funeral for Duke.  We had to go to Duke 2 and 3 times a week for the next 2 years.

 

In 2005 my hubby (we have been married 39 yrs.) was given an ICD. 

 

In Jan. 2006 my big brother passed away due to a car accident.  He was 63. 

 

And in Jan. 2007 my Mother passed away at age 89.

 

I am overwhelmed!  As hard as I try I can not seem to find myself again.  I can't seem to get any of the above off my mind long enough to just smile.  I have always been a positive person.  And I am a woman of Faith but still just can't seem to get it going any more. 

 

 

I am so sorry to hear about what you have been going through. I know how you feel. I have caught exes I thought I could trust cheating on me, and my husband has even told me that he will never love me as much as one of his ex wives! He thinks that I should just let that go as him having an "emotionally charged moment", but a part of me still wants to leave him. I think a problem we women have is we want to be taken care of emotionally, and when the people we trust to do that fails terribly, it's hard to figure out where to go. If I were you, I would leave. I have never heard of a cheater who, once caught, actually stops cheating for the rest of their life. Whatever you do choose, though, you have myself and pretty much every woman out there on your side!

Someone please help  me !! I lost my dad to his short battle of cancer three weeks ago. I  feel people have been so inconsiderate with some of their comments.  I know some people just do not know what to say so they say anything that comes to mind. Why do people insist on saying things such as  I know how you feel; he is in a better place; he"s not suffering; or God knows best. They do not know how I feel because their relationship with their dad was more than likely different than mine. I also know the rest but it does not make the pain any less. Why do people ask how are you doing? How would they feel if they just lost someone they were close to. I am a christian so I know without a doubt  I will get to see him again one day ---  but I miss him sooo much. I have always been a Daddy's girl and now he is not here where I can hear his voice. I know it takes time to heal the hurt but I just cannot seem to accept that my Dad is really gone. I also know that there are a lot of people that have gone through this but it seems like I am having such a horrible time with this reality. Does anyone have any suggestions for me??

Let me first say how sorry I am for your loss!  It has only been 3 weeks ago and I can hear your feelings of being overwhelmed.  I too am a daddy's girl and loss him in 2002.  I cried, and cried hard ,for a year or more.  I found myself reliving my whole life with him.  Wish I had loved harder.  Wish I had not missed that birthday.  And yet I knew I had been a good, loving daughter.  But when they are gone it seems it wasn't enough.  We miss them being here so much. 

 

Grief is a process.  And it will get better.  I know that because I don't cry every day now, although I think of my dad every day.  Somewhere along the way my hurt turned into thinking about what was best for my dad.  He was 83.  He had some health issues but he did not stop until he sat down in his easy chair that night and passed away.  He lived a good, full life. 

 

We grieve for ourselves and rightfully so!  It is such a loss!  And we have never, ever experienced such a loss as when we loose a loved one.  And it is so final, at the time. 

 

Be patient with yourself!  I too am a Christian.  I had a public ministry at the time.  I felt I had to "be strong" as an example to others.  It wasn't until I accepted my loss and allowed myself to "feel" for myself that healing began. 

 

How thankful you and I can be that we will be with out dad's for all of eternity!  And hey!  As fast as time is flying by with me, it just won't be long until we are together again!  Until then, I want to live!  For me and for dad!  When something is going on in my life that causes me to think of him, I go "this is for you dad"!  

 

One other thought that really helped me.  My dad, being a Christian, would not want to come back!   But he is looking forward to our being together in eternity.

 

So be patient with yourself and others.  It will get better!  And talk about it.  That helps so much! 

 

 

You never will trust him again, not like before!   That is the consequences of your choosing to stay.  He will have to be willing to "walk the line",  like never before, that is the consequences of his choosing to stay.  Love is a choice!   I do believe anyone can make a mistake and not make the same mistake again.