welcome. you are awful funny at blogging.
I can't believe you already started cleaning your place. but like a good young widower, you wetted kleenex faster than making progress.
welcome to the place nobody wants to be.
Barbara. not like Streisand.

Thank you for the welcome! I'm so glad I found a place online to talk about it. I live in a medium-sized city and there just aren't many people near me who can relate but the Internet is a much bigger sample size. I really appreciate it and your kind words.

Hello! You have arrived at the right place. This is the club no body wants to join but here we are. There are many of us here. We pop in and out, some of us host topics and some of us just read. You say you are thirsty to share, well this is the place. Most of the discussions relate to our loss but sometimes we go off topic such as a recent discussion on what is the best coffee. Feel free to ask questions, vent frustrations and share your grief. We can understand where those who have not been down this path often do not. I know our community here can offer you some comfort. I have found comfort here and also been helped to understand so many things that grief brings to us.
Cynic, you've lost your first and bestest love. Nothing can replace that. Now you are faced with the task of finding a way to survive despite the overwhelming grief. I am so sorry for your need to be here. I pray you may find some comfort and peace in your journey.

I am glad you found us, but likewise sorry you needed a place like this. I hope being here helps you as much as it helped me. I read your blog and had to laugh - and cry, too. Welcome to the wonderful bag of mixed nuts that is grieving. I hear you about the cliches, they get to be like fingernails on a blackboard, but you will get through this.

I am one of the Community Leaders here along with Shrn and marjoe. If you run into any problems on the site, feel free to contact one of us. I'm an ex-pat American now living in England, so if I don't get back to you straight away it may have more to do with time zones than anything else. That said, one of us is usually around.

Welcome to the group.

Love and Hugs,
Martha

Thank you Onebrokenheart and Cliffskat for your welcomes. I'm feeling something akin to relief for having created this account and starting to post here. My peers are all compassionate but pretty much none of them can really relate. I finally feel like there are people who can identify the feelings I'm having because they've felt them before. Even among the grief support groups I've attended in person, sometimes I encounter pity instead of empathy. Plus, with this website, I don't have to wait for the next weekly meeting to express something I'm feeling lol.

Thank you so much. Would any of you folks like to share your story with me?

I am sorry your lost your soulmate, no one wants to be here, but because of our losses, we are happy to have one another, to help us through. I am a single mother of two girls, my husband passed away last year. I hope you will find many ways to vent, and share what you are enduring. Just know you are not alone. Much love and big hugs carla

I am so sorry for your loss. Welcome to the club nobody wants to belong to. It definitely helps to share your stories with us. Nobody understands like your fellow widowers. Share all you want, we get it.
Hugs, Sandi

I also married my high school sweetheart and it's a wonderful thing. Sadly he developed cancer and we lost him. Being here where we're understood helped me greatly. I'm sorry for your loss and hope being here helps you get through this difficult time. Sharon

Gosh Cynic, I was 27 when Juanita and I married. And was blessed with 30 wonderful years. I am so sorry you lost your love -- age doesn't matter, if you two loved each other, your heart is as broken as the rest of us here. It takes time to heal -- that's what I've been told by those before me. So hang in there, read as much here as you can -- I had to educate myself about grief and that's how I did it. A whole lot of wonderful, kind, loving people here, so just be yourself. We are here for you. ~~~ Scottie

Adding my welcome, Cynic. Your dear sweetheart was so very young, and I am so, so sorry. You have definitely found a great board that is active, friendly but most of all helpful. We all know where you are coming from, sadly.

There is absolutely, positively nothing pathetic about wanting to share your grief. We share here, we even have some snarky comments to share, and we are honest. We try to keep our sense of humor because without it, many of us would be lost.

Sending cyber hugs...

MysticDay

I read over your blog. I'm with you on the whole guy crying thing. I lost my wife in August of last summer. I still don't care if people see me cry or have a down face or what ever. Like you said no one knows what this is like unless they go thru it and unfortunately someday one of them will. People who make comments about the oh your still young
thing don't get it either. You can't just turn off your feelings and then turn them back on with someone else when they come along. I'm 56 and I am petrified with the idea of living the remainder of my life without her with me.
My wife was suffering from injuries received from a car accident back in 1995. She had chronic migraines and blown discs in her back and neck. So she was on pain killers all those years. The morning she passed I had left for work she was fine no problems and then returned a few hours later. I found her in our bed gone. I suspect the painkillers over those years damaged her heart and other organs. (Thanks pain management doctors). And so now I'm In this club no one wants to be in. Unfortunately now you have been drafted also. This site has been a tremendous help to me. These folks all have compassionate hearts and really care. Take care of yourself and as far as the not crying part, society can get over it because real men do cry. That's why our wives loved us like they did and do.
Peace, Tim

Thank you all so much for your welcoming warmth. I would never have, in a million years, expected to find a group of widows and widowers as a place I fit into. I'm reading a lot of wisdom and familiar feelings from your responses and it feels like relief.

Like even just in 2016, there have been horrible terrorist tragedies in Paris and Brussels. And I'm still sitting here wracked with despair over my wife. It's so nice to be able to reach out to folks like you guys who can relate to the concept. How is the rest of the world still spinning and moving on? My world is obliterated. The only thing that seems to still be spinning is my head.

I'm so thankful this forum is so active and empathetic. They tell me I should try to practice gratitude so there's something I'm thankful for.

Tim, I totally understand fury at the medical professionals.. My wife died from cirrhosis of the liver (more on that at another time) and the hospice nurses gave her NSAID pain relievers. #^*%ing idiots.

Sandy, I definitely get that this is the club nobody wants to be a part of. But I'm so glad it exists and is filled with people like you folks

Thank you all for your kind words and sentiments.

My name is Kevin. My wife's name was Mia.

Kevin, I am so sorry for the loss of your Mia. My wife Amy died a year ago Feb 13th. She was just 48 and I am now 57. I was not supposed to outlive her. We were together for 20 years.
She died from complications of a fall she took. She was having feinting spells and we were trying to figure out what was wrong with her and we had a Dr's appt the day she died but she never made it. They could not stabilize her vitals and she bled internally from broken ribs from the fall.
We are here for each other and as you have heard and experienced first hand, nobody knows what you are going through unless they have been through it themselves. We understand your pain so please come here when needed and hopefully you will get some comfort from the many kind and wise people in this group. Peace ~Pete

Hi Kevin -

I am truly sorry you had to find us in our little hidden and out
of the way world. I can tell by your words that you truly loved
Mia.

It has been 7 1/2 months since my wife, Debbie, passed. I
went to work one morning and she was gone at the age of
53 that Friday afternoon. I was older that her ( 16 years ) and
we had been together for 31 years. I was supposed to go
before her and never saw it coming.

Don't worry about crying. I agree with Tim. Absolutely no
person on this planet can understand what you are going
through unless they experience it themselves. It is entirely
different from losing a parent or a sibling or a friend. I truly
thought I knew grief from being exposed to other losses
over the years. I was in the military in the Vietnam days
and thought I knew death. I have thought for many years
that I could disassociate myself of the death of virtually
anyone. But the death of my wife has hit me like no other experience in my entire life.

Where you are at present is where I too have been since
the end of August when she passed. None of it makes the
slightest sense to me. I could be surrounded by 10,000
people and would still feel completely alone. I have lost
my best friend and the one person that I could turn to and
did turn to with anything and everything in my life. She was
the center of my world and my world is now in constant
chaos.

I do several things regularly that I have mentioned to others
and perhaps you may wish to consider them as well. I have
three large photos of her near a table where I spend a great
deal of time at home. I light candles near the photos and
think about our time together and also write letters to her as
}I recall the many things we did together. I am now on my
third handwritten journal book and many of the pages to
date are tear stained but it has helped me through some
extremely difficult moments over the past several months.

You an Mia are in my thoughts and prayers.

Blessings to all -

Darrell

Dear Kevin - I am so sorry for your loss. I am so glad you and Mia found each other and were able to live as soul mates for 11 years. if only it could have been for much much longer. In so many ways, you did "win". You and Mia recognized each other early and made the choice to be together. As I read how you write about Mia, I imagine when folks met you two together, they would have felt the depth of love and delight you two had with one another. A gift to all those who met you. I am sorry for your loss.