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Homesick

Discussion in 'Loss of Spouse' started by Mary0128, May 10, 2018.

  1. Mary0128

    Mary0128 Well-Known Member

    It's been 14 weeks since my Jeff passed. The feeling of loneliness overcomes me daily. When the snow melted, it revealed my winter damaged lawn. I felt overwhelmed, we used to work on spring clean up together. I can't bring myself to watch our shows we DVR'd, yet I can't delete them. When I leave work for the day I am anxious to get home, but when I get there it does not feel the same. I am Homesick, does that make since?
     
  2. Scoutpete

    Scoutpete Member

    Yes, you are homesick for your "real" life. My husband died 14 months ago and I still want my "real" life and am tired of having to adjust to this new one thrust upon me with no warning. I understand your pain, which does not help ease it. But it helps to know that you are not alone and that others understand.
     
  3. Mary0128

    Mary0128 Well-Known Member

    Saturday August 18th would of been Jeff's 60th Birthday.We always did something fun with the kids and had a BBQ. I was dreading this day until my kids helped me plan a celebration in his honor, we will also be celebrating my 2 Grandson's Birthdays that same day( their birthdays are a week apart). I know this celebration will help heal us. I know Jeff wants us to live our lives make memories and be Happy, which has been hard for me, I seem to get stuck in my grief. I am still Homesick but I feel this gathering will bring me and the kids some peace.
     
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  4. Mary0128

    Mary0128 Well-Known Member

    I was cooking myself dinner the other day. I finally feel like cooking a hot meal for myself. I was struggling to get the spaghetti sauce jar opened, I set it down and thought, I'll just have to wait until Jeff gets home to get the sauce started.
    It was a fleeting thought but it brought me to my knees in tears. It's been eight months and it still does not feel real.
     
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  5. griefic

    griefic Administrator Staff Member

    Mary, thank you for checking in. It's amazing how the "littlest" things can be such big triggers. A person who hasn't had a loss would never understand how not being able to open a jar could be so gutting, but here...we get it. I'm glad you're here with us and I hope we can continue to be a help to you. I wish you all the best~
     
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  6. Mary0128

    Mary0128 Well-Known Member

    Holiday party invites are starting to come. Not feeling it.
    Longing for some sort of normalcy, but nothing is normal without my Jeff.
    Nothing is the same, everything has changed.
     
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  7. Carmela Rule

    Carmela Rule Member

    Hi .. I can so relate its 9 mons Dave passed I'm as lost as ever .. It seems to be getting harder as the time passes I have a box full of letters / card a that I write to him our 3 grandkids spending weekend with me I love them so much always been very involved with them they can tell the difference in me
     
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  8. Mary0128

    Mary0128 Well-Known Member

    That brief moment between sleep and wake when everything is ok. How I wish you were here.
     
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  9. Mary0128

    Mary0128 Well-Known Member

    It's been 10 months I miss the feeling of being a part of that wonderful relationship we had, and the great times we had. Holidays are hard, there are so many triggers being set off. I'm still homesick and probably will always be.
     
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  10. Mary0128

    Mary0128 Well-Known Member

    1 year ago today we got the news that the treatment is no longer working. We knew there was no cure, but we thought we would have more time. 6 days later my Jeff was gone. I feel the same anguish as I did a year ago.
    I find a lot of my family and friends have a hard time just saying his name. They feel like it is going to remind me that he's gone. I know he's gone, I think about it every second of every day. Jeff, Jeff, Jeff, just say his name, tell me your memories of him, tell me the funny stories. I miss every aspect of his being, help me by talking about him.
    All year I thought if I could just get through this first year. I don't feel any different.
     
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  11. Mary0128

    Mary0128 Well-Known Member

    It's been over a year. I feel the same as the day Jeff passed. All our plans for the years to come have vanished, our dreams are no longer attainable. I cannot plan more than a day, maybe a week ahead. I feel like I need to find a direction to go, and start making new plans for my future. I miss us; the way we were together, and our fantastic future that has gone away; never to be.
     
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  12. Mary0128

    Mary0128 Well-Known Member

    May 2nd, its the day we have always celebrated. Our wedding Anniversary. This is the second anniversary that I will be spending with only my memories. It would of been our 33rd. They say the first year is the hardest, I would have to disagree, the 'seconds' are just as hard as the 'firsts'. I miss my Jeff more and more. I think of him of everyday, most of my thoughts are happy memories, but some times out of the blue something triggers me and I break down. The time spent with the kids, the Sunday afternoon drives with the dogs, or just sitting together and watching a movie, all just memories now. When I'm home there is a definite void, an emptiness, I am still homesick, I'm tired.
    Happy Anniversary Honey I Love You
     
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  13. DJF

    DJF Member

    Dear Mary,
    I feel your pain and I can relate to it. I lost my wife of nearly 36 years (I will be 70 this year) to cancer nearly 7 weeks ago (we too thought we had months that turned out to be days) and if you want to read more about the background and what I am feeling, I put my first post on the "I'm 38 and lost my husband Thursday to rectal cancer" thread. I have one grandson (3 months old) which my wife saw a few times before she died.

    My moods each day alternate between trying to put the sheer emptiness out of my mind as I get on with tasks (housework, cooking, day-to-day living) and in general trying to keep busy and utter desolation that sweeps over me if someone phones or I meet someone who knew my wife or I come across one of the countless things that in the past I would talk about with my wife, ask her advice, discuss, etc. and tears roll down my cheeks. I know that my life has changed forever but I know that I have to find a way to at least get through it and I need this forum to not only feel that I am not alone, but to suggest "coping strategies" (if you like) that might ease the pain. I have read (possibly on this forum) that you never get over it, you just get used to it and that has the ring of truth about it. The other saying that come to mind is the one attributed to Churchill - "If you are going through hell, keep going".
    You mention children and grandchildren and currently I have been telling myself that from now on, my focus must be on my sons and grandson. I have no idea if this will work, or whether it is a good idea but at least it gives me some sort of direction and I need that since my wife was my rock and the best thing that ever happened to me and she provided the direction that I now lack.
    But the other thing that I am going to do is get in touch with a reasonably local support group because I think face-to-face may add something that remote forum interactions don't provide. I don't know how this will turn out but I am willing to try anything. I know the dangers of isolation and joining some sort of support group will at the least force me to interact with new people. I have good and well-meaning support from friends where I live but most of them are couples and only one has lost a spouse and, as I have read elsewhere in this forum, people who have not lost a spouse really have no idea how it affects the surviving half-person.
    It is now gone 2 in the morning and I will be up at 6:30 to walk the dogs and face another empty day but at least I will be getting up and doing things. I am living life by numbers and hoping that at some point it will get a bit better than this.
    All the very best to you,
     
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  14. Ray G.

    Ray G. Well-Known Member

    I am so sorry, yes it makes a lot of
    sence. You are also grieving for the
    'Way we were' the way we lived, the
    things we did together.

    I am so going through that right now. I was in St.Pete Fl. Now up in
    New England. My dainty dearness and I were married for a year and76 days and Sofia died from a
    very bad strain of pneumonia and
    sepsis.

    I so love her and the life we had.
    Yes you are mourning for the life
    you had and the plans that you made. Stay close to God.
     
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  15. ReneeLight

    ReneeLight Active Member

    Homesick is exactly the word. I lost my husband of 35 years 14 months ago. He was only 54 and died very suddenly from a blood clot to his lungs. He collapsed in front of me. There was no time for words or goodbyes. We had many plans for the future and we had been working on remodeling our house. I ended up selling the house and moving because I just couldn’t bear looking at everything we had been working on and walking past the spot he died. But I am so homesick for our life we had. I thought that after the one year mark I would feel better, but I don’t. In some ways it is getting harder. My emotions are all over. I try to plan ahead but just can’t. I miss him so very much. I miss everything about him. I’m like Mary when she says she thinks of her husband every second. I read a poem that said something like “missing you in the moments between the seconds, whatever they may be called”. I’m glad I found this site. It helps to read how others are coping. Bless you all.
     
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  16. DJF

    DJF Member

    It's May 12th and a week since I posted above and the past week has been the worst. I have been doing what I said above - dog walking, housework, gardening, trying to get out and about and not isolate, but the emptiness has been overwhelming at times.
    One of the things I have realised is that I never had the chance to truly tell my wife how much I loved her and how she was the best thing that ever happened to me. I know that I had done this before but since September last year, I had been so focused on caring and trying to get her to take the right nourishment, that I acted more like a nurse than the husband who loved her. She did tell me at times that I was good to her but I never used that to pour out how I felt and I think the reason was that I didn't want it to sound like some sort of deathbed goodbye if you know what I mean. The day before she died, she was sitting up in a hospital bed and while ill, she was compos mentis and we were talking and I was focusing on getting her home and while we both knew that her illness was terminal, we thought we had months and so we discussed having various day excursions when she was well.
    The following day, I was expecting to have a conversation with health professionals to discuss how best to arrrange the home to help her best and when I got to the hospital she was unconscious and never regained consciousness although we were told she could hear and we are positive she was taking some things in. So I told her how much I loved her and how I would look after the children (both grown up) but I don't know if that registered.
    A few days earlier, we had done some planning for the funeral - order of service, hymns - but once again, we thought we had a lot longer than we did so we never had a conversation on how we felt. I know she was scared (she had said that a week or so before) and I just can't remember what I said. It was probably something on the lines of "that's why you must eat" because that was the only way I thought I could help. So I never had the chance to tell her finally how much I loved her and, to be truthful, ask her forgiveness for not being a better husband (I can't help thinking of all the things I could have done better), although friends have told me that they thought we had a good marriage and the way I looked after her during her illness showed how much I loved her. But somehow that is not enough and when the black waters grab me, that's one of the things that gets me. In this life, I will never have a chance to tell her all the things I now feel so keenly and I will never hear her tell me that she knows, or reassure me or just tell me to get on with things. All I am aware of is her absence and the awful emptiness.
    It will be 8 weeks on Monday since she died and I know that these feelings of being lost and feeling incomplete (my better half has gone forever) are fairly common and I also know that this will take a lot of time to ease and for me at least, each day I have to keep putting one foot in front of the other no matter how empty life seems and trust that at some point, some amount of enjoyment will return and the dark waters won't grab me so often.
    I attended a bereavement meeting a few days ago but it was actually a memorial service with candles (I was expecting some sort of group meeting) and I was introduced to a man probably my age who had lost his wife some 12 years ago but had since met someone and had remarried. I have no idea if the people there thought this was a good hook-up but I could not relate to him and I am certainly not looking at bereavement groups as dating agencies. So that wasn't a great success. There s a national organisation here in the UK called CRUSE but when I rang them, I got a recorded message so left a contact number. No response so far.
    So I offer this here and if anyone has any experience of being tortured with the "If only"s and/or advice about what to do with them or how the daily trudge might get lighter, I would love to hear from you even if it simply that I have to give it time.
     
  17. ReneeLight

    ReneeLight Active Member

    I am very sorry to hear about your wife and how you didn’t get the extra months you thought you had. I’m going to repeat a message I posted before because I want you to know that I have the same feelings of guilt and regret. I lost my husband of 35 years 14 months ago. I am slowly getting to a place where I can remember things we did and look at photos without always crying. My main issue has been that we had an argument the day he died. We had just started to “make up”. I gave him a little framed picture of his kitten and he gave me a bottle of crystal light. That was how we were. But we never got to the actual saying sorry part. The argument was totally my fault as I was upset about something silly. He died very suddenly that evening. He collapsed in our home and it was so sudden I never got to say anything to him. I’m not sure how to get past the guilt of not talking with him most of his last day and not apologizing for the argument. Some days I can rationalize that, of course he knew how much I loved him. But other days I worry because I hadn’t said I was sorry. There are so many should of, could of, would of ideas in my head. I had an urge to take work off that day, but I went to work any ways. Would it have made a difference if I had? I know I would have said “I’m sorry” to him if I had. Because I was very sorry and I thought, oh I will make it up to him tomorrow, but tomorrow never came. I guess my advice to you would be to try to think of your life before she got sick. Did you tell her how much you loved her? I’m sure she still knew before she died. Plus all the caregiving you gave her came from pure love. I wish you well.
     
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  18. Mary0128

    Mary0128 Well-Known Member

    This site does offer grief coaching, you may want to check it out. Also I found this article helpful, https://thegrieftoolbox.com/article/battlingwhatifandifonly
    I hope you find peace. I took care of my husband the last 6 months of his life. He would always say you take such good care of me, I am so lucky. I always took this as a way of him expressing his love to me and him knowing how much I care and love him by my actions. Words are just words but actions mean everything.
    DIF: She knows, and she heard you
    Take care of yourself.
     
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  19. ReneeLight

    ReneeLight Active Member

    Hi DJF and Mary, how are you both holding up this week?
     
  20. Mary0128

    Mary0128 Well-Known Member

    I'm doing ok, I've had a very busy week at work, which makes getting through the week easier. It is starting to get warm enough to sit outside in the evening, this brings on a flood of memories of Jeff and I sitting and listening to all sounds of the woods in the evening. It feels good to be able to sit quietly and remember all the wonderful times. Lonely but good.
    How is your week going ReneeLight?
     
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