Hi Margie, I really can't give you advice for the distant future as some others but I can tell you that at 9 months nothing has really changed in the lonliness dept. I do get together once in a while with friends and family but everyone is busy living their lives. it's hard when everyone is married with children. I don't have children so im not attached to the community in that way. I owned a business with my wife with just a couple of employees and I just started to go back there a month ago, so I dont have a job to go to where there are a lot of people. I stay there late nights just to keep busy from going crazy. I guess you'll hear from others that in time the lonliness will be less and less but you will always grieve. I wish you the best my friend, this is surely an unimaginable journey we are on. Hugs and blessings to you, Bernard

Margie, I have been blessed by having my family and friends circle the wagons around me. My sons have been so wonderful. But the bottom line in my life being at 4 months since I lost my Bob, is that I have never felt so alone in my life. I have made myself get together with friends and family and it is bitter sweet. I appreciate their love and concern, but the fact my husband is not with us makes it so painful. The night are the worst and I'm afraid that I have no answers as to how to deal with it. I keep a jig saw puzzle in my family room to help keep my mind busy in the evenings. I have been told IT gets better and I'm praying to God that they are right. I am sorry you are traveling this road with us and I pray every day for all of us...that we find the strength to just put one foot in front of the other. Sending you lots of love and prayers.
BLessings
Sharon

The best way I can describe this is that you have one home that burned to the ground...Whether you watched it burn slowly or you came home one day and it was gone...it was gone...gone.

You spend lots and lots of time standing there in shock. You can't survive at first without a home. You do not know where to go or what to do or where to turn. You hang around the ashes and rubble for a very long time trying to figure out what you are supposed to do now.

You one day decide that either you will never HAVE a home again, or it is up to you to rebuild from the ashes and the rubble.

You begin the hard part of rebuilding. You find one rock here, one brick there, some from the old foundation that is salvageable, some you have to search for to use and it takes time to find the pieces...lots and lots of time...

You eventually rebuild the foundation...and sometimes a strong storm either threatens to knock it all down...or it actually does knock it all down and you start again and again.

Eventually you have the foundation and it is solid enough to weather the storms of life. Then you rebuild one piece at a time...piece by piece by piece. Sometimes some of the pieces don't actually fit and so you take them off.

Others can help you along the way...and it takes being able to trust others that are trustworthy along the way...but mostly it is up to you...you are the one that has to build.

One day you look and see that you are almost done rebuilding. You have worked so so hard and you know that you deserve to have a new home...one that you can be proud of.

What you have rebuilt is your life....and by then you have grown so used to finding the right pieces that fit into your life that whatever you feel...you will find a way to honor that feeling and fix it.

So when you are done rebuilding do you still feel lonely...for me the answer is no...not the same lonely.

You will rebuild and you will love your new home some day and you will know that it was YOU that made it possible and you know that they would be so so proud of you for rebuilding. You will still carry them in your heart and you will know that you are you because of them as much as because of you. You will still miss them and still have moments...but not that gut wrenching missing them...it will be more often with a smile and thankful for them and your time with them.

It is hard to explain...but that is the way it was and is for me.

Then there are people who 10 years down the road say...yes it is still exactly the same and you will know that it is because they sat there in the rubble and never began the difficult part...the rebuilding. Sooner or later it is up to you to rebuild...

hugs....
-Diana

Violet1213 - I havent posted here in quite awhile. I have, as Diana so beautifully put it, begun to rebuild my "home" - my life. Her answer is such a wonderful parallel to what every single person who has lost a spouse needs to go through and it takes time, lots of it. And strength. I needed to comment on this - you need to allow yourself time to grieve but then you must summon up the strength to slowly begin to rebuild. It can be done. I lost my husband 2 1/2 years ago. Yes, I still and always will miss him but can be alone without lonliness engulfing me.
Deni

Diana said it so well. I'm at nearly three and a half years and the corollary that she drew with building a house resonated with me and my experience. The loneliness changes and becomes much more bearable as you carve out your new life. It can still be gut wrenching, but at least you know how better to cope and what you need to do so that you can get through it.

Diana,
Thanks for your post. It is very insightful and puts things in a way that is very meaningful . It is a great help to get motivated to get moving foreward.
Martin

Very helpful insight, Diane. Thank you !!!

Diana, what a great way to put it.....thank you

Diana, your post helps so much, thank you

My husband passed away 4 years ago and at first I was too busy with the estate, moving, etc. to grieve, but now, 4 years later I am feeling it!
I guess we all react a little differently.

Diana's analogy is a good one. For me, I think of it like a fog. And every once in a while, the fog clears and i feel like i am coming out of it. Then the fog comes back in. I have little control over the fog ... though I feel like I am starting to.
But the loneliness, that is something I cannot control and at times, it is over-whelming. I am lucky, I still have kids at home that keep me busy and occupied, i have a busy job and I have some volunteer activities that keep me busy. I have friends that keep helping out. But none of that fills the void of loneliness. I didn't know I could feel so lonely while surrounded by so many caring people. I have heard people say that they are comfortable with themselves, and they seem at peace with being alone. But I am certainly, at ten months, not there yet.

My husband's dad died young. I used to ask Bill how if was for him at 12 to lose his dad and one thing he said stuck with me. "I liked going to go to school every day because nothing there had changed." So I have learned that I am best when doing new or different things especially when alone.

Overwhelming lonliness engulfs me when I'm participating in the things we did as a couple. I cannot go places like that alone or I am absolutely crushed.

An example from just this past weekend:
Our son played ice hockey from grade school thru college. We have tons of memories of those days. Bill and I wandered those skating rinks for years, made great friends and had a ball.
Anyway, this year our son is a coach and his team was in the playoffs 2 days ago so I decided to go to the championship game. I went alone. It was like old home week BUT.........I had no one beside me to reminisce about those days - specific memories that only Bill and I shared.. It was like I was the only one left in the whole world who remembered and I was swept away by lonliness. Bottom line, I need to bring a friend with me next time. By going alone, I set myself up for serious pain and wow - did I ever get it.

Now that Bill is gone, I am learning that I am most engulfed by lonliness when participating in the the things we did as a couple.

I truly think the lonliness is one of the hardest things to deal with and, for me, at least, was the one that lasted the longest. No matter how busy I was I was lonely. No matter how many family and friends I was with I was lonely.
It gets better when you start building that life Diana was describing, but I must admit there will always be times when you will think of him with a smile based in sadness of what could have been. Sharon

I am alone a lot when my husband went on business trips and he had lived away from home for a few years. He would always call to talk to me so I never felt lonely. Now that he's been gone almost 10 months, loneliness still hasn't hit me as hard as some of you. I do miss having phone calls from him, still feel like he is on a trip. It will probably hits hard when the first anniversary comes along, that's when I will have to start building my new life and a new small cottage, give away things and sell the house.

Diana, What a beautiful, encouraging analogy. Thank you.