Saying how sorry I am to read of your loss wpuld be a gross understatement.   Whilst writing this I am crying because so much of what you wrote I can relate with.   My Jim died on the 21st November and there hasn't been a day since then that tears have not been shed.  Waking up in the morning and seeing the empy space in the bed brings the horror of what happened flooding back.  Sleep is the only relief from the pain but there is always the waking up part which is horrendous.

Jim was a house husband.  I would go to work and come home in the evenings by opening the front door shouting out 'hello' and hearing his response.   The aroma of a lovely dinner would be wafting through the hallway and a freshly made cup of coffee would be waiting for me.   We would always greet each other with our habitual two kisses, one on the lips and another on the cheek.

This Friday will be my first day back at work and also the first time I will be coming home to an empty house by opening the door which will now be locked, no-one to say hello to nor give my 2 kisses, no dinner lovingly prepared for us to share and with the sound of silence which I know will be heart wrenching.

There are too many 'firsts' to dread, my birthday in April, days off work already booked from last year with the intention of spending quality time together, maybe going for a run in the car on a picnic or just chilling around the house together.   The nightmare continues and I, like you, just don't know when it will end.

I know it sounds selfish to say this but in so many ways I wish it had been me to have gone.

Hopefully you, I and everybody else on this forum will one day find some peace and learn to live with our grief but that day seems such a long way away at the moment.

Take care and wishing you all the best.

Debi

Darling woman I am right there with you.

My beautiful husband, also called Ian, died on the 30th June last year and I feel exactly as you do I suspect. My Ian was my world, my love, my partner, my best friend and the best thing that ever happened to me, he made me make sense to myself. He was a gentle soul who always stood behind his ambitious wife with all the encouragement in the world and just let me be me. 

The pain of losing him has ripped me in two and each time I descend into a new low I hope it is the bottom, and every time it's not!!

I heard a program on radio 4 back along, it was Sunday worship, and the minister described how the loss of his wife to cancer made him feel as if he were in a different land from those around him, that sometimes he came to the border and closer to others, but he was still separated from them by that border. 

I miss my Ian so very much and cry every single day too, new year was horrendous, it was like saying goodbye all over again because that was the last year in which we were together. At the same time I was staring down the barrel of a gun loaded with a future that was without him. My heart hurts most of the time, physically and metaphorically, and no matter what everyone around me says, they have no idea for the most part because Ian died relatively young and I am 14 years younger than him so I am a widow in early middle age facing decades without the one human being I crave more than the breath in my lungs.

It's going to take a long time to grieve, and if I ever 'get over' him I shall be very surprised indeed.

Take all the time you need, cry whenever it takes you - the other day I was crying in Waterstones after seeing the Private Eye annuals and the member of staff who asked if I needed help took one look at me and gave me a huge hug - no questions asked.

Anyone who is distressed by your distress will just have to give you the space you need and the hug or squeeze of the hand you deserve. Don't worry about the brave face, I've been blotchy faced with crying for months - ever since I stopped feeling numb!!

I don't know you but I hold you in my heart as a fellow traveller down that very bleak path.

 Hello fellow traveller, it’s been awhile since I posted on here but I couldn’t let your comments pass me by. 

 My beloved died on the 25th of November. Just 15 short months after being diagnosed with oesophageal cancer. Like so many others have said of their loved ones, Steve was my world, he loved me for my sake and knew me better than I knew myself.

In many ways I feel I have been in training for the last 15 months as we prepared for the inevitable – he had an 8% Survival chance at the beginning.

I thought I was doing pretty well until last Sunday when I had a complete meltdown. Like you, New Year was far harder for me than any other time since he died.2019 will be the first year since I have been alive that Steve will not draw breath in. I worry as my life trundles on, as all our lives trundle on, that he will not be able to keep up and he will not be able to find me. I worry that as I begin to recover Steve will fade into my history. He will be the man i "used" to be married to. I cannot contemplate life without him. I desperately want to feel better but if that means that Steve will start blurring into my past  then I would rather feel this intense, acute pain for the rest of my days. At least I know he is still with me in some form, even if it is a figment of my grief. 

 I don’t know how old you are, I’m guessing you are younger than me. I’m 55. Steve was 58. There are many, many people on this site in the same situation whose circumstances are far worse. I try very hard to remember that and how poorly Steve was - in the end he was grateful to let go but I miss him with an intensity that takes my breath away.  

Who knows what the future holds for any of us but I am absolutely convinced of one thing:  we are some of the luckiest people I know of - we loved, and were loved and adored, every day. So many people don’t have that and it’s what I cling on to. 

Ruth x

Hi hope your feeling a bit more settled after xmas yes we are lucky it used to be amusing sometimes we used to argue because we each wanted to put the other first .paulus

This is just awful:(.

I too am grieving, but for my wife who passed away at the end of November.  So many emotions right now, but it is definitely getting worse for me the further I get from her passing.  We had an inseparable love for each other and she wasn't ready to go, she said that so many times!  I wasn't ready to let her go either, she was only 46 and we had so many plans, hopes, and dreams ahead of us. 

It was like we were held at gunpoint and forced into being separated.   If we'd have seperated through disagreement or divorce at least there's a chance of putting our love back together again, but we've been pulled apart in the most brutal of ways against our wills and that's it, no going back.  Its almost as if she was hanging over a cliff edge and desperately holding onto my hands, but then something pulled her away!  I am totally distraught and destroyed by it all because I let her go!

Nothing I do and nothing anyone says can make this better for me.  I used to get up everyday because I had a life worth living, now it's just not what I want it to be. I've been having so many bad days recently and I just hate what this is doing to me:(.  

I've signed up with a Hospice counsellor and also one through my employer, so I hope between them they can settle my thoughts down to make this hell more bearable.

James x

Hi james in an earlier post i mentioned how i felt for the youunger people and fortys is young liz said to me i dont want to die i knew she to was going to go and there wasnt a dam thing i could do but my friend you didnt let your wife go this rotton disease did that its so early for you at the moment as your so crushed by grief its nearly nine months since i lost liz so ine further on nothing i say or do will make you feel better at this moment like your going to do i did i arranged counciling with hospice as i thought they would have more experiance of lost than others who had just been trained to do it and i was right it realy helped me but you have to stick it out and talking and talking gives us a chance to rant cry just talk it helped with the rotton guilt .the thing is after a while people try to change the subject out of what they think is kindness but its not. For a while every week its about you they dont try and change the subject .its all about getting your mental energy back you may think what does he know but i do like you ive been luck enough to find love .to me cancer has stolen the life liz would have had ime still here but like your wife its stolen her life away .all i can say is just hang on till you get a bit stronger as you will be emotionaly exhausted like i was and to a poin still am my attension span is terrible still but i dont rhink about liz 24 hours a day you slowly at first get brief momments when reality starts to come back so just hang in is all i can say be with family and friends talk about it then talk some more if you can find a bereavment group go and see if that helps all these things helped me thats all i can say best wishs and come back and talk some more .i wish these cancer charitys wouldnt put commercials on which seems to portray everyone surviving cancer its not like that is it and it lulls everyone into thinking cancer is less than it is . Ive been divorsed to liz was my second chance at happiness divorce realy realy is agony its like grieving to .but forget that just hang on mate .best wishs paul ps it does get more painful as the grieg goes on but there is a point were we hit hit rock bottom then the only way is back up my dr told me that i thought what rubbish but he was right no doupt about that 

Thanks Paulus, 

It's tough going for sure, and I do feel better when I'm around people.  But, even so my mind is still going around like a Waltzer on full speed 24/7 and each Waltzer car contains a different thought or memory about my wife and our life... around and around it goes!

I keep remembering my wife mostly of the person she was before she became ill and then have to remind myself of just how seriously ill she really was in order to justify or soften the blow of what happened to her.  It's just so intensely difficult to get through each day.  I visit her grave daily and stand there talking to the ground asking my wife how we ended up like this?

I feel like I'm going mad...is this what grief does to us, punishes us for loving someone so much?

James.

Its such a strong emotion is grief it drowns out reality and lodgic every minitm 24/7 it never lets go yes we do go mad for a while anyway it makes us feel we are teetering on the brink of insanity  but something stops us maybe our survival instinct .you pretty much summed it up yourself . They agonising pain seems to slowly turn into a constant dull ache . I found after a while i stopped feeling lonely because i felt liz was part of me these are not hollow words .slowly i started to feel better before they say time is a healer and it is its what you do in that time to make life bearable and you sound like your starting to come back by arranging counciling it realy is all about small steps james very small steps . Whatever your doing going to your wifes grave and talking is the right thing for you do lets say its your way of healing yourself i would probably do the same must be a great comfort and allso very painfull painfull but yes thats the word healing ourselves when we do the nice memories start to trickle back and displace the horrors we have seen who knows what the future will bring but its got to be better than it is now .thats what i mean about holding on if it dosnt get eisier the whole world would go mad with grief .p

Hi there.

im am so sorry to hear about your husband. My husband passed away on 17th December 2018. 

He was at home and I was with him when he died and although I’m happy he was at home it was the most traumatic experience I’ve ever had. I will never forget it... watching my husband take his last breath broke my heart.  I have replied to you tonight as I’ve had a meltdown, everything had become too much for me and I feel everything I do is pointless without Howard. We were together for 29 years married for 10. I can’t bear life without him. I miss his voice so much and just presence I just want a hug from him telling me everything will be alright. Everything you said in your post I can relate to. I too have family and lovely caring friends and they are wonderful but I just want my husband... I miss him so much. There are no rules about grieving it takes as long as it takes. I go to the gym I run I keep busy but it doesn’t help, it just reminds you of it more as that’s the reason you’re keeping busy. I just wanted you to know I know what you’re going through and it’s the worst experience in the world. Look after yourself and just try to remember little things about your life together to make you smile. I know it’s not easy it will never be easy hopefully one day we will accept it and learn to live with it but we will never, ever forget. Much love

Gillian

 Hi Gillian

 I just wanted to say I am so sorry to hear of your husband’s death. I can certainly empathise with everything you have written. I lost my own darling Steve a few weeks before you.  We had also been together for a long time, 33 years all told. 

 I miss his voice, his smile, his laugh, I miss our private jokes and the way he looked at me.  I miss the fact that he loved me far better than I deserved.  I miss everything about him , I guess I always will. 

 Steve lasted 16 months from diagnosis to death and I thank my lucky stars that we were not in a constant cycle of highs and lows over years and years. The 16 months we had were emotionally, physically and mentally exhausting. I can’t imagine how people go on for longer.  I also am so grateful that Stephen died quickly and, hopefully, pain-free, at home as he wished.  Like you life doesn’t make much sense at the moment, everything is a struggle for me and whilst I am surrounded by the most amazing family and friends I would give every hour I have left on this earth for another day with Steve. But I know I can’t have that,  if there is a “hereafter“ then I will have to wait to see Steve again. In the meantime I am going to honour his memory, make him proud and I am going to mourn him  but I am also going to live. I am sure Howard would want you to pick yourself up, dust yourself off and find a way back to the sunshine knowing that he will be walking along side you, even though you can’t see him. 

 I have a very personal theory about grief, I have no idea if it will resonate with you but for me the pain of losing Steve keeps him alive for me... If I stop crying for him then I am moving on and I’m not ready to do that yet.

  Take care Gillian

Ruth xx