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What did you do on the 1 year anniversary?


Jttalways

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In 2 days it will be a year since my husband passed away. I took the day off from work since I know there is no possible way I would be able to work. I worked on my husband's birthday and that was a HUGE mistake. I am dreading the day, but also wondering if there is something I should do, if i am able to do anything at all. Family and friends have asked me what i have planned. I dont know why they've asked, its not like i'm going to throw a party. My husband was cremated and his urn sits on my dresser, so there is no grave to visit. Going on my husband's favorite hike was a thought, but right now the local mountains are off limits due to wildfires. I was thinking of going to the hospital where he passed (morbid i know) but the hospital is on lockdown due to coronavirus. So I dont know what I am going to do. I think i am going to stay home, hug my husband's urn, and cry my heart out. What did you all do or are planning to do on the 1 year anniversary of your spouse's death?

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I released a balloon with a note from me...it burst and came back down to me, I took it as George's humor.  I wanted to go to the place where we honeymooned and had our anniversaries, but I wasn't ready...later on when I was ready and tried to make reservations, it'd been torn down.  :(

 

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@KayC I love that. Thank you for sharing Kay. Also I smiled at the balloon popping representing George’s humor. I am sorry the building was torn down.

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I have spent all 3 anniversaries of his death at my home alone.  My boys call me and we console each other and share a few good stories.  It is all I can do to hold myself together during those calls.  The rest of the day, I talk with my love, cry, just miss him. 

I prefer being by myself  on the really hard days.  

Gail

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@Gail 8588 I feel the same. My sis keeps pressuring me into having a nice dinner but all I want to do is be alone, well not entirely alone since my son will be home with me. 

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Some of that day is a blur for me.  I remember having a glass of wine in the afternoon, something I almost never do, and then another with dinner, something I almost always do, and then another 1/2 glass in the evening, something I sometimes do.  Our daughter and I talked.  I also got texts or calls from my small family-friends circle.  My sister-by-birth also texted a couple of silly pictures of her husband, a sweetheart, playing with their dog.  She said she hoped it was okay because she was desperate to give me something, anything that might allow me to smile for just a moment.  Yes, it was okay.  I did smile and even chuckled for a moment.

A good friend who is also a neighbor (the one whose sweet dog comes to visit and play with me a few afternoons a week) called and asked if I was up to going for a little walk with her and the dog to the nearby coastal trails.  It was a beautiful day.  She said she'd completely understand if I said no, but I said I'd like that.  So around lunch time we headed out and she let me lead the conversation, including times we simply walked by the water in silence.  It's the kind of thing my love and I used to do.

At home, I talked to my husband, had a simple meal, and I might have watched something on TV in the evening.  Some of the day, I did absolutely nothing but sit and zone out.  I cried big sobbing waves that leave your glasses all tear splatted, your nose running like there's no tomorrow, and your eyes all puffy and red, but also little quiet tears that never quite seemed to quite go away that day.

To be honest, the days leading up to it were almost worse than the day itself.  I dreaded it so much that I made myself physically ill, just like I'd been for a while after he died.

 

 

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Absolutely nothing. Or nothing "special," I try to keep busy and hope the day passes as quick as is possible. I save doing special things for birthdays or Valentines Day. I guess I'm lucky, those days don't bother me esp more or less than any other day.

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6 hours ago, foreverhis said:

To be honest, the days leading up to it were almost worse than the day itself.

I've found that often to be the case. ;)

 

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Thank you all for your replies. I really dont know how i've survived this year, esp with all the BS that has been going on. 

7 hours ago, foreverhis said:

To be honest, the days leading up to it were almost worse than the day itself.  I dreaded it so much that I made myself physically ill, just like I'd been for a while after he died.

I haven't been sleeping well these past few days. I've been going to sleep around 1 or 2am then I'm up for work at 5am. I feel exhausted but its like I prefer to feel exhausted so I dont have to feel anything else.

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17 hours ago, foreverhis said:

To be honest, the days leading up to it were almost worse than the day itself.  I dreaded it so much that I made myself physically ill, just like I'd been for a while after he died.

Completely agree. I forgot already what did I do the day itself, but I remember the days if not weeks before I was laying in bed crying all the time.

@Jttalways My thoughts will be with you, it sure has not been an easy year. Hope you are doing ok, and you would sleep a bit better in the coming days.

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@chincube Thank you.

1 year ago today the doctor told me “I don’t think he’s going to make it.” It took me a minute to process what he was saying. Even when he said it, I was still in disbelief, grasping on that sliver of hope that my husband would pull thru. I thought to myself “Prove them wrong love, like you have before.”
The year went by so fast and so slow at the same time. I went to sleep at 3am and woke up at 7am. I am listening to some songs and looking at pictures of my husband. 

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I went to his final resting place, a spot off the highway where his car crashed and planted flower bulbs at the base of the tree.

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Tomorrow will be a year since the funeral. I have been crying all morning. I don’t know why, but it seems I am having a harder time with the funeral Anniversary than his passing Anniversary. Maybe because it was when we said our final goodbyes? I don’t know. 

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Grief is weird like that, you never know when a wave will strike and sometimes don't even know why.  :wub:

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Yesterday was the one year anniversary.  My kids and granddaughter took me to a pumpkin patch then came back to my house to order in dinner.  Is it awful that I wanted to be alone? Today, I am alone to let myself wallow in the grief.  I'm wearing one of his shirts and his wedding ring.  I've been keeping myself so distracted with the legal and financial matters.  Then moving across the country to be near my kids.  Selling and buying a house and starting a new job.  All the major life changes packed into a pandemic.  Now the distractions are gone and I have to face my new reality.  The nights are the hardest.  Is that the same for everyone?  I hate going to bed.  The dreams that he is still with me are so realistic and I wake up to relive the nightmare again.  I know I have to deal with the grief and stop hiding from it with distractions.  I tell myself that he is on a trip and doesn't have cell phone service.  He is waiting for me to get there.  It sounds silly, but that is the only way I can cope with him not being here.

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@leah601 after my husband’s death I tried not to sleep out of fear, for the same reason you wrote. I understand about wanting to be alone on the anniversary. On the 1 year anniversary my sister insisted on spending the evening with me even though I would have rather been alone. My son and I also like to think my husband is away golfing or in the hospital instead of actually being gone. It still doesn’t feel that he’s really gone, I don’t think I’ll ever believe he’s truly gone. 

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Leah601,

I think we each have little crutches to help us cope.  

The day my husband had his stroke, he changed out of a pair of nice jeans and casual shirt into shorts and a tee-shirt to mow the yard.  He hung his jeans and shirt on a hook on our closet door, cuz they really weren't dirty. Three and a half years later, I have his clothes hanging on a hook on my closet door. It looks like he could change back into them and we could go out for lunch.  I've moved twice. My husband never lived in this house, but still his clothes are on the hook. 

I know he is never going to slip on those clothes, but it gives me comfort to see them there everyday. Maybe someday I'll let them go. Maybe not. I don't worry about it.  Today I want to have them on the hook. I get comfort touching them.  That is enough for me to keep them.  

You have done a ton of things dealing with the reality of his death. I wouldn't be concerned at all with leaning on a few mental crutches to rest your grieving mind. 

Gail

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@Gail 8588 Thank you for sharing that. I still keep my husband’s toothbrush in the toothbrush holder. The things we do to cope and remember.

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I imagine I will take day off from work and hold him as close to my heart and soul as possible. I will try to communicate with him and imagine what it’s like for him now and how long I have till we are together again. I will probably melt down and wonder why why I am still alive and how a whole year has passed by, I dread it...

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2 hours ago, Jttalways said:

@Gail 8588 Thank you for sharing that. I still keep my husband’s toothbrush in the toothbrush holder. The things we do to cope and remember.

Yes, we do.  My husband's hoodie, day pack, and one of his hats still hang by the front door, as if he might walk down the stairs and say, "Get your hat! We're going for a small adventure."  One of the first gifts he gave me "just because" was a hat for adventuring.  He said I needed one.  I still have it hanging in the bedroom.

I have several of his belongings right where he left them.  Maybe they will always be there.  I don't care what anyone thinks.

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Since my husband was in the hospital for his routine chemo treatment, I washed all of his clothes at home that were used. After he passed, I had no clothes with his scent on them. All I had were his baseball caps. I would smell them days after his death. They didn't smell bad, my husband didnt have bad body odor, they just smelled like him. I was worried about them losing his scent so after about a week, I put his caps in plastic bags and sealed them so they would retain his scent. 

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17 hours ago, leah601 said:

Yesterday was the one year anniversary.

I'm sorry, it's so hard to get through those, our wedding anniversaries, their birthdays, even our own.  He's ever in my heart but those days are just hard hitting.  Sometimes I think we deserve a medal for surviving them.  (((hugs)))

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I wrote a tribute to my husband about how we met, special events in our life together, kindness he exhibited to everyone and what he meant to me. 

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