Bad days for a Widow

Tina457,

Thank you for sharing your story. You are inspiring, and probably helping others, by sharing your experience.

Robin,

I never thought I would find myself a widow at 44.

I have been keeping a journal of my experience and I never thought I would express my feelings on a website.

Your site is different, its intelligent and very helpful.

I hope my sharing will help someone else to know that they are not alone in this journey.

Thank you for your encouragement!

Tina

I am not a widow, but a divorcee and I share many of the exact feelings. The first couple of years I walked thru my day like a zombie; its been 5 y ears now and I am beginning to see details again. I have not gotten to the point where I socialize, but I do see the sky is blue and the grass is green. I even hear the birds sing and feel the wind against my cheek. Im sure I will feel more and more as time passes. Thank you for sharing your feelings with us.

Kathleelynn,

A loss is very difficult and you need to grieve, but you also need to live. If I learned anything its that I will never have the luxury of later. My husband and I planned a trip but put it off until later, we were going to go out to this special dinner later. I will never have later. I encourage you to surround yourself with strong intelligent women and men and enjoy life now! I read this amazing book called the Power of Now and it helped to put things in perspective. I wish you lots of luck with your journey!

My husband is 84 and I am 55. I am so scared about him dying. We have been married for 27 years and you are a person of steel. Thank you for sharing your thoughts/

Tina....

What a beautifully written post that in and of itself shows some of the phases of grief. I think the best thing we can do through something as painful as this is really "feel" the loss, experience the pain in whatever way feels right to you, and then acknowledge the fact that we start to feel better again (well most of us do, anyway) because the human spirit is quite resiliant.

I became a widow at just 35 when my husband was killed in a work related accident leaving me with three young children (8,6 & 2) to take care of. Of course it was devastating and sometimes I wonder how I got through it. I do remember my parents were there for me that summer that followed his death. I am grateful that my kids gave me an immediate reason to get myself up in the mornings and put one foot in front of the other. A good friend became a touchstone for me and low and behold I began to see the light of day again, and eventually, a life of my own and reasons to be happy, that had nothing to do with trying to replace what I'd lost. That year was 1991, sixteen years ago.....my children are all young adults now and I have a beautiful grandson who's 4 named after his grandpa who passed away. I feel so fortunate that I had 17 wonderful years with my hubby - we were high school sweethearts that married at 18.

I think your husband was lucky to have you Tina, and you were lucky to have him. You'll always have those feelings of love....and over the years, you'll just smile this big smile when you think of him. His spirit will warm your heart.

Thank you for writing your story.

Tina, it's easy to see that your grief is very strong right now, and I don't want to trivialize it in any way.

But I was wondering if it was possible that the look your friends are exchanging is less a "When will she move on?" look and more of a "Poor thing -- she is in so much pain. I wish there were something I could say, but I don't know what" look.

It's true that people are uncomfortable around people who are obviously grieving, but part of that is because human nature wants to help, and there's really no way to help someone who is grieving go through the process any faster or any differently.