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Sudden death of Husband


rp43win4jt

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My husband suddenly passed away this past Sunday, February 4, 2018.  I am so lost.  Someone please tell me how to cope with this.  He was 62 and I love him so much.  He didn't suffer but it was like he just went to sleep and wouldn't wake up.  I am having panic attacks and can't sleep.  Will wake up suddenly and just be scared to death.  I understand that this is probably normal in this type of situation but feel like I'm going to die because I can't breath and and can't think straight.  I think I could run a mile when this happens.  To be honest I wish I had died too.  I can't believe he's gone.

 

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rp45win4jt,

 I am so sorry for your loss of your husband. Panic is normal, it is frightening. My hands would shake for the longest time, and I would imagine just running out the door and running forever. Try to breathe in and out slowly when this happens, and it happened a lot to me and still does. There is numbness, shock, and disbelief. Fear and pain. Loss and sorrow. Bewildered is how I mostly felt the first month, the first weeks. Lost. I did things, but it was like I was a small child being directed by others, with no sense of why. I did things, but only as tasks--I wanted to go backward and not forward.  I still do. 

I hardly slept the first few weeks and two months later I am sleeping all the time now. I come home from work and just go to bed. All I want to do is sleep. My husband died suddenly as well, and it seemed very unreal and still does, I felt panicky like it was a mistake and that it needed to be corrected quickly, someone needed to fix it. I started writing in a journal anything that came into my head. I lived with my husband alone so I could just scream out loud when I felt like it, or lay on the floor and cry and that was good that I didn't have to keep it in. 

I wrote down things I had to do as they came into my head. My brother came and helped me the second week, or probably nothing would have gotten done--do you have someone who can help you arrange what you need to arrange for your husband? 

I am so new at this I don't want to say the wrong thing; I feel for you in your loss--it is a new world we are in and scary and new--I felt/feel the lack of sense, that nothing made sense--I went to a grief counselor who told me that it was the sense of no control over the world, my world, our world that was giving me panic attacks. That my husband could be just wrenched from me. 

This is a good place to come to share your pain and see how others have coped/are coping. 

 

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@rp43win4jt  I am so sorry!  My husband also died suddenly, he was 51 and I was 52 when it happened (heart attack).  I felt as you did in that early time, panic attacks, anxiety, couldn't sleep, frantic, sudden death is hard.  You start out in shock, moving into "grief fog" where it's hard to focus and it affects your brain and your thinking, making it hard to function at work.  It's been 12 1/2 years for me and I wrote this based on what I've learned the last twelve years, I hope something in it is of help to you.  It might help to print it out and look at it every couple of months or so as right now it'll be hard for you to take it in and digest it, it's all so little by little in this process.  We are here for you so I hope you'll continue to come here.

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.

 

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rp45win4jt

I am so sorry to hear of your loss.  I lost my husband of 58 years four months ago, and I can absolutely relate to your experience. He died suddenly and completely unexpectedly, it eventually transpired from an aggressive lymphoma.  My body went into shock and I could hardly walk.   I couldn't think, my hands shook,  and I too couldn't believe that it had happened.  I became completely helpless and dependent.  I had a sense that he had gone away for a while and would come back, and only recently I had a thought that when the spring came he would come back. It has been an incredibly painful, long hard road, but my family kept telling me, just get through one day at a time and let out the pain and sorrow whenever it rises to the surface.  For you it will be very raw right now and in the coming weeks.   You will hardly be able to contemplate this right now,  but little bit by tiny little bit things do change over time. 

look after yourself, get all the help and support that you can.

 

 

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13 minutes ago, Patsie said:

rp45win4jt

I am so sorry to hear of your loss.  I lost my husband of 58 years four months ago, and I can absolutely relate to your experience. He died suddenly and completely unexpectedly, it eventually transpired from an aggressive lymphoma.  My body went into shock and I could hardly walk.   I couldn't think, my hands shook,  and I too couldn't believe that it had happened.  I became completely helpless and dependent.  I had a sense that he had gone away for a while and would come back, and only recently I had a thought that when the spring came he would come back. It has been an incredibly painful, long hard road, but my family kept telling me, just get through one day at a time and let out the pain and sorrow whenever it rises to the surface.  For you it will be very raw right now and in the coming weeks.   You will hardly be able to contemplate this right now,  but little bit by tiny little bit things do change over time. 

look after yourself, get all the help and support that you can.

 

 

I still have the sense he will come back, sometimes as I am doing things I think, Eric will be so proud of me that this is done. Then the thought intrudes that he will get no benefit from it and the task is diminished. It is true one day at a time, but sometimes just one hour, one minute, one event or situation at a time. Putting on a work face all day would be impossible if I couldn't go home and just "be" at this point. I am emotionally exhausted by the time I get home. 

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You will find much support here as you start this journey.  I'm almost 5 months into this.  If I take where I am at this moment it is not as raw nor as fiercely overwhelmingly painful as it was that Sunday in September or the following weeks. You found this forum faster than I could ever have done.  I didn't even have that focus.  Try to go back to your breath as others have suggested.  Movement helps.  Movement seems to move the grief instead of keeping the pain stuck in our hearts. Sleeping patterns will be totally disrupted.  It may be just minutes initially than minutes will turn into an hour.  An hour will turn into a few hours.  Those tiny gains help give some light. Eating was a problem.  I found soups and smoothies to be the only thing I could do.  They were soothing.  Bone broth before bed.  Candles.  Candles are a ritual and give me a feeling of some centering. I started that immediately and I'm still doing candles. Journaling.  I keep it right next to the bed and grab it the moment the startled feelings wake me up.  I write to Wayne. I write to myself and I even started many entries with Dear God help me. I write down the pain and the feelings of hopelessness. I write down the feelings of "I just couldn't go on without him."  Reach out.  Don't be afraid to ask.  My girlfriend and her husband did my first Costco trip within 2 weeks after my loss.  It made me feel I had some control just in putting away the items.  Showers/Baths sometimes 3xs a day!!! Bubble baths. Soaks. Anything to get through and survive that moment of intensity. went out for walks even in the rain. We are so numb even the cold didn't penetrate.  I found doing little loads of laundry helped me feel I had some control in maintaining my life.  I set up friends (checked which ones kept their phones off during the night and asked how they felt if I did this) that I could text my thoughts and pain at all hours of the night.  Next morning it was a delight to see them reaching back with a text of love support and encouragement.  You will find those that understand and those that simply don't get it and won't get it.  Find others who will.  They're out there.   I found these two books helpful. 

Its OK That You're  Not OK by Megan Devine

Healing After Loss  Daily Meditations for Working Through Grief  by Martha Whitmore Hickman.  

KayC  shares a Tip List.  I printed that and keep that tucked in my journal.  She shares many wise tips.

I'm only sharing what I did to survive those initial weeks.  some I no longer do.  others I still do. I've added things like reaching out and trying a grief support group.  I'm working with a therapist. I've returned to my yoga practice and I've pushed myself to try the mall walking.  there is no running from it and we cant fix it.  what we want we cant get back. that is still difficult to accept. we inch forward. this is a horrible surreal time.  we do move through it.  

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19 hours ago, Patsie said:

rp45win4jt

I am so sorry to hear of your loss.  I lost my husband of 58 years four months ago, and I can absolutely relate to your experience. He died suddenly and completely unexpectedly, it eventually transpired from an aggressive lymphoma.  My body went into shock and I could hardly walk.   I couldn't think, my hands shook,  and I too couldn't believe that it had happened.  I became completely helpless and dependent.  I had a sense that he had gone away for a while and would come back, and only recently I had a thought that when the spring came he would come back. It has been an incredibly painful, long hard road, but my family kept telling me, just get through one day at a time and let out the pain and sorrow whenever it rises to the surface.  For you it will be very raw right now and in the coming weeks.   You will hardly be able to contemplate this right now,  but little bit by tiny little bit things do change over time. 

look after yourself, get all the help and support that you can.

 

 

Patsie,

I'm sorry for your loss but welcome you here.  You have an understanding family with good advice.  And you are right, our grief evolves.

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I am sorry for your loss...he is my daughter's age, so young.  You are right, you and your children were robbed, there is nothing fair about this!  I know if feels like you can't do this, I had those feelings too, give yourself time to adjust, it's hard to process when you're in shock and don't know where to start.

I don't know if you've seen this or not but I want to share it with you, I hope you'll print it out and refer to it now and then as our journey is ever changing and what strikes you at one time will be different from another time.

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.

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4 hours ago, Mayurie said:

.I hate speaking in the past tense because I cant come to terms that he is gone

Hello.  I am so sorry you find yourself here with us, but it's good that you have.  My first bit of advice is don't try to force yourself to speak in the past tense.  It's been 15 months for me and I still often say "we" and "our" and " he is" because he is still in my present.  He will always be "here" with me.  His second favorite hoodie still hangs on his hook by the front door.  (Our daughter has his favorite for comfort.)  His chair is right where it's always been in the living room and many of his things are scattered around the house.  I wear his favorite flannel shirts on cold mornings.  I talk to him every day.  I don't care if it makes me seem weird or as if I'm in denial.  Only people who are going through this type of grief can understand the difference.  Do whatever you have to do to give you and your daughters a tiny bit of comfort.

You are both so young to have to go through this.  The way that you speak of your husband, I have no doubt at all that he knew how much you love him, how much you would have wanted to be there with him.  It is completely unfair and wrong and more painful than we think we can possibly live through.  Grief truly does sometimes feel as if it could be fatal.  Even today, I have times where I wonder how my heart can hurt so much and still go on beating.  But you must think about your beautiful daughters and help them cope day to day, even hour to hour for a while. 

I am not ever going to use an IMO stupid cliche like, "He'd want you to carry on" or "He wants you to be happy."  However, I will say that he needs you to make sure that your daughters find their way through this impossibly painful journey.  Even though he is not here physically, he is still and will always be part of all of you.  I'd be lying if I said that it never crossed my mind to just end it all and go be with my love.  But our daughter deserves to have her mom with her a while longer and our 11 year old granddaughter needs me to keep her adored and adoring grandpa's memory alive, to make sure she knows beyond any doubt that he would never have left us on purpose.

I will be thinking of you today and hope that you will do what we all do and just keep breathing.  Don't ask much more of yourself right now.  Deal only with the here-and-now and love your daughters.  Please do not try to hide your grief from them because they may then think they need to hide their grief from you.  Love together; grieve together; just be together as you start this impossible dark and difficult journey.  And please keep coming here to talk, to rant, to cry.  We will be here for you always.

Several months ago, our member JBSC01 shared a really good TED Talk by a young widow who is now a number years into her own grief journey.  I think it might be helpful for you.  If it's too painful to watch now, please save it for later because she's got some really good insights even for those of us who lost our loves a bit later in life.  Here is the link to it:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=khkJkR-ipfw&feature=youtu.be

I'm sending you and your family big warm comforting hugs.

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It was a website such as this that made all the difference to my surviving my husband's death, and it's why I want to be here 14 years later, I never want anyone to have to go through it alone.  We will be here for you.

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I lost my person 4 weeks ago today. It was sudden as well. I'm still a mess. I'm having many of the same problems. I shake and beg and beg for her back, like this can be fixed. If I could just roll back time, just a little bit, and get to her... If I had done things differently. I keep trying to fix it in my head, like there's a solution if I just try hard enough.

Thank you, Foreverhis, for the video link. It helped to hear someone saying some of those things. I feel badly about it, but I have those flashes of rage when I see happy older couples. I had to attend a funeral last Sunday (not for my Carly, for a distant relative so that was super hard). And there was the woman's widower, in his 90's, my great great uncle, and on one hand I felt so badly for him, cus that was his baby laying there and now he was all alone, too. But I also I felt so jealous of him, thinking of all the years he'd had, the photo albums, the kids and grandkids and greatgrandkids, the boring dull stuff, the long car rides, the blown tire and bickering about forgetting to put the spare back in the trunk. Forgetting groceries. The burned dinner that sent them out to eat unexpectedly one evening. 

I keep trying to focus on the good things we had, but... I'm just not able to over all the loss.

But yes, thank you for the video. I'm going to look into that woman's podcast, too.

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13 hours ago, KeirKieran said:

I lost my person But I also I felt so jealous of him, thinking of all the years he'd had, the photo albums, the kids and grandkids and greatgrandkids, the boring dull stuff, the long car rides, the blown tire and bickering about forgetting to put the spare back in the trunk. Forgetting groceries. The burned dinner that sent them out to eat unexpectedly one evening. 

I keep trying to focus on the good things we had, but... I'm just not able to over all the loss.

I’ve been feeling the same way. I look at couples that are still together, older couples, younger couples, pretty much any couple and I am jealous. I constantly think “Why me? Why us?” 

I also do not like speaking in the past tense. I am not coming to terms with it. I am denial and I think I’m stuck in a nightmare I can’t wake up from. I keep thinking “this isn’t right, my husband should be here, I should be with him right now.” 

 

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On 2/9/2018 at 9:23 AM, Patsie said:

rp45win4jt

I am so sorry to hear of your loss.  I lost my husband of 58 years four months ago, and I can absolutely relate to your experience. He died suddenly and completely unexpectedly, it eventually transpired from an aggressive lymphoma.  My body went into shock and I could hardly walk.   I couldn't think, my hands shook,  and I too couldn't believe that it had happened.  I became completely helpless and dependent.  I had a sense that he had gone away for a while and would come back, and only recently I had a thought that when the spring came he would come back. It has been an incredibly painful, long hard road, but my family kept telling me, just get through one day at a time and let out the pain and sorrow whenever it rises to the surface.  For you it will be very raw right now and in the coming weeks.   You will hardly be able to contemplate this right now,  but little bit by tiny little bit things do change over time. 

look after yourself, get all the help and support that you can.

 

 

I am so sorry for your loss @Patsie.  Sudden loss is so hard to process.  I hope you will continue to come here, it helps to know you're not alone in this.  Together we can make what alone is profoundly difficult.

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13 hours ago, Jttalways said:

I also do not like speaking in the past tense. I am not coming to terms with it. I am denial and I think I’m stuck in a nightmare I can’t wake up from. I keep thinking “this isn’t right, my husband should be here, I should be with him right now.” 

Speaking in the present tense is typical and normal.  It doesn't mean you or we are in denial, though this is definitely our worst nightmare.  It takes time, lots and lots of time, to come to terms with the life we have to live now. 

Absolutely you will continue to think about how it isn't right or fair and that your husband should be with you.  He should be, as mine should be with me.  Yesterday I was driving home from grocery shopping and had been having a really bad day.  I was upset, as I am every time I crest a small hill and can see the roof of our house down the road.  I said to him, as I often do, "I can't do this alone.  I need you to come home now.  Please come home." with tears streaming (yeah, not too safe while driving, but at least I wasn't far from home that time).  I am not in denial or anything like that.  It is simply part of the way I deal with the incredible pain, guilt, and loss I feel.

And even though my husband and I had 35 years (37 if you count from when we met), I still get upset when I see couples together who are clearly older than we were.  There are many things that make me remember how unfair and unjust it is for such a good man to have suffered and to have been taken from the people who love him.  I'm not proud of feeling resentful and angry about people who in no way deserve it, but I do anyway.  It's the nature of being human, I suppose.

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5 hours ago, foreverhis said:

 I said to him, as I often do, "I can't do this alone.  I need you to come home now.  Please come home." with tears streaming

I could have written this almost exactly. I'll be doing fine, going about my day and suddenly it hits and I'm shaking, begging her to come back, cus I can't do this.

It really is a nightmare. I keep hoping to wake up. I caught myself talking about her in the present tense today. You're not alone, Jttalways. 

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JTTalways and KierKieran,

My husband died 2 1/2 years ago and I still often use present tense when speaking of him. Just tonight when I was group texting my 2 adult sons during a college football game, I texted "you know your dad is having a fit about all these turnovers" They were texting back in present tense how happy dad was with the win.  For all 3 of us, we still think of him as being present with us, experiencing events with us.  Maybe we are not supposed to still be doing this,  but it feels right in our family.  

Peace

Gail 

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I've caught myself going back and forth with the present and past tense, I think that's common.  When we are remembering something we are remembering it in its current tense.  It's hard for this to sink in.

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