Words

[Yoli]

Ok so I seem to try but not succeed in telling people just how horrendous this experience is. What I get back is always a comparison or a 'I sense you are angry I still have a partner and can carry on my life'. It is bad enough losing her but there were all the other things, organising the service, authorising an autopsy, closing her bank accounts and claiming life insurance, cancelling her tax number - all the business side. Then more importantly there is the trauma of witnessing that last morning, having to give a police interview, hand over her phone to the police, see them in the ambulance pumping on her chest, being allowed into the ambulance afterwards to be with her, calling her family overseas, my family, friends. Then there is the black hole where my heart used to be. The aloneness, empty, lonely, silence. Companionship, best friend, comfort, advice, future plans, retirement, love, the person  I looked after, the person who looked after me, all gone. Waiting on the sideline until others are finished with their partners/family to have time for you. The hope that it is all just a bad dream.....I AM READY TO WAKE UP NOW. Not just the emotional feeling of grief but the physical feeling as well. The pit of despair when you just want to be with your loved one, you plead with them to come and get you. You look at the sleeping pills the doctor prescribed. You feel that you would be grieved for a while but not like the anguished way you grieve for your partner, the other half of you. You saw the way people quickly got on with their lives and figure that's what they would do again.

The fact that just because I am not sitting in front of you crying doesn't mean I am ok or anywhere near it. I am still broken into a million pieces.

Would people really hear these words, I mean really hear?

[LMR]

Third time lucky. I have twice posted a reply and twice lost it....

 Yoli, I am so sorry for your pain.
No, people do not understand and they don't know what to say. I used to be one of those people. 
You have to experience this pain to understand and before that you need to experience that deep and all consuming love. We are lucky to have had the latter, not everybody does, but it comes at a price.

I lost my soul mate three months ago. We had been together for 48 years. It seems like such a short time now. We were so happy in each other's company that our social circle had dwindled. Those few friends we still had are calling less and less often.
One friend said to me 'he's gone and he's not coming back, get over it'. It hurt me so much to hear those words from someone who I thought cared but believe it or not he thought he was helping. 

I am still in denial. I cannot understand how this can be true. I will never recover. He was my life. However, I have a sister overseas and I cannot cause her more pain so I will struggle on. I hope you have somebody.

I come to this site every day and read the posts. It makes me cry a lot but maybe it's good to be crying with others rather than alone. I know the people here are feeling just the way I do and I feel less lonely.

[jmmosley53]

I so understand that feeling of - this is a horrible dream, I need to wake up now'  but there is no wake-up.  I cry reading the posts on this site also.  Sometimes I cry because my heart breaks witnessing the pain others are in, sometimes I cry because I feel the same pain.

I try never to discuss my husbands death with acquaintances.  I do not want to hear the standard 'I'm sorry for your loss' from people who didn't know us.  People who can't understand what THE LOSS means.  I know they are trying to be polite, but I don't want fake sympathy.  

[Mulelady]

I so resonate with you all   LMR....when you added "  We were so happy in each other's company that our social circle had dwindled. Those few friends we still had are calling less and less often."  Actually any calls rarely happen....tho ...there may be some emails/texts....but never referring to Nick and my state of loss.   Also not helping , we were both through some divorces ...and from other states...and for me....age old family estrangement....so nearly zero family interaction.  As time passes, you quickly learn most will never " get it " until they experience the same thing....and for now....besides uncomfortable...they just don't need or want to go there . I get that, I think, but I'm living it. Then....dump Covid isolation on top of it !!  It is sooooo hard to manage the deep sadness .....alone....with less and less to look forward to .  I want to laugh again....and enjoy it....a fantasy I can't imagine. 

I have heard others admit....at least at times....they just want to talk about their loved one....and others respond with fond memories ?  I have not had much success ......and I'll try to avoid the subject for fear of driving them away ....who wants to live around a misery they don't truly understand...or want to drag down their day ??  

[LMR]

I had 2 invitations for Thanksgiving but I turned them down. It would be too hard trying not to be miserable, trying not to spoil their day.

I'm not always so considerate. Sometimes when people ask me what I have been doing I reply 'crying'. Well its the truth. I dont want the fake sympathy either.  I want someone to cry with.

[Gail 8588]

Grief over the death of a soulmate is a very lonely road.  Our lives are shattered. Our future destroyed. Fear, guilt, pain , anger, regret, longing, dispair all roll together in the chaos of this unimaginable loss. People who have not experienced it have no idea. 

It's like if you broke all the bones in both your legs and your friends and family want you to get up and walk it out.  You can't. It's not possible. You don't know if you will ever be able to walk again. How can they be so blind? But they just don't know, just like we didn't know until it happened to us. 

I gave up trying to explain the depth of my pain and grief pretty quickly, because those who haven't experienced it won't understand. Those who have experienced it, don't need an explanation. 

Cry with us here.  We get it.  We are shattered too. 

Gail

[foreverhis]

On 11/27/2020 at 8:06 PM, LMR said:

No, people do not understand and they don't know what to say. I used to be one of those people. 
You have to experience this pain to understand and before that you need to experience that deep and all consuming love. We are lucky to have had the latter, not everybody does, but it comes at a price.

This is so true.  The deeper the love, the deeper the pain.  It's a high price to pay for the one remaining.  Yet, even knowing what I know now, even knowing that I'd be living this half-life, I'd do it again in a heartbeat.  If I had a do-over, I'd try to be kinder, more patient, more forgiving of the tiny things, and more, just more of what we both deserved.  But we are imperfect and we all make mistakes.  Still, I was a good, faithful, caring wife, best friend, lover, and "partner in crime."  I belong to him still.  There was a time in my early 20s, after a couple of bad relationships, when I didn't think I'd ever have that love.  I know I was so very lucky that suddenly, there he was.  I looked at him and my heart melted.  It took nearly 2 years after that, becoming friends-of-friends and then casual friends and then one day it simply clicked for both of us.  We were inseparable from our first date forward. 

Through 35 years of marriage, we disappointed each other from time to time, we fought seldom and never with nastiness, and always the thread of love binding us stayed secure, maybe a tiny bit frayed a few times, but never breaking.  It's there still.  Sometimes I feel as if he's just out of reach and if I "tug" hard enough, he'll come back to me.  I keep our universal faith that there is something more, something mysterious and wonderful, and that he is there waiting for me.  I hope so much that we are right and that when it's my time, he will welcome me home with an open heart and open arms.  In the meantime, I pay the price of being lucky enough to find that love in this lifetime and at a fairly young age (I was 25 when we married; he was 36).  I can never regret taking that leap of love and faith.

As I go through my third year without him, I realize that I have been taking steps forward into a life I can live without him.  I will miss him every minute of every day for the rest of my life, but my missing him is no longer the all-consuming pain it was at first.  Like you, I am finding joy and light and happiness where I can, and I no longer feel every smile or laugh is a betrayal of his memory.

It's interesting you say you "used to be one of those people" who maybe said the wrong thing or didn't know what to say.  Me too.  One of our friends and I were talking about that recently.  We realized that we must have said foolish, cliched things in our younger years.  Even though we didn't know better--because our society sucks at teaching us about death, loss, and grief--we still feel bad knowing that we must have unintentionally caused people we care about pain in their worst time.  One thing I know I did right though.  When I was 38 and had more understanding of life, our sister-by-choice lost her mom (who was also a dear friend of ours), I was sitting talking quietly with her dad.  I said, "I'm not going to tell you I know how you feel.  I can't possibly know that.  I can only tell you that we're so sorry, we'll miss her, and we love you."  He actually thanked me for realizing I couldn't understand and for not pretending to know what it was like for him, though of course, now I do.  He said a simple "I'm sorry" was better than any cliche or platitude. 

The thing is that he never was able to move forward at all and died only a few years later.  I thought about that after my husband died and wondered if the same thing would happen to me.  Then I remembered how upset our sister was because her dad couldn't find the will to be there for his grandchildren.  She knew it had to be his choice, but she wished he had made different ones.  And so I realized that our daughter deserves to have her mom around a while longer and our granddaughter, who adored and was adored by her grandpa, needs me to help her finish growing up hearing his stories and the little anecdotes about her mom as a girl.  Our daughter loves me, of that I have no doubt, but like her own daughter, she adored her dad.  They had a truly special, sweet bond.  He was the kind of father that most girls wish they could have had and was without a doubt the best man I've ever known.

So I will bear the pain of losing him because it means I had the love of my life.  So many people never find that.

[Carmen20]

Ok so I seem to try but not succeed in telling people just how horrendous this experience is. What I get back is always a comparison or a 'I sense you are angry I still have a partner and can carry on my life'. It is bad enough losing her but there were all the other things, organising the service, authorising an autopsy, closing her bank accounts and claiming life insurance, cancelling her tax number - all the business side. Then more importantly there is the trauma of witnessing that last morning, having to give a police interview, hand over her phone to the police, see them in the ambulance pumping on her chest, being allowed into the ambulance afterwards to be with her, calling her family overseas, my family, friends. Then there is the black hole where my heart used to be. The aloneness, empty, lonely, silence. Companionship, best friend, comfort, advice, future plans, retirement, love, the person  I looked after, the person who looked after me, all gone. Waiting on the sideline until others are finished with their partners/family to have time for you. The hope that it is all just a bad dream.....I AM READY TO WAKE UP NOW. Not just the emotional feeling of grief but the physical feeling as well. The pit of despair when you just want to be with your loved one, you plead with them to come and get you. You look at the sleeping pills the doctor prescribed. You feel that you would be grieved for a while but not like the anguished way you grieve for your partner, the other half of you. You saw the way people quickly got on with their lives and figure that's what they would do again.
The fact that just because I am not sitting in front of you crying doesn't mean I am ok or anywhere near it. I am still broken into a million pieces.
Would people really hear these words, I mean really hear?

Agreed fully! Most people will try to change the subject, they’ll have no idea what to say. Not because they don’t care but because it’s too uncomfortable for them to hear. I also feel like I have no one to talk to and it’s only been 5 months.


Sent from my iPhone using Grieving.com

[KayC]

Sometimes I wish we could print this out and hand it to people!
https://themighty.com/2016/12/what-to-say-to-someone-whos-grieving/

[jmmosley53]

I agree with what everyone is saying.  It recently dawned on me that when people ask 'how are you doing' I respond with okay.  They believe me.  They think I am okay.  Or they ask do I need anything and I say no.  They again believe me.  They can't understand that my response to their questions is the polite society answer.  If I told them the truth it would take the rest of our lives.  I am really never going to be okay again.  Half of me is missing.  And, the only thing I need, I can't have.

[Gail 8588]

On 12/6/2020 at 1:53 AM, jmmosley53 said:

. . . I am really never going to be okay again.  Half of me is missing.  And, the only thing I need, I can't have.

Jmmosley, 

I understand what you are saying. I said essentially the same thing for years.  I still feel half of me is missing and that the thing I need most, John, I can't have.  However, I am finally in a place where I am "okay".  Life is not as comfortable and secure as when I had John. Life is not filled with the small daily tender moments of love, gratitude and support that we shared for 40 years. So life is forever changed.  And there is no doubt, life was better with John than it is without him.

But I want you to know life can be okay again.  

Gail

[KayC]

Esp. if/when COVID ends.