Out of the Blue

[foreverhis]

Today I watched an episode of an old TV show.  I won't get into what show or the plot because it doesn't matter.  But there was a poem that one character wrote to her soul mate after her love died.  Sure enough, there I was sobbing away.  When it was first broadcast 16 years or so earlier, I'm sure I found it moving.  But now I understand it.

I suspect that things like this will happen for a long time, maybe forever.  Do others find that happening, where something from the past is a trigger only because we now "get it" in a way we didn't before?

[Gail 8588]

This is not quite the same, but related I think. 

My mother-in-law lost her husband in 2006. Then her son, my husband, died in 2017.  Our relationship really changed after my husband's death because finally I really understood her grief, and she understood mine.  Her 2 daughters still have their husbands and didn't really "get it" just like I didn't until my husband died. My MIL and I were very close for the rest of her life.  We had a unique bond.

Gail

[foreverhis]

That is definitely related.  I'm glad that you have each other and I'm sorry that you can understand each other's pain (if that makes sense).

[KayC]

My mom was widowed for 33 years, we could relate to much after my George died.  She always said she appreciated that I'd talk about Daddy...but later I truly understood.  She felt like the rest of the world pretended he'd never existed but he was always on her mind...even when she got stage 4 dementia.

[foreverhis]

3 hours ago, KayC said:

She felt like the rest of the world pretended he'd never existed but he was always on her mind

Yeah, I think we all get some of that.  I had to kick a few casual friends out of my life because that was their reaction. They acted like 35 years of my life had never happened, as if my husband had never existed. 

In a way, the world at large does seem to have an attitude of "Well, time to forget about him and move on."  As if we could or would ever want to do that.  No, my love is and will remain present in my life.  He's there in all the beautiful projects he created, in the bits and pieces of our life together, in pictures and videos, in his hoodie and backpack that still hang by the front door, in everything.  Anyone who cannot accept that is not welcome in my own small world.  And if that means my world grows smaller as time goes by, so be it.

I wonder if it's common for dementia patients to keep those memories and the love that goes with them even as everything else fades away.

[KayC]

When they reach stage 4 they're almost comatose, they've lost their mind, seriously.  One day my mom said to me, "I used to have a husband, I wonder what happened to him? We must have divorced or something..."  She was trying to make sense of the pieces.  I told her, "No, Mom, Daddy has been gone for over 30 years.  He never would have divorced you. He loved you with all of his heart!"  She teared up and said, "Oh did he???"  It touched her.