How does a person go on?

[blackroses]

I lost my husband of 15 years on Jan 28th....he went into the hospital a week prior and was extubated on Thurs, we spoke briefly but they were not kind words...he hated me for not helping him to end it...he said he hurt so much...He was breathing on his own, and his heart was good..the next day he was intubated again and it was down hill from there...I sometimes feel okay, and then the house starts to close in on me, so I have to get out...I am so tired, its even an effort to feed the dog....How does one go on knowing you  will never hold their hand, never kiss them again, never be held again, and knowing our last words were not good...

[KayC]

blackroses,

I am so sorry for your loss.  I apologize that you didn't get an earlier response, I usually come on line early in the day and then not again until the next.

Try not to put to much stock by the last words you spoke, take the whole of the man, the whole of the relationship.  When they are in pain they speak from that pain and sometimes say things they otherwise would never say.  My husband and I were always together but once a year I would go to my sisters reunion and this particular weekend I left on a Friday morning.  How was I to know that right after I left he would have a heart attack and drive himself to the doctor, where they'd give him a nitroglycerin and transport him by ambulance to the hospital in the next town.  He told the doctor not to call me, he didn't want to ruin my weekend.  !!! I found out from a friend late that night and my sister would not take me to the hospital, I was five hours from home without my car  I called him and he said he'd be in testing all day Saturday, not to come, I wouldn't be able to see him anyway.  You can imagine how frantic I felt, I just wanted to be with him, even if I couldn't see him, just to sit outside the door waiting for him.  Saturday night I talked to him after his tests were done and he chided me for not being there...he said, "I would have walked across the world on broken glass to be with you."  It made me feel really bad, but he was the one who told me NOT to come and I had no way to get there, I couldn't get my sister to budge, she wanted to stay and gamble.  She would not bring me to him until Sunday afternoon, and there were people with him, doctors, nurses, visitors, I didn't get any alone time with him.  Then they booted us all out so they could move him into ICU.  When they let me in, he was sleeping.  I sat and held his hand and prayed for him.  He was cold, I asked the nurse for a blanket and told her that wasn't like him, she threw a sheet over him, big deal.  He woke up, eyes big, having a heart attack.  I ran to the nurses station, they called code blue, doctors came running.  While they were working on him, one of the nurses physically threw me off the ward and locked the door behind her.  I cried out that I was his little one, we always went through everything together!  I have nicknamed her The Ice Queen in my mind, she didn't care, heartless, she deprived me of being there for my George as he made his passageway into the next life.

It bothered me what he said about how HE would have walked on broken glass around the world to be with me.  Did he really think I didn't want to be there with him?  Did he WANT me to hitchhike, putting my life in jeopardy?  I didn't want to be away from him!  I remembered when my father died my mom said he had been difficult at the end when he was in pain.  My dad??  I'd never known him to be difficult, not in his whole life!  So I thought perhaps that's how it was for George too...speaking from pain, unable to see anything but what he was going through because it was so all encompassing.  He had never spoken to me like that in our entire time together.  So I let it go.  Chalked it up to pain speaking.  I do know that we love/d each other more than anything in the world, we could always count on each other.  I felt like a failure that I couldn't be there for him the one time he really needed me, at the end.  But I remembered all the times I had, how I'd given up everything to spend my life with him, how much that had meant to him.  In time I let it go.  Remember the whole of the man, the whole of the relationship, the whole of our time together, not just the one part at the end.  And the whole was good, it was as perfect as any relationship could be.  It was wonderful.

I totally believe we'll be together again.  The end when they had pain will be a thing of the past, and we'll be consumed with our reuniting, and we'll never have to say goodbye again.

This is a really hard time for you, the time in the beginning of grief, when the pain is so intense, so hard.  I want to share with you what I've learned in the twelve years since my George died...in the beginning I didn't think I could go on without him, I didn't see how it was possible to live without him.  This will be too much for you to absorb right now, but perhaps you can print it out to read later on in your journey from time to time.  All of these things are what helped me to get by.

TIPS TO MAKE YOUR WAY THROUGH GRIEF

There's no way to sum up how to go on in a simple easy answer, but I encourage you to read the other threads here, little by little you will learn how to make your way through this.  I do want to give you some pointers though, of some things I've learned on my journey.

• Take one day at a time.  The Bible says each day has enough trouble of it's own, I've found that to be true, so don't bite off more than you can chew.  It can be challenging enough just to tackle today.  I tell myself, I only have to get through today.  Then I get up tomorrow and do it all over again.  To think about the "rest of my life" invites anxiety.
• Don't be afraid, grief may not end but it evolves.  The intensity lessens eventually.
• Visit your doctor.  Tell them about your loss, any troubles sleeping, suicidal thoughts, anxiety attacks.  They need to know these things in order to help you through it...this is all part of grief.
• Suicidal thoughts are common in early grief.  If they're reoccurring, call a suicide hotline.  I felt that way early on, but then realized it wasn't that I wanted to die so much as I didn't want to go through what I'd have to face if I lived.  Back to taking a day at a time.
• Give yourself permission to smile.  It is not our grief that binds us to them, but our love, and that continues still.
• Try not to isolate too much.  
• There's a balance to reach between taking time to process our grief, and avoiding it...it's good to find that balance for yourself.  We can't keep so busy as to avoid our grief, it has a way of haunting us, finding us, and demanding we pay attention to it!  Some people set aside time every day to grieve.  I didn't have to, it searched and found me!
• Self-care is extremely important, more so than ever.  That person that would have cared for you is gone, now you're it...learn to be your own best friend, your own advocate, practice self-care.  You'll need it more than ever.
• Recognize that your doctor isn't trained in grief, find a professional grief counselor that is.  We need help finding ourselves through this maze of grief, knowing where to start, etc.  They have not only the knowledge, but the resources.
• In time, consider a grief support group.  If your friends have not been through it themselves, they may not understand what you're going through, it helps to find someone somewhere who DOES "get it". 
• Be patient, give yourself time.  There's no hurry or timetable about cleaning out belongings, etc.  They can wait, you can take a year, ten years, or never deal with it.  It's okay, it's what YOU are comfortable with that matters.  
• Know that what we are comfortable with may change from time to time.  That first couple of years I put his pictures up, took them down, up, down, depending on whether it made me feel better or worse.  Finally, they were up to stay.
• Consider a pet.  Not everyone is a pet fan, but I've found that my dog helps immensely.  It's someone to love, someone to come home to, someone happy to see me, someone that gives me a purpose...I have to come home and feed him.  Besides, they're known to relieve stress.  Well maybe not in the puppy stage when they're chewing up everything, but there's older ones to adopt if you don't relish that stage.
• Make yourself get out now and then.  You may not feel interest in anything, things that interested you before seem to feel flat now.  That's normal.  Push yourself out of your comfort zone just a wee bit now and then.  Eating out alone, going to a movie alone or church alone, all of these things are hard to do at first.  You may feel you flunked at it, cried throughout, that's okay, you did it, you tried, and eventually you get a little better at it.  If I waited until I had someone to do things with I'd be stuck at home a lot.
• Keep coming here.  We've been through it and we're all going through this together.
• Look for joy in every day.  It will be hard to find at first, but in practicing this, it will change your focus so you can embrace what IS rather than merely focusing on what ISN'T.  It teaches you to live in the present and appreciate fully.  You have lost your big joy in life, and all other small joys may seem insignificant in comparison, but rather than compare what used to be to what is, learn the ability to appreciate each and every small thing that comes your way...a rainbow, a phone call from a friend, unexpected money, a stranger smiling at you, whatever the small joy, embrace it.  It's an art that takes practice and is life changing if you continue it.
• Eventually consider volunteering.  It helps us when we're outward focused, it's a win/win.

(((hugs))) Praying for you today.

 

 

[LoveD]

Blackroses,

I am very sorry for your loss.  We are human beings.  I don't think many of us would have ideal endings like playing in the movies when our love ones passed, especially your husband was in pain at the end and it would affect his and your temperaments.  In time you will think more about your happy times together in your life instead of what had happened at the last moment.

KayC,

Thanks again for sharing your heart-broken journey.  Life is not easy.  What we can do is to surrender.

[Michelene]

Blackroses, 

I am so sorry for your loss. It is hard, especially when we didn't get to say at the end what we would like to say. Say what you want to say now, out loud. And keep coming here...how does one go on? I don't know--my Eric passed away Nov. 27. It still doesn't seem real, I feel like I am still in negotiations with someone, something. If I do this right, it will be not true. "They" will see I have learned my lesson and he will come back. I have a cat, and his wanting to get fed and petted was the only thing that got me up somedays.

 

[Michelene]

 

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[KayC]

In my husband's case, he did not procrastinate seeking treatment, He'd been telling the doctor for six months that his chest hurt, his ankle (I later learned that was a heart sign too), indigestion, etc.  His doctor is to blame for not sending him to a Cardiologist, the doctor believing he knew everything and didn't want to refer people, grr!  The doctor was dismissive of his complaints, only telling him he needed to quit smoking, which he was trying, he'd cut it back 90%.  But it wasn't George's call to not let the doctor CALL me, it should have been MY call to decide if I wanted my weekend ruined or not!  Silly man!  What ruined my weekend was not being able to BE there for him, through it all!  I couldn't focus on "having a good time" while my husband is in the hospital needed a five bypass!  Was he crazy?!!!  Then to chide me afterwards for a decision HE instituted...   No, it was not him talking, it was his pain talking...that and the facing his own immortality, all alone.  Because it was Saturday night, the night he said those words to me, that he had just learned the results of the tests, and he was realizing I'm sure that he probably wasn't going to make it.  Maybe he needed that alone time to face what was to come, to give in to it, to be ready to go through what he must.  I can't know what that's like, I am still living, not facing my passageway into the next life yet.  So I let go of my feelings about his words to me, about his bad decisions that fateful weekend, and just love him through it all, the whole of his being.

Nope, you're not alone.  It's a lot to grapple with.  Just having to deal with the loss of them is hard enough, but to have all this thrown into the mix, well, it's a lot to deal with.  (((hugs)))

And the pretending, the what ifs, that's a way we make our way through the wishing for a different ending, it's part of the "guilt in grief", eventually we realize we don't get another outcome no matter how much we wish for it.  It's trying to make your way from Point A (denial) to Point B (reality).  We get there in time when we've exhausted our efforts otherwise.

[Skywise]

On the day that Clive died he was in sudden, terrible pain for an hour or so, until the nurse got to the house to give him morphine injections.  For most of that time he was holding on to me so tightly that I couldn't breathe and had to forcibly remove his arms from around me so I could breathe and also get downstairs to ring the nurse.  The guilt I carry now because I had to physically remove his arms from me and then left him in bed whilst I rang the nurse is overwhelming.  He needed me there with him and I walked away.  Logically, I know that I did what I had to do to help him.  Emotionally?  I'll carry that guilt with me forever because I saw the look on his face when I came back upstairs - I think he thought I'd run away from him when he needed me the most.

After he'd had the injections, I was lying next to him, holding him until the pain died down, and he grabbed my arms and pushed me away from him.  He was shouting at me, that I was smothering him, he couldn't breathe with me being so close, why wouldn't I just get out and leave him alone.  I know he didn't mean to push me away, he was just reacting from the pain, medication and fear.  It still hurts though.

I think, when they're in pain, they lash out that person closest to them.  We're the only ones they know they can vent at and we'll still be there.  Your husband didn't hate you, he was frightened and had lost control of what was happening to him.  You were there and he knew he could say anything to you  and you would still love him and be there for him. Take heart from the fact that he trusted you that much.

I know that there's nothing more I could have done.  Our relationship was pretty near perfect (1 row in over 15 years) and I was holding him in my arms when he died - that's what I hold on to now.  That I was able to be with him at the end and had the opportunity to tell him how much I loved him, that he could go to sleep without worrying about anything and when he woke up we'd be together.  I was lucky to be able to tell him everything that I felt about him, even if he was so medicated he couldn't hear me.

I'm 100 days into this terrible new life but I still tell him everyday that I love him and miss him and can't wait until we're together again.

As for how we go on - well, we just do don't we?  Every day is a hard slog but I have to keep going - he made me promise to look after our cat - Chloe - until she passes and that's what I intend to do.  After that?  Who knows.

[KayC]

Skywise,

Your name is apt, you ARE indeed wise.  Thank you for sharing that very raw and vulnerable emotional experience with us, it has to be hard, yet it helps those going through this to understand their situation is more common than they might think, that those of us who had wonderful close relationships might have experienced this at the end and it IS a hard thing to deal with and let go of.  You explain it so perfectly, it IS their pain talking, their dealing with their passage into what is next, it's a lot to deal with, and we ARE the safest one they don't have to be so careful around so that even though they've never lashed out on us before, they might at this time. We have to try not to personalize it and look at it in the light of what was going on with THEM.  This was about THEM and not us, not any fault in us, not anything we did or didn't do, nothing was wrong between us, this was something they were grappling to deal with and that they didn't do it perfectly is okay, we can understand and forgive that, we know them, we know how much they love us and we don't want to hang onto anything that might be perceived in a negative way.  Regard the entirety of the person, the entirety of the relationship and let go of the one lash out.

[blackroses]

Thank you for your responses...I am still in kinda a disbelief... and numb...I go thru the motions of arranging things, talking to ppl,  getting the necessary papers etc, and then I come home....the tears/thoughts start and they dont stop...I worked today... and even that doesnt help......I was told on the phone that I sound angry....He is british and has known us for years...told me today I was angry when I answered the phone,  cant help it....not doing anything, just being me.....
 

 

[KayC]

blackroses,

Are you seeing a grief counselor?  If you haven't started doing so yet, it might really help you.  It's only been three weeks, it takes much time to process this, talk to us...