Why the grocery store?

[Bennie Jets]

Why I am missing Alan so much in the grocery store? Does anybody understand that?

We did not go together, in fact for the last 5 years he did not drive anymore and I pretty much ran all the errands by myself.

But I always had a list for both of us. It just feels so weird to go shopping just for me. And I feel so alone in the world - it manifests most paifully at the stupid grocery stores. Why?

Maybe it is all the decision making? Buy this or that, get this much or more, etc. I always had my best friend and partner-in-crime to back me up with all this more or less meaningless drag on my energy - with him it was ok, he gave it meaning and it felt right. Alone: horror!

Why do I feel this way?

What can I do to trick myself out of this feeling? Like Bill Webster sitting in *her* empty chair so he did not have to look at it. Is there a trick to make it easier to shop for groceries? If you can think of something, do tell please!

[MissyLaLaLa]

For me my husband and I went shopping together now it's almost impossible to step foot in a store. I been buying everything online and having it delivered. I know avoiding it probably isn't good either, but having a panic attack in the parking lot made my decision for me.

I lost my Father a week after losing my husband so my Mom is going through this too sadly.  She can't go into a store without crying too and my Dad was bedridden for 11 years before he passed away. So he hadn't been in a store in year's. I don't know what it is about grocery stores maybe it's memories. Grief makes your brain do crazy things.

[Sparky1]

Bennie Jets, it is difficult for me as well going grocery shopping. The first little while after my wife passed away was the hardest. I would go up and down the aisles and remember the items we used to buy and how she would wisely choose them. It would bring tears to my eyes and I would have to hurry and get out of that aisle. By the end, she used to drive the motorized scooters and I can still see her scooting up and down the aisles like crazy and for once I couldn't keep up with her.

I've found that making lists helps in going to the specific aisle and getting exactly what you need. It's not that easy though because I like to look down every aisle, and then that's what brings the hurt back. Also seeing couples is very painful for me as it brings back memories of how my wife and I used to shop together. It is getting easier, since I really have no choice if I want to buy groceries. I'm not into online grocery shopping and delivery just yet, maybe when I'm a little older and can't carry heavy bags.

[AnnRA]

Good idea to make a list, then stick to it. Shop as quickly as you can, maybe?  I think it is the caring for each other that grocery shopping brings up?    I am not even able to cook much yet, and try to read or watch tv while eating, but as we know, those actions are painful too.  But the aspect of “I have your back — I will get what you like to eat, too” is so deeply personal for each couple, perhaps? 

[widower2]

5 hours ago, Bennie Jets said:

Why I am missing Alan so much in the grocery store? Does anybody understand that?

I always had a list for both of us. It just feels so weird to go shopping just for me.

I think you answered your own question. I don't think there's any magical "trick" to this. It takes time to adjust. I'm sorry, I know you don't want to hear that, but It's reality. The first time I went into a Lowes after her passing, I all but broke down (luckily in an aisle nobody was in)...we'd gone there many times for home projects and loved it. Gradually it became easier to go there. I think it will be the same for you...it won't happen overnight, but realistically it will happen. Hold on. Better days are ahead. 

[LMR]

Bennie Jets I am so sorry this is so hard. Anything to do with food was a shared pleasure. Even if we didn't shop together we ate together, we knew each others likes and dislikes. It just reminds us of the things we knew about each other that we didn't share with everyone else.

I had a bag of snacks and soups that the nursing home returned to me. The bag has sat untouched, I couldn't even unpack it. Today I ate one of those snacks. It is six months later and that is my greatest achievement yet.

[jmmosley53]

I think that grocery shopping is so hard because we are used to shopping for shared meals.  We used to anticipate cooking a dinner to please our partners.  At least I used to think walking into the store:  I can get these pork chops and make mashed potatoes, he likes green beans, and for the next meal we can have.......

It meant a lot to me to prepare a meal.  We so associate sharing food with love.  It is said that something cooked with love always tastes good. 

I don't know but at some primal level gathering food to share equaled love.  

Shopping just for myself is hard because I don't enjoy eating now.  Nothing tastes good no matter how well I have prepared the food.

[KayC]

For us it was a 100 mile round trip (we live in the country) and we always made the trip together.  We'd go get a pizza, visit friends, get groceries and come home.  He was like a kid in a candy store!  He was second oldest of 11 kids and they never had enough food growing up, so he loved to eat and appreciated everything I made.  He'd bag the groceries while I watched the prices and when we got home he'd carry them in the house for me while I put them away.  His excitement at our grocery trips is something that took me a long time to get used to going it alone, the first few months my daughter would go get them for me.  I finally braved it and did it alone and cried even in the store.

[foreverhis]

For me, grocery shopping was almost impossible at first for several reasons.  It's easier now, but once in a while, I'll still break down if I see that his favorite, usually very expensive, ham is on sale at the deli counter.  Things like that will probably always be triggers.

It's one of the every-day activities that go on the list of "take for granted" in a life together, so not going together or me being able to call him and ask, "Honey, they've got your favorite (whatever) on sale. Do you want some?" hurt every time.  It was also a huge adjustment to buy just for me.  The farmers market was particularly painful that way.  I couldn't even force myself to go for a few months and when I did, I had to leave with only a few things.  I'd pick up a big bunch of grapes or a dozen apples and remember.  I'd put some back and the tears would start.  The third reason I had so much trouble and sometimes still do is that any time I was on my own, I'd keep an eye open for new things he or we would like and then realize I didn't have to take his tastes into account now.  Although our likes and dislikes were almost identical, we had a few differences.  And finally, dragging home my groceries-for-one and walking up to the front door knowing he won't be waiting to say, "Thanks for shopping.  Want some help bringing it in?" was a difficult reality to accept.  There are times to this day that I try to just open the front door, forgetting that it's locked now because he's not inside waiting for me.

For more than a year, I went shopping as infrequently as possible.  I'd sit down each week and figure out how many days I had to leave the house and then try to coordinate getting errands done on the same trip.  It started to be easier the second year, but then COVID hit, so of course I'm back to "What do I need to do this week and can I do it all in one trip?"

[LMR]

I no longer buy our favorite foods. I feel guilty enjoying meals or even snacks. For months I pretty much lived on cereals. It was the one thing he didn't eat that I did. Everything else our taste was the same.

Making a sandwich is heartbreaking.  Every time I wish I was making it for him. He was the main chef but he loved my sandwiches.

[Bennie Jets]

Oh, this is all so heart-breaking. Thank you all for sharing such personal stories!

I can see now that I am not alone, once again, and I can see why I feel this way and that is it perfectly normal and to be expected.

Thank you all for that!

It makes me feel less panicked when I stand there. Last time at Costco I snuck a glance to the floor because I almost expected a pool of blood from my broken heart when I was standing there waiting for my turn at the register line.

They had pillows that day, too, and I first went to them like a child because I was excited and wanted a set - then recoiled because I remembered that I was alone and really did not feel like getting new stuff for me alone - then I heard Alan encouraging me, with some force, as he usually did - 'Go get one! If you want one! Get one!' So I ended up taking a set but it felt funny all the way home and I have not put them on the bed yet. It did feel like he was there, though, and wanted me to keep living.

It is so hard.

I ate mostly gifted food, completely out of my usual diet realm, so far. Not sure what is going to happen next. Eating together and sharing food and knowing what the other one wants and getting it for them, even if we don't eat it ourselves, and having someone know and accept your eating quirks - that is so much more important than it seems when all is well. Amazing how you feel when it is taken away. Not amazing in a good way. More like shocked and in intense pain. Unexpected, though. "I'm surprised, I'm surprised." I guess that is the other thing: food and groceries take up a lot of our time together, so it is a big part of every relationship, even if it seems like nothing at the time.

((((Big Hugs to Everyone)))) 

 

[Bennie Jets]

Solutions we have collected so far:

1) make a list (Sparky1)

2) get the groceries as quickly as you can (AnnRA)

3) give it some time and expect it to get easier with time (widower2)

4) have someone else (daughter) get the groceries for you for a while (KayC)

5) don't go very often - make fewer trips than before (foreverhis)

6) don't plan on buying your partner's favorite foods, get food only you ate, if possible (LMR)

7) think of them with you and encouraging you to live, even if you grieve for them (Bennie), also it sometimes gives me strength to think that I am doing this so he does not have to, he did not have to go shopping without me in the world, I got this! for us - if we had discussed this on a soul level, I would have probably volunteered because I love him so and always wanted to protect him

Did I miss anything?

 

 

 

[KayC]

When you use the pillows remember it was him that encouraged you to, and snuggle to them like it's him.  

[Sparky1]

20 hours ago, Bennie Jets said:

groceries take up a lot of our time together, so it is a big part of every relationship, even if it seems like nothing at the time.

Both of us enjoyed going grocery shopping. Like you said, it was like an adventure that we went on together. I never held back on what she wanted to buy, I even used to encourage her to get whatever she liked. Going to malls was also a big outing because we spent time together. These things may sound trivial but looking back, they were a big part of our relationship.

[foreverhis]

5 hours ago, Sparky1 said:

Theses things may sound trivial but looking back, they were a big part of our relationship.

They may sound trivial to people who haven't experienced this loss, but that's partly because they're also things we don't think about as "special" in our society and often in our lives.  They are parts of the threads that weave a life together.  The every day, ordinary tasks and activities that become more of an adventure when we're doing them with our partners.  Who ever would think, "Oh gosh, grocery shopping must be so painful for you now." when we so often think of it as just another chore/errand?

It's not until we're faced with all the emotions and pain surfacing that we realize how much nurturing and nourishing each other in heart, mind, and body meant in the grand scheme of things. 

[LMR]

54 minutes ago, foreverhis said:

They may sound trivial to people who haven't experienced this loss, but that's partly because they're also things we don't think about as "special" in our society and often in our lives.  They are parts of the threads that weave a life together.  The every day, ordinary tasks and activities that become more of an adventure when we're doing them with our partners.  Who ever would think, "Oh gosh, grocery shopping must be so painful for you now." when we so often think of it as just another chore/errand?

It's not until we're faced with all the emotions and pain surfacing that we realize how much nurturing and nourishing each other in heart, mind, and body meant in the grand scheme of things. 

Foreverhis. You put it so beautifully. It is the everyday things that make up our lives and it is the deep love we shared that made those everyday things special.

There is nothing in my life that is not touched by this great sadness of losing him (still unbelievable) but I can only hope that one day, for all of us, the happy memories will push out the pain.

[foreverhis]

1 hour ago, LMR said:

There is nothing in my life that is not touched by this great sadness of losing him (still unbelievable) but I can only hope that one day, for all of us, the happy memories will push out the pain.

So true.  We are changed forever.  How could we not be?  Our lives and hearts were shattered and it's impossible to put them back together in the same way, if at all.

But to give you a little hope (at least, I hope so), as I look toward 3 years without him this summer, I can say that the happy, wonderful, and even mundane memories have mostly come forward and mixed in with the horrible, life-altering devastation of him fighting his cancer and then us losing him.  In the past several months, those good thoughts have even managed to push the most painful images more to the back of my mind.  They're always there, of course, but they're no longer all I see or feel all day, every day.  Nora McInerny says it well in one of her TED Talks.  She points out that grief doesn't exist in a vacuum and that over time it mixes in with all the other emotions/feelings.

I was talking to a friend a few days ago and the subject of happiness came up.  She understands grief because she and her husband lost their daughter at birth many years ago.  She's been a huge help for me in so many ways.  She gently said, "We both know your pain and grief is always there, but you seem a little happier now than you were.  Are you?"  On reflection I could honestly say that I have allowed some happiness back in my life.  It will never be the same as before, of course, but in allowing in the little bits of light and hope and happiness, I know I've taken another step forward on my own journey.  I think it really helped when I stopped feeling I was betraying him and our love every time I smiled or laughed, every time I felt a little joy when spending time with friends or family, and every moment I was thinking of something other than being without him.  It has nothing to do with "He'd want you to be happy."  I hate that sentence with a passion.  The answer can only be "Well, duh!  We always wanted each other to be happy."  It's that time and support from many people is softening the raw edges of my grief and that has helped me start figuring out how to make a life I can live without him--for now, until it's my time and we're together again.

I know it will always be hard and that there will be days when the tsunami of grief comes crashing over me.  How could it be otherwise?  And COVID restrictions plus the stress and fear and frustration that go along with them have certainly set me back.  I still don't look far down the road as it's too painful and frightening.  But I can live today and I can look for some happiness in that.

[KayC]

I haven't gone camping since George died.  We loved doing that together, also going for rides.  He was the one who helped me stop and smell the roses, he was the one who would wake up, jump out of bed, and say, "Let's go to the coast!"  I don't do those things on my own, by myself.