Widows & Widowers Support Group
This community is dedicated to those who have lost a husband, wife, or partner. Anything is open for discussion here, with the hope that we can focus on grief, bereavement, life after loss, and continuing on after a great loss.
Pat used a feather pillow to sleep with and I am SO thrilled he did because it still smells of him. It is very comforting. Thought I would pass this along, it is still smelling (of him) after nearly 4 months so I hope it lasts a long long time. Hugs, Wendy
Every time the cover would start to wear, I'd make another one and slip it in, old cover and all. Over the years, the thing has gotten heavy as lead. I'd estimate that it weighs at least 10 lbs. ....and I'm NOT kidding.
I always HATED that pillow and tried everything to get him to replace it. No deal! Wouldn't even consider it. We had several good natured quarrels over the years that would always end with me laughing at him.
I'll admit that when he first passed away I thought, "Finally, I can get rid of that D---- pillow!" Well, guess what? I just couldn't bring myself to do it. I have taken it off the bed and given it a new home on a shelf in my closet.
I often look at it as I'm getting dressed and it now makes me smile when I think of all the good natured bickering we did over it for almost 30 years.
He was such a character.
Chris
Hugs, Wendy
We took a long weekend vacation, just the two of us, to get away from everything and we drove to a little area a few hours away with nothing more planned than hanging around the hotel, shopping, and wandering around doing what we felt like doing. There is a lot to the story but I'll keep it just to the pillow. When we left the hotel she managed to leave her special "sleeping pillow" behind and we didn't notice it was missing until we reached the house.
We both had our own special pillow to sleep with because we both had problems with stiff necks if we slept on the wrong pillow. Hers was particularly fluffy and mine was about pancake flat, any change in pillows would result in me or her spending the next day looking like a hunchback.
On realizing that she had left her pillow behind she called the hotel and asked if it had been found. The housekeeping staff had found it and tossed it into a storage area where they keep the dozens of pillows that get left behind. Once a year they throw out all the older pillows to keep the pile down. She asked them if they could box it up and ship it to us and she would pay the postage. They wouldn't do it! It was the nicest, probably the most expensive hotel in the area and for the money we spent I thought they should have shipped it back with a bow and chocolates on it!
I was back to work all week and by the following weekend i was getting tired of watching the hunchback trying to get comfortable. When the weekend finally arrived I got her into the van and we drove all the way back down there to get her pillow back. Needless to say I was seriously pissed off about the whole thing but Roxanne was trying to play it down because she felt guilty for leaving it behind to begin with.
When we arrived at the front desk the lobby was busy with people from the airport checking in and the manager started to give my wife some static about showing up during a busy time for a pillow. We had just driven three hours to get a pillow, my wife was in pain and her temper was real short. Even though she is only five foot one she had a way of intimidating people because by that stage of her life her "social filters" were not working so well.
By the time she got done chewing that manager's ass the entire lobby was silent, his face was nearly purple and there were four members of the staff trying to get her into a side hall! I never had to say a word though I had a few I wanted to let fly! When she got her pillow back she demanded the use of the desk phone, and got it, and called the corporate headquarters! As we were leaving the lobby the manager was on the phone with someone from his corporate headquarters saying things like "Yes sir, absolutely sir, No sir, It will never happen again sir." Those busy travelers waiting to check in were all holding back laughter and not saying a word but there was a lot of grinning going on. If I hadn't been so embarrassed I would have been laughing too.
I still laugh when I think about how people learned the hard way that she had a way of getting things made right. I bet they bought a few boxes to mail lost and found pillows in after that ordeal.
After she died at home there was some cleaning I had to do. I tore down our old bed because I knew I would never be able to sleep in it alone again. I picked through all of her pillows and got rid of some that weren't special and bagged some up that needed to go to be laundered. In the course of things I mixed up the bags of pillows and somehow ended up putting a bag at the curb with the trash.
The morning of trash day I woke up with the most horrible of stiff necks and looked real close at my pillow. The pillow I slept on was old and flat but not my pancake pillow. I ran outside but was to late, the trash was already gone and my pillow with it! She has been gone for 15 months and still today I think about her and her pillows because I wake up with a stiff neck five out of seven days a week.
Such is life,
Matt