My husband Kevin died over a year ago from cancer

[bubbles55]

I miss him more each day. Time supposed to heal but after 34 years of a very good marriage its difficult. Kevin was my true friend and the person who gave me so much confidence.

I feel not only have I lost a soul mate I have lost a large part of me which is difficult to get back

June

[lindat]

Hi June,  My Terry passed away suddenly in Jan. 2006 - we were still evacuated from Katrina, in a place where I didn't really know anyone.  We were only together 21 years but he was my very best friend and my rock and I wanted to die.  Even a year later, I couldn't get my bearings.  Now that it has been almost 5 years, I can honestly tell you that it will get easier, but it will still take lots of time.   There are still days that are hard, but it will always be that way.   In the first couple of years, I had to force myself to go to movies by myself and go to parties with friends even when I didn't want to, but that got easier too.  I am now a sophomore in college (at the age of 63) and life is looking much more hopeful, but very different.   I hope you find some peace.  Linda

[pommom91]

Hi Linda,

I lost my husband on May 7, 2010 after almost 39 years of marriage.  I still cannot believe he is gone. He was my everything.  I feel so alone.  I am so sorry you suffered such a devastating loss, too.

Linda

[ed61510]

June,

Everything you said is "exactly" how I am feeling. These are the worst days of my life.  When people tell me that it will get better, I ask myself (but should ask them) how do I get through it "now"?  Unfortunately telling a recently widowed woman it will get better isn't comforting. Why can't people just hold me or listen to me and not comment? Why does everyone feel the need to tell their grief stories about their mother or father or son-in-law...I want to yell "it's not the same".  My counselor tells me to tell them I can't listen to this right now and walk away, but I'm not that kind of a person.  I have always been the listener not the talker (Ed was the talker), how do I suddenly become the talker?

Ed just retired 3 years ago after working on a job he hated, but made the best of, and had since  been doing something he loved selling realestate.  His clientel was just starting to pick up even in this down market I know he would have been successful.  He had a great pension so what he made in realestate was our fun money after 30 years of ekeing by.  We were going to fix up the house (which we just started) and travel (we were planning a 2 wk road to CO & the Grand Canyon in August to see our daughter)  Now that pension has been cut in a quarter and I'm currently laid off. And instead of the road trip I'm flying out.  We always said love will keep us together because we ain't got no dough, and God has always provided so I now have to trust that God will look after me and provide for my needs.

On the day & time you wrote your post he was still alive but three short hours later he had just finished the 5th hole golfing in a tournament with friends and suddenly collapsed of a massive heart attack.  His partner said he was in the cart and Ed was putting his clubs away when he collapsed, in the short time till he got to Ed Ed was already blue and they started CPR immediately, but the EMT's and the ER Dr's were never able to revive him. It took me an hour to drive to the hospital.  Seeing him dead in the ER was the worst thing I've ever experienced I can still see him laying there with the tubes still in, no longer warm.  I hugged and kissed him for nearly 3 hours, I didn't want to leave him.  I was so guilt ridden because heart attacks are so preventable, he shouldn't have died this way if "I" had taken better care of him.  Now I realize he was an adult and should have taken better care of himself, I'm mostly past the guilt stage only once in a while now do a feel guilty.

Ed's brother told me this past hunting trip Ed had just told him that when he died he wanted to be either golfing or hunting and go quickly.  How many people actually die the way the would have liked.  The pastor said when we met with him Ed did so many thngs in his life that he packed the life of an 80 year old into that of 55 years.  I tell myself Ed completed God's will here on earth so God took him home.  But I still questioned why God didn't give him a second chance like most heart attack victims, when I realized that God was actually giving me a second chance fo rme to complete His will so I can join Ed.

We both lost our soul mates and neither of us is ever going to get them back.  That is the reality kicking in and it feels like daggers sticking in my heart.  I read where you feel like an impaled butterfly,  boy did that hit home.  My daughter got me into reading books on grief and my counselor gave me a list to read, they have been "very" helpful.  Each is written by someone grieving a spouse.  I had just started praying and asked God to send me a listener and He sent me to this forum.  Thank you Jesus!  It's been very comforting to read all of the posts and to know I'm not alone in some of the crazy feelings I'm having.

I also realized when people tell you they are keeping you in their thoughts and prayers that it is somewhat comforting that someone is thinking of you at this time.

Keep posting and talking and praying,

Karen

[Kelly]

Dear Members,

We are excited to mention that we are moving to a more new and improved message boards on MONDAY MORNING AUGUST 9th! The boards will be done for a few hours while we are making the conversation. Remember we posted information about this move a month ago. For some of you this might seem a bit sudden,  but when we were reviewing the site we determined the current message board you are using is out of date and the company that designed it is no longer in existence. The good news is this new message board will have new features that have been requested in the past like more fields we can add to your profiles and a chat room up to 20 people at one time. If we find the chat room is bursting at the seams we will add additional room for extra people. All your old posts, private messages and such will be migrated to the new message board. You might have to put up your profile picture again but not sure. The new company will be doing the migration for us. Here is a short list of some of the new features on the board:

- Custom Profile Fields- Users can customize their profile pages by selecting a background color or background image, with tiling options.- Facebook and Twitter Integration- users can respond to multiple posts at once with "mini-quote"- Pinned discussion threads - like welcome to our board etc.- Announcements made across some boards or the entire message board- Search: Users can easily find all content generated by a particular member, by clicking the 'Find Content' button that appears on the main profile page, or in the Mini Profile Popup which can be accessed throughout the board. The results page allows content to be filtered by application, as well whether the member created it or merely participated in it. - Privacy: allows users to sign in anonymously, hiding them from the online users list. Users also have the option to disable personal conversations and user-to-user emails, as well as ignore other users if necessary.

The next exciting piece of news about the new message board is it will have a new domain name of www.grieving.com for search engine optimization purposes. It will still be apart of Beyond Indigo and can be found through www.beyondindigo.com. We will be redirecting your current URL's to this new domain name but we might miss a few. If that is the case simply go back to www.grieving.com or www.beyondindigo.com to find your message board thread. We will try to make the transition as seamless as possible. 

The bottom line is the new board will give us room to grow our community and more options to interact better with each other. 

If you have any questions please direct them to feedback@beyondindigo.com.

Kelly Baltzell, MA

CEO/President

Beyond Indigo Family