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Reply by NatR

24 Aug 2012, 5:40 PM

Dear PPP (Jane)

Sounds to me by reading your notes and Cath1's reply to you that you are doing an amazing job of caring for your grandson, being real with him, taking one day at a time and making it special.

Like Cath1 I enjoy the fall season - its a reminder that winter soon comes, that we must play and enjoy as much as possible before winter scoots us indoors or into snowsuits! (skidoo suits, or just warm jackets;)

There is something in your letter Jane, that feels hopeful. That means a lot. I think there is nothing better than time spent with children, grandchildren, who see things with their simple view of the world, without having suffered the pain that as adults we know so well.

Your grandson was so sweet to make the comment he did. You are lucky to have him and he to have you.

I hope that your weekend will be a good one and that as time passes, you will continue to pick up and ever so gently move into a more peaceful, less painful place.

Having family support is wonderful. But having said that...on a personal note there are times when I feel, as you must...that no one really understands what you feel on the inside. Be good to yourself. As caregivers, partners, we give til it hurts and we still want to give more. It is Okay to give a bit of care to you...you deserve to have others comfort you and care for you as well.

Just know that you are important. Time is something that helps ease the loss, but your beloved Avery will always be part of who you are. That is his gift to you.

I wish you a peaceful weekend.
sending you best wishes,
NatR

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Reply by Cath1

24 Aug 2012, 5:52 PM

Hi Jane (PPP):

I have tried three times to post this message and each time nothing showed up. Thank goodness I had copied it so I can re-paste it again - lol. Hopefully luck will be with me this time around.

Jane, I know you said you couldn't access my blog with the photos that I had posted previously but I had messed it up when I created it and so I am adding it here again so that you and others can see photos of my daughter’s wedding, my family and of me with my late Mom.

The link is to my new blog entitled: Cath Cathartic. I hope it will work this time and if you click on the individual photos they will appear larger! I will not have time in the foreseeable future to add much content to my new blog, but it is among my goals to find the time for this project somehow.

http://cathcathartic.blogspot.ca/2012/08/the-wedding-day-family-and-memories.html

Dear Beverly (nanalovesu) and Mark99: I am wondering how you are both doing these days and hope you will write to update us when you get a moment. Beverly, have you made any decisions about moving? How have you been coping and how are you feeling since you have each now passed the significant milestone of the one year anniversary of your loved one's death?

Until we touch base again, remember that you are not alone as you continue grieving while bravely living on without your partner. We are here for you whenever you feel the need to reach out for comfort and care and to communicate with us heart-to-heart.

With affection -hugs- xo
Cath1

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Reply by moderator | modératrice

24 Aug 2012, 6:09 PM

Cath1,
My apologies that the forum is giving you troubles. I will send you a private message, so you can give me details and so we get this fixed. You shouldn't have to press Shift + Enter for a paragraph break and clicking Enter should definitely not kick you out. Argh.

Sending you a private message now...
Colleen

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Reply by Cath1

24 Aug 2012, 7:09 PM

Thank you, Colleen! I have received and responded to your private message. As usual you are on top of things and looking out for us all!

The recent posting problems I've encountered are not typical, as you know I do post often and the vast majority of the time my messages are posted without incident!:) Thanks again for your help!

With affection -hugs- xo
Cath1

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Reply by PPP

26 Aug 2012, 12:33 PM

Dear Cath 1

I adored the pics of your wonderful family, thank you for that.

All the words of comfort from you, NatR and Mark99 have been helpful in the overwhelming grief that I feel. I just realized next weekend will be five months have passed and of course is making me cry a little more. I realize this is the healing process, day by day. There is nothing that seems to stop the tears when they want to come!

In grief, you keep looking for something that will stop the heartache.  Being busy seems to help for a while, until you realize you're running away from it. Afraid to confront it head on. As everyone says time does mend but I don't thing that it will ever take away the deep love I had for Avery!

Thank you again for being there!

Kind Regards,

Jane

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Reply by Cath1

28 Aug 2012, 7:52 PM

Hey Jane:

Thank you for your kind comments about my family photos!:)

I don't think the way you are experiencing your grief is running away from it at all. You have to live with it and carry it with you every day which is not easy by anyone's estimation. Sorrow is a heavy load and it truly does weigh one down, some days more noticeably than others, but it is to some degree always there, I believe. You are doing so well, Jane, even though you of course feel sad and you miss Avery, you are working through your feelings and sharing them and that takes heartfelt effort. I think your incredible efforts to help yourself heal deserve to be recognized as I know it is so hard to talk about or write about such deeply personal and private feelings.

You will, without a doubt in my mind, always love Avery. I have found that love does not diminish after death, in fact, in some ways I think it actually makes us more conscious of our deepest feelings and of those we love the most.

I am glad you are able to cry when you feel overcome by sorrow as I believe tears are such a healthy reslease of emotions. Jane, you will not always feel as achingly sad as you are feeling these days without Avery, even though you will always mourn his loss, the intensity of your sadness will lessen with time to make it more bearable, I believe. You are coming up on another meaningful milestone in your journey of grief, and I am sending you prayers for courage and virtual hugs to remind you that you are not alone as you meet this next challenge and do your best to get through it.

Remember always to honour the fact that you are doing your best, Jane and that's all any of us can do which is quite frankly more than enough when life imposes upon us its hardest trials.

Please write again to let us know how life is going for you when you get a second. I'll be thinking of you!:-)

With affection - hugs - xo
Cath1

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Reply by Cath1

08 Sep 2012, 2:19 PM

Hi Jane (PPP):

It's a rainy Saturday morning and I'm here on the computer trying to catch up with people. I have been crazy busy this past week at work, and I've got this underlying feeling of anxiety I am dealing with as my late Mom's birthday is approaching. She would have been 86 years old. I always thought she would live to see 100!:-)

Last year I fell completely apart on her birthday as I expressed so much of the sorrow I had not even known I was feeling up to that time. I suppose I feel worried about how I will cope this year based upon that painful memory of last year. I didn't even realize until I began thinking about things this morning how sad I have been feeling inside lately as I've simply been too distracted by work to acknowledge my emotions that are beginning to emerge into the open. I am crying as I write this - surprising myself - as I meant to be writing about you!:-) Well, I do know from experience as the feelings are faced and released I will get some relief. Maybe I am anticipating something that will not come to pass and perhaps on this birthday I'll manage ok. I miss my Mom so much!

How are you, Jane? Are you back at home or visiting with family? You've been on my mind and I'm wondering about how you're feeling. Please write back when you get a chance. I am missing you!:-)

With affection -hugs -xo
Cath1

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Reply by PPP

10 Sep 2012, 10:31 PM

Dear Cath1

I do hope that the sadness you have been feeling will subside for you. Missing someone is such a hopeless feeling sometimes, but then someone or something makes you feel better!

Coming home to an empty house without Avery here, is my heartache. When I am with my children and my grandchildren, I don't have the constant reminder of Avery. I miss his jokes, laughter but most of all I miss the way he loved me! He always said, Have I told you lately that I love you!

Until I arrived home, I thought my grief was subsiding.  Trying to find myself is also a challenge as well.  With fall coming, I am trying to plan what I will do all winter. Challenges are coming and I don't feel emotionaly ready for them. Feel as if I am wondering around aimlessly with no direction. Everyone says you should do this or do that, but don't know if I'm ready for anything at this point.

I will treat today as one day that I am feeling sad and try to smile more tomorrow! Always looking for that happy feeling to return. Some days it's there, some not.

Thanks for your words again!

Kind Regards

Jane

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Reply by Mark99

11 Sep 2012, 2:23 AM

Cath1

I can identify with the waves of grief. For me there are many days where I am living okay but some days it just hits me. The hardest part now at this one year mark is trying to find my place in this new world where and who I am and what I want to do. I still am trying to find my way and the aimless meandering is hard for me. But I can tell you that the warmth of knowing what I have far outweighs the pain of what I lost. I long to see Donna. Today is my birthday and I put up on FB the Beatles singing ‘When I turn 64 will you still love me’ I said “I will not get to hear her answer”

I miss her but I know she is without pain and she was loved greatly without fear.

Mark

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Reply by Cath1

11 Sep 2012, 2:40 AM

Dear Jane (PPP):

Welcome home!:) I missed you so much! Thank you for your kind and very wise words!

You're right about how people and a day can make all the difference as today I am feeling much better about things thanks to family and friends and my particular passions. I am the type of person that feels things very deeply which is great and I love that part of myself, but such sensitivity brings with it the capacity to feel too much sometimes. I tend to over-indulge in feelings to my own detriment in some moments but once I express my feelings I feel renewed and hopeful and strong again.

Sometimes when I feel the weight of grief that others are contending with it keeps my own feelings of loss in perspective. I think that I'm going to be okay on my Mom's birthday as I have been thinking about many happy times we had when she was living and how she'd be absolutely incensed if she got wind of my hanging on to sad feelings when she left me with so many happy memories to dwell upon. As a mother I sometimes worry that when I die my own children will have to go through this sad experience of deep sorrow and that thought is another incentive for me to learn to grieve well, if there is such a thing, as I can't stand the thought of my children suffering and I want them to see me as a survivor so that from my example they too will one day be survivors after I am gone. This approach actually helps me to heal as I know my Mom thought the same way. Jeepers, life demands a lot of courage from us all does it not?

Jane, as I read your letter tonight I can relate to how you thought your sorrow was subsiding. I have often thought that was happening only to find in an off-guard moment that it returns. Grief is not always intense and torturous, at least it hasn't been that way for me, but it's like a low level anxiety that I feel always with me, and I think keeping busy is one healthy coping mechanism to give our bodies and minds a break from the constant awareness of sadness. Being with your kids and grandkids naturally makes you feel better and just as naturally when you return home to an empty and quiet house again you are bound to feel much more intensely your grief. Sometimes there is simply no easy escape from the pain yet we keep hoping that one day it will end. For me, that has been among the hardest things to accept, the pain never - so far - completely ends, it changes and moves and subsides for a time but it seems to always be present to some degree.

Having said all that, I must tell you though, from my experience, the grief I still feel a year and nine months after my Mom died is not comparable to the grieving I went through during the first year. There is hope. I don't say that only to comfort you, but to tell you honestly that how you are feeling after five months without Avery is not likely how you will feel by this time next year, or always and forever. Grief does not stay a fever high pitch daily, thankfully. Your relationship with Avery as husband and wife is different than mine with my Mom but even if we both experienced the loss of the same person in our lives, our journey through sorrow would still feel uniquely individual to each of us.

Carriek began posting here with us when her husband was ill with cancer and dying. He died on July 20th this year and he was only in his late forties. Carrie is feeling devastated as I am sure you can relate. I'm hoping Jane, if and when you feel up to it, you may consider joining Carriek in that thread as I think you will both be able to genuinely understand the loss of a lifemate and you may be able to help each other as you both grieve. I know Carriek needs our support. Here's the link should you choose to read it and to contribute: http://www.virtualhospice.ca/en_US/Main+Site+Navigation/Home/Support/Support/Discussion+Forums/Just+Want+to+Talk/2012_08_07_10_50_18_For+Caron+_amp;+Carriek+_amp;+others_+When+grief+is+fresh+_amp;+feelings+are+raw.aspx

So for now I will say goodnight, Jane, and I am hoping your heart will feel more contented tomorrow or the next day - one day soon. You have decisions to make about the winter and what you will do but you don't need to make these decisions today when you are feeling down. You don't need to worry about what anyone thinks you should be doing or feeling as they are not living through your lonely and highly personal experience. Keep doing the best you can, Jane and accept a warm pat on your back from me as in my opinion you are doing much better than you realize! Thanks so much for your pep talk - it helped me to feel better and I hope mine will help you in the same way!:-)

With affection -hugs -xo
Cath1

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