I am sure Easter was rough. I know the anniversaries and holidays without my dear husband will be very hard for me. And like you, I find that the anniversaries of his last hospitalization and time in Rehab and the nursing home are extremely difficult. But like you, I have found some comfort in nature and in somehow just knowing that he is peaceful and happy. God bless you, dear.
I do feel as though I should be doing something! Years of caregiving have left me at a bit of a loss. Being so accustomed to crisis after crisis, it is odd not having to worry about that. I still wake in the morning with a kind of panic about how he's doing, is everything okay at the long term care center, how is he feeling. For years we've been so focused on them, it's strange to not have that focus anymore.
Dazed is joining us....her husband passed away. Dazed, I am sorry for your loss, and hope that you will have friends and family around for the next few days and/or weeks while you are on the emotional roller coaster.
I am tired or folks telling me it gets easier. It doesn't. Yesterday was Ozzie's birthday. I guess it was made worse by the back pain I have which I blame of a fall in Iceland 4 years ago when I told the kids they needed to address the concrete deck that was disintergrating. I told them someone would fall and they would have a law suit. Well the next year, someone did fall..ME and now I have problems with the facets in a couple of vertabrae.Back in PT again. There seems to be no end to physical and emotional pain.
Hang in there, Mimi. Are you taking anything for the back pain? And I'm not sure that the grieving the loss of our spouses gets easier…it just becomes different…I have not quite figured this out yet myself. There seem to be good days and bad days…times when I'm doing pretty well, but then something sets it off and it hits me like a wave again. Thinking of you today--and sending hugs. (Carefully, so as not to press on your back.)
Mimi, wishing you the best of luck with your back pain. Physical pain magnifies emotional pain for me. I also don't like hearing that it gets easier. How can it ever be easy losing the love of your life? How can it ever not be excruciatingly painful? I dread all of the upcoming anniversaries.
It still is painful for me, even 3 yrs after losing my husband....it doesn't get easier, and you don't get over it.... You just learn to "go around it" as my dear uncle has told me. I think I have gotten used to the fact that he's gone and won't be back, but I will always miss him....I still feel sadness when I think of how much it hurt to watch him slowly progress into AD, but other times I will catch myself smiling or laughing out loud when I remember the good times and think of something he said....his stories were the best! The up and down emotions of grieving go on and on for me; but that is how it has to be....I'm human and alive, I have feelings that have to be felt and experienced....I am learning that it is important for survival to just let go and feel whatever emotion comes along.....not easy though for sure!
I'm coming here for the first time and need all the help and advice you can give me. Everyone says to just stay busy. I'm trying but it's hard to go out and act like everything is alright when your whole world has just been turned upside down.
I don't agree with the advice to "stay busy", even if it were possible…and for me, it isn't. If you knew somebody who had just been struck by a truck or a train, would you tell them to "stay busy"? Sometimes I can be fairly productive, but at other times I am just about immobilized by apathy, lethargy, depression, nerves…this thing they call grief. Just missing him all the time is like having a full-time job…and then some.
Dazed,I think maybe you are going to need a lot of time just for solitude and reflection. ..peace and quiet, time to just "be." If you need that, and it seems like the right thing to do that day, I think you are entitled to it. Sure, if there are interests and activities that you are genuinely up for, then go for it. But just "staying busy" in the sense of filling your days with other things to avoid feeling the grief…is not going to get you anywhere. The grief will re-surface anyway and bite you in the toe.
My husband has been dead for over two years, and I still don't have the answer on how to overcome the grief. Just tonight, coming out of the Target store walking to my car, I looked up at the moon. It was so beautiful that I decided to go across the highway to an open-air promenade where we used to walk along all the stores. In the nice weather, we'd get an ice cream and sit on a bench. I haven't walked along there since he died, and thought I might enjoy doing so tonight. While it was somewhat pleasant, I still felt the tears start to form in my eyes. I realized that it will never be the same again, and that will always make me sad. Regardless of how "busy" I stay, I will remember our happy times together and miss him. I actually force myself to remember the difficult caregiving days in the hopes that I will feel better about losing him.
Dazed, you are so new to this widowhood - all I can say is keep trying to get up each day, get dressed and face that "everything" will never be the same again. The world you once lived in is gone and you will have to find some peace in the new one. Good luck, just do the best you can, and don't be so hard on yourself.
I'm at the eight-month point, and I do find that my interests and activities are…well…more interesting. I seem more genuinely engaged, more able to concentrate, more able to enjoy things. And best of all, I'm starting to lose weight. That's got to be a good sign.
Forgot to say that Larry seems to be very close to me, and that it's a good feeling. I think that what we had together will always be a part of me, no matter where my life takes me in the future. I don't think that precludes me from having new relationships, when and if the time comes…or from building a new life, doing new things, living in a different place…whatever. But Moon is absolutely right, Dazed. Just do the best you can, do what works for you in the moment, and take it easy on yourself. One day at a time…that's all any of us can do.
Welcome, Dazed, and I'm sorry you are here, if you know what I mean. I'm sorry we're all here, but grateful that we are here for each other. I agree that staying busy is poor advice, given you that have been so recently widowed. My husband died a month ago and I still can't leave the house. I've turned down all invitations to lunch, dinner, movies, whatever. I am not able to sit and pretend like I'm not dying minute by minute inside. The tears come so unpredictably and often, and even though people say they understand I don't really think they do. It just makes them uncomfortable, and I'm in no state to worry about other people's discomfort at this time.
The one good thing I've done since my husband's death is quit smoking. I had taken it up again when I placed him, and quitting is just as awful as it was the last time I did it 20 years ago. But at least I feel I'm doing something to help keep me alive. God knows I'm not eating and sleeping well yet at all.
I like what you say Elizabeth,....."If you knew someone who had been struck by a truck or a train, would you tell them to stay busy?" Such a great comparison to the grief of us dementia caregiving spouses! That's exactly what it feels like some days; can't "stay busy" and don't want to.....It doesn't fit my mood right now.... And that's fine. Not staying busy helps you to concentrate your energies on the grieving you need to do. So Dazed and Joni, and all facing this loss, take your time and allow yourselves to feel the emotions you are experiencing.
I guess whether you want to stay busy or not depends on whether that, for you, is a comforting or effective strategy. If it's not, then I don't think there's a person here who would try to tell you how you should handle this phase of your life.
Well, I guess I am officially now with the widows and widowers. He passed last nite. Did not sleep well but have deep,peace. One thing I am not going to do is second guess anything. We had a so so marriage but in the end there was pure love. Now to get through the funeral. A new phase begins.
Hi Everyone, Thanks for the good wishes. I have started PT again and it is tough going. I have added deep tissue massage. I was really lucky finding the massage therapist. She is not only a PT, she is certified in deep tissue massage and for those needed lymphedema treatment she is certified there too. It seems the injury I got in 2011 is what is behind all of this. The pain I had then in my right hip was treated but then the left side started up. Then when I went to move something last Feb the last straw was cracked and it seems it is the facet joint at the L5 S1 area. After the sessions, I feel pretty beat up the next day but there are starting to be more good days than bad ones..so fingers crossed.
On a happier note, my new Schonbek foyer fixture arrived to day..I wish we could post picture here..when it goes up I'll post it on FB. I ordered 2 small fixtures for the hall and when they get here, then the electricitian can come install it...And I got my faucet part for my kitchen faucet and I got my new RO system in.
The other day I was feeling so down because it is taking me so long to get basic things done. So I sat down and made a list of all the things I have done since 8 11 2013 and in spite of all my pains and injuries, I have done a lot! I surprised myself. I have a long way to go yet with the yard due the drought out here. Now if I can get the landscape construction team back....it will be nice. I need to do a bit or painting in the laundry room and then finally suck it up and face the closets....I'll select a couple of his outfits that I always liked seeing him in and put it aside with his other keepsakes along with that funeral suit I never want to wear again even though it was brand new. I don't dislike it fashion wise, I just don't like the reason I wore it for the first and only time. So that is my story and I'm sticking to it.
Ill pop in more often now I have managed to get all the above done and got my computer sorted out..printer died and new one would not work with my system until finally there is a driver update for my HP..so things are looking up..
Oh and one more thing, I have a new great grand daughter. Dylan is 6 months old and I wish Ozzie were here to see his first great grand child...I am a young great gran and go by the name Lita which is short for Abulita which is Spanish for Little Grandma... More to come Cheers
Since I am brand new at this widow thing, I am curious as to how you felt for the first 3 months or so. I know grieving is different with each person but would like to hear how some of you coped--what worked, what did not work etc. I know I grieved when he was diagnosed and I grieved more at placement. It is amazing just how much grieving we do go through with this disease I think because the losses are on so many levels.
Hi, C02. I don't think I coped at all…I just endured the misery. I got all of the medical stuff out of the house right away, and got rid of clothes and shoes that he was just wearing because he was so impaired--the sweat pants and velcro shoes, the hospital gowns. I set up our bedroom with all the nice framed pictures of him, and him and me together, and hung other pictures of him on the walls…his Army medals are in the foyer of the living room in a frame…the first thing you see when you walk in the house. I have not emptied "his" nightstand to this day…and his Bible and rosary are still on top of it on "his" side of the bed. Sometimes I slept well, and sometimes I didn't. I made myself get up and shower, dress, and comb my hair every day, although it was a struggle sometimes even to brush my teeth. On weekends, when I didn't have to babysit and cook supper for the family, sometimes I literally just spent two days in grubs, reading or browsing the Internet for hours until my eyelids got red, and I didn't even go to Mass…just vegetated for two days in total misery mode. My mother had died in Jan., 2014 without a will, so I had the hassle of having to probate her estate, as I was the only adult child close enough geographically to do it. What a royal pain. And two weeks after Larry's death, my DD filed for divorce against s-i-l, which broke my already-broken heart. So family support that I might have expected was not there, and in fact, family issues were unhappy and chaotic at a time when that was the last thing I needed. What helped was sitting on my screened porch every morning, just having coffee and looking at the grass, trees, birds, squirrels, etc. And walking in the park across the road every day... even if I was having one of my vegetative weekends, I walked. I was in NY in September, of course, for the internment, but I went back in October and November to stay with friends and (in Nov.) to spend Thanksgiving with friends and with family in Vermont. That helped save me…to be able to get down to the cemetery and "see" him, and also to be with mature, caring people who had known me for years and who, with just a supportive word or two…I could see that they understood and "got it" about DD and s-i-l without bashing them or saying too much. My good friend Phyllis who rents me a room in NY had recently lost her mother, so she understood that loss, too, with very few words needing to be exchanged. After being the "new kid" for 21 months in the Heartland, and knowing no one because of the caregiving isolation, it was just comforting beyond words to be "home", even though it involved a seven-hour drive to get there.
At the eighth-month point, I am eating much better…healthier…losing weight at long last…and starting to genuinely enjoy things and feeling really engaged without just forcing myself. For me, it's writing and music…hard to quantify without getting too wordy…but I'm perking up a good deal, and doing genuinely better at following my interests--and not just spending aimless hours on the Internet. And I'm genuinely enjoying the Heartland, making the most of it while I'm here…but still plan to move back to NY at the end of the next school year in 2016. I still miss Larry horribly, but more and more I have a feeling of such happiness for what we had together…I realize that he was a blessing and a gift…and that we had the marriage everybody wants and most people don't get. And that's something to feel joyous about, not sorrowful.
I don't think there are any set rules for getting through the loss of a spouse. I think we all muddle our way through as best we can. At 31/2 years, I am still slowly getting rid of stuff. I just bought a new couch and a new chair. Of course, at 70, I worry that by the time I have everything changed, I might be shuffling off to a nursing home or the other side.
I'm a pretty new widow, too, my husband died one month and 7 days ago. In many ways this grief is not as wrenching as the grief when he was placed, but sometimes the grief hits me so hard I feel like I can't live through it. Yesterday and today were/are terrible, with a sharp piercing pain in my heart (not literally) even though I am trying to stay distracted. I got through the first weeks in numbness and staying busy, but I have had days (yesterday for example) where I never left the bed, never got dressed, showered, or anything. I slept all day and then slept all night until 8:00 this morning. If I didn't have to go to the dentist today I don't think I would have gotten up today either. I really don't think I'm doing well at all, although it's probably too soon to tell. The emotional pain is so intense at times that I seriously wonder how I live through it. People who haven't been widowed are already acting like I should be doing better by now, but I don't care. I'm doing however I'm doing, and I can't live by anyone else's judgments or timeline.
Joni, I have a feeling that you're doing exactly what you need to do right now. If you were terribly sick with an illness, or had just had a major surgery, you would have to be in a big recovery and recuperation period. It would probably involve a lot of rest and a lot of "down" time. It seems to me that after a bad bereavement, we need that, too. I can make myself get out of bed, but there are certainly days (as I've posted a time or two…or three) that I can't make myself do much once I'm up. And I've got to where I don't care. The bills are paid, the house is not a health hazard, the grands get picked up from preschool, supervised and fed…hey, if I spend a lot of time vegetating…and am not very productive all the time…so what? I don't have anything to prove, and I do have to say that I'm finding more and more that it's nice to spend my free time doing exactly as I please. And not having to answer to anybody, or constantly be alert to somebody else's needs all the time. I recall very well the emotional pain that was so bad it almost felt like physical pain, and it wouldn't have surprised me if I had just dropped down dead. Honestly, Joni, you sound perfectly normal to me.
I had a new wave of missing him badly the last couple of days when the weather got extremely warm and sunny. That screened porch and back patio seem very empty without him sitting out there in the sun. I'm not a sun-worshipper at all, but Larry was…he could sit in the sun all day, the hotter the better. I can just see him so plainly out there…soaking up the rays and saying how good it felt. (That was his Mediterranean background, I guess…100% Italian.)
Well made it through the funeral. Actually it went very well. We ordered too much food but that is okay. I held up pretty well but cried when I saw the hospice people there. She said she would call me in about 6 weeks to see if I want to talk. I am going to take advantage of it as I have services for 13 months. For those of you wondering about Medicaid and all that after the spouse passes, I did call my worker and left a message that he had passed but according to the funeral home, they call social security of his passing and once they receive notice, they then shut down Medicare and Medicaid and stop the social security payments. My son knows someone in the social security office near here and he is going to make an appointment for me to get my benefits adjusted. I must take my marriage certificate and copy of the death certificate with me. I guess they have something whereby you can do this over the phone but I do not mind an appointment as long as I do not have a 2-hour wait. Right now I have all these flowers in my house and a bunch of thank you notes to write. I will leave that for another day. I will need a lot of down time and solitude now I think.
I just found an entire stack of unopened mail and opened it. I hadn't paid our house insurance or car insurance - I'm so used to everything being on auto-pay, but these were not. Some days I think I'm functioning well and my brain is the same as always, but something like this comes up to show me how wrong I am. My heart is not the only thing that is broken at this time, my brain is as well.
Joni, make lists. Even if you only get one item done on the list in a day, you can cross it off, even if you add two more! There is so much to do and your mind can't cope with it all at this point. Give yourself a day to do nothing but relax, go to a movie, visit with friends, read a book, etc. Then attack another item on the list. We can't be expected to remember to do everything like we used to. It will get done. It takes the brain a while to return to normal after what we have been through. Don't beat yourself up when you find something you should have thought of...just make a couple of phone calls and explain your situation - everyone is most cooperative and understanding in our circumstances.
Do something each day for YOU! It is time to revitalize and cope the best way you know how. (This is easy for me to say after 4 years...it takes time!)
Mary is right. Lists are good, not only to remind you but also to give you a sense of accomplishment. Here is my "household" list for yesterday (I have a separate list for work):
- do husband's laundry and find his extra slacks - vacuum cat litter area - move tender plants from garage to garden - water newly planted plants - call guy to check AC - change bed linens - transfer $ to checking and pay bills
I did the first 4 items on the list and was tired and discouraged when I went to bed last night. But since things always look better in the morning, when I looked at the same list today, I was pleased that I had done so much and vowed to finish the remaining tasks today.
I'm new to this thread, widowed just 3 weeks ago. Pain is still raw and I'm having trouble getting anything done. Since DH died at home, we had to arrange and move furniture to put his hospital bed in the middle of the living room. Whole house seems turned upside down. I have thank you notes to write. Need to do something with all these flowers, need to file claims for insurance, change bank accounts and stock accounts, utilities, titles to cars and properties. I have diapers and pull-ups...what do we do with these. I had really stocked up because I thought it was going to be much longer. So hard to get things done when grief is overtaking you. It's good to come here where you understand what I'm going through. Friends and relatives are coming by, checking on me, inviting me out to lunch, etc. but I feel a strange need to be by myself, sit in the porch swing and cry.
Arms around you, Dazed. It was the same with me when DH died. Friend came and moved the furniture back in place, VA came and removed the hospital bed. So much to do! You will get through it. I took lots of left overs to the ALZ Center - they could really use the pull-ups, walker, incontinent supplies, etc. I waited almost 9 months to remove him from our checking account - thought everything was taken care of - then received a check made out to him only! Thankfully, I knew my banker personally and she took care of depositing it in my account - I just signed his name, then deceased and she took care of it for me.
I needed to be by myself also and that's ok. Do what you need to do and take all the time you need. ((((HUGS))))
Dazed, I hear you. It has been 2 weeks and it is all I can do to get through the day. Hospice came by and told me I am doing well with my grief. But like you I cannot seem to get anything done and just want to be alone. Monday I am going to social security. I am trying to accomplish one small thing a day. Today I removed dead flowers from the living room and I wrote out 2 bills. I read somewhere in early grief to concentrate on the basics eat, sleep, walk and talk.
All of you who are recently widowed, please accept my sympathies first of all; secondly....go slow with your grief....and be kind to yourself. You have just come through a great trauma, and need to process all of it. Yes there is a lot to do, but take one thing at a time...one small thing a day (as CO2 said) is a good idea. Keep checking in here too and letting us know how you are doing. Hugs, Kathy
Dazed I can so relate to you in your feelings and disorientation. its been a bit longer for me now 5mos and its still surreal and feels like so long ago. taking one day at a time and maybe set goals for the week even if one thing. I made a list and some I did others had to wait. eventually you will find it easier to get moving again. it seems the norm for recent widow/ers to want to be alone for a while. I find that's true. socializing will come in time but sometimes it still feels quite out of place and makes one feel more alone. the mind and body has its timeline on how to heal itself. don't rush the process each of us if different. try not to get overwhelmed with all the business at hand and just do the essentials til you feel up to the task. many hugs to all who are passing thru this stage. no friends, the AD stages don't end with death, the hardest one, the last stage comes in those few months in the after. divvi*
divvi* you are so very correct. I even found the second year more difficult than the first. It seems like the world is made up of couples-and there are us-alone.
It looks like I'm not alone in my feelings. My wife died 6 weeks ago. The first 2 weeks I was on a cruise, and had family and friends around all the time. Now I'm alone in my, new, apartment and find I can't get the motivation to get things organized. I keep wondering what is my excuse for existence. For 12 years I have always been checking on Marge, no matter what else I was doing. Now that is no longer possible. I know some have found another person to fill the void in their lives, but at age 84, and with Marge being the only woman in my life since I was 14, I don't see myself looking for anyone. Maybe I should check with hospice for a grief support group.
Hospice would be good, Marsh. And, give yourself some time. You're a young 84 - so don't discount meeting a companion/friend. I wasn't looking - it just happened and he's 78!
Doug's friends put on a golf scramble memorial for him. 38 people participated. It was fun and we told some stories and had some laughs. We put a cooler chest at the 7th hole where he got a hole-in-one several years ago and asked people to toast him with a beer or water when they got to that hole. I was fine until I got home and just can't stop crying. It has been 50 days since he died and I so miss the person we celebrated today. He loved to golf, hike, backpack, bike, visit with people, tell jokes. He just brought so much fun into my life for 42 years. Our friends are planning fun retirement adventures and I am jealous that we can't do that. I am the quiet one, a boring accountant, and it has been a big deal for me to get out and do stuff other than just go to work. I wish I could change places with him and I know that sounds creepy and I have to get over this but just not feeling it right now. Know that I need to save myself but that takes effort and am tired. I do plan on attending grief counseling in September. Reality sucks.
In trying to figure out how to deal with grief I found on The Huffington Post website some writings by Joan Sutton. She was a columnist for The Toronto Sun newspaper. She also has a website, jsuttonstraus.com, and posted there are her writings about dealing with her husband's Alzheimers diagnosis and ultimate death. She writes about missing the skin touch of her husband, the house noise she now makes up for by leaving the TV on, and not sitting at the dining room table anymore as eating is not the pleasure it once was. The gratitude she feels for having been loved. The people who don't call anymore; her desire to constantly talk about her husband and remember him. She also has written a book, The Alzheimer's Diary, which I have not read. Anyway, I have found her writing very conforting and thought I would pass it along. I will also post this recommendation in the book section.
Thank you, Keely, for the information and for sharing about the memorial golf tournament. What a wonderful way for everyone to honor your husband's memory!
I haven't written here in a while. I feel strange, almost as if I shouldn't really share the truth of my situation. I know there are spouses who are not widowed, and I wouldn't want to do anything that could upset them or write about my difficulties without stressing that it's different for everyone. I don't even know if I'm making sense. I have gotten steadily worse since my husband's death. Last week I was actually feeling pretty good. I was driving to my therapy appointment, and happened to take a route that brought me right past a medical building where my husband's neurologist, cardiologist, and urologist all have offices. My husband had undergone some minor surgeries in the surgery center there. In short, he and I spent a lot of time there over the past ten years. Suddenly I was gripped by a heart-rending sorrow that almost brought me to my knees. I struggled into my therapist's office, barely able to breathe. I began sobbing and couldn't stop. I'm always very careful not to mention suicidal thoughts because I know it would become a big deal, but I couldn't help it that day. I told her that I no longer wanted to live in this much pain but I was safe because I had finally disposed of all the narcotic prescription medications I had in the house. But she could clearly see that I was far from safe, and she immediately walked me over to the ER. They put an armed security guard outside my room with the instructions (which I overheard being given to him) that he was to watch me at every moment, and if I needed to use the restroom, one of the female nurses would have to come into the bathroom with me. I won't go through all the minutiae of what happened at the ER as I know we are all familiar with how that goes. But by coincidence they had placed me in the room which was the last ER room I had been in with my husband, leading to the hospitalization that led to his placement. I just sad there and sobbed an prayed for death - I don't know how else to say it.
They transferred me to a psych unit at their facility 30 miles south, transporting me by ambulance. By then they had given me 2 Ativans and I was somewhat calmer. At the psych unit, they took away my purse and wouldn't let me keep my cell phone or even a pen to write with. We had to use crayons that they would provide if we needed to write anything. We had to line up at a "prison" phone for the half hour a day the phone was turned on if we needed to call anyone. Anyway, it was no fun, let me put it that way. But it did keep me safe, and I talked them into discharging me the next day. Their big concern was that I live alone and have no family in the area. Finally they called my best friend and she promised she would stay with me the first night and check with me three times a day after that. The social worker also asked my friend to check the medications in the house to be sure I really threw away the narcotics.
I felt better for a day or so after that, and today I am a sobbing mess again. I don't get out of bed unless I have to, and then it's only for brief periods. Tomorrow I am going to force myself to get out of the house, even if it's just for a drive.
In some ways, this grief is not as intense as the grief I felt when I first placed my husband. That grief was laced with anxiety about his current condition and the need to stay sane so I could continue to care and advocate for him. But this grief is pretty overwhelming, and it encompasses grief for all the many years of illness and caregiving. My therapist told me I am suffering from PTSD from the caregiving years, and I will be seeing a Psychiatrist to adjust my medication. Sorry this is so long, thank you all for being here.