YES I get this . I'm with ya. Hugs

Losing our way is part of the loss. It is so difficult to wake up each morning with out the rest of us. With out our partner dreamer. I don't see life less clear, just less meaningful. It all means less when you are no longer sharing it with your loved one. Left alone to finish the ride. Unfazed as you put it.
It becomes Clear, our mortality. The search for our life partner is no longer a goal. We found them and now they are gone. And we are still here, just waiting.
What is the even keel? Less pain? Or more reality? Seems like the same thing... just feels different.
Yes, I get angry, I get into my loner self, and look for answers, knowing I wont find one that can make "todays" pain go away. There are no answers to explain why I didn;t have 15 more years wiht my husband, He was only 58!!
But, I do know that in my search I usually find my way to a feeling of hope. Hope,that this experience is meant to bring meaning to the love I found with my husband. Love seems to be the only thing that is worth having in life... and death is but a part of the experience of life... the journey never ends. As my love for him never ends,
I hope I will be with him again.

Thank you for putting it down so eloquently. This is what we are all going through. Blessings!

"Identifying the important things in life" to me would be concentrate on you. Who are you? No longer someone's wife. Children adults so the mom identity has changed. For me with my parents deceased I'm no one's daughter here on earth. I struggled long and hard trying to figure out who I am. Since I retired I'm not even the employee that I was.

Right now many are just 'pain', 'hurt', and scared. But they're verbs and the important thing is the nouns. All I knew in the beginning of this struggle for identity was that I'm a woman. It's the base to start.

Don't think it's easy, because it's not. But it's worth the fight to know who you are and from that you can build again.

I guess the hardest thing for me is that I don't have hopes and dreams anymore. All the things we had planned will never happened. Kids are grown and out of the house, we retired when he was dying. We both worked all our lives and dreamed of spending time together. The reality is NO RETIREMENT, not even one day. He was 66 and quit working just in time to die. Yep, I'm still dealing with some anger issues. We sacrificed, worked hard (different shifts) and so looked forward to waking every day to see each other and feel our warmth and love and excitement of the day when we would choose what we wanted to do for that day. There will be no traveling for me, no helper on our property, no one to talk with, no one to look up to for advice, no one to take charge. I'm still dealing with the issue of, OK I did everthing I was supposed to do - worked my entire life, raised my 2 children, paid for our house, planned carefully for retirement and then everything I worked for has crashed and burned. Yet I still have to live on this planet. Bum mood tonight. Sorry.

I hear you all. With me, it makes me search even harder, try harder, refuse to accept that my God , who is the God of love would forsake me. I keep thinking that this pain I am going through must be experienced for some reason, and it will lead me to a different, better, more helpful place then I have ever been before - really. Of course I am depressed, but the opportunity to live comes with the promise that God will never forsake you. Keep on Keeping on Honey Child. Vicki

My sister said something to me about it not necessarily getting better, just different when I commented(while on a crying jag) that I knew it would get better. In some ways I can agree, but I also have been reading "For Widows, Only" and the author interviewed many widows and everyone of them experienced the grief "job" differently, too. I am trying to find the new me. I will never be the old me, again, so I have to re-invent myself one baby step at a time. My sincere hope is that I can help someone else traveling along this "lonely" road.

I hear you - each and everyone of you. We followed "the rules". Ate well, exercised, saved our money, worked hard, brought the kids up to be caring, responsible people. It was OUR TURN. We were cheated out of the promise of middle and old age together. It hurts. It makes me angry. And I don't know where the "I" is in all of this. I'm trying to find me - but again, following all "the rules" seems kind of pointless now.

most important things in my life sometimes surprises and reminds me what is really important....my honey was one of the most important things in my life and always will be......i am also reminded of others, my 4 loving and beautiful kitties...they help me each and every day to get through it all...my grandchildren, my two daughters, my brother......my home...i guess i have a lot to be grateful for still...one of my daughters sunday was in an accident...her car is pretty gone, she is banged up a bit, but i am sooo thankful she is ok, that is what is important...i could have been so much worse than it was, but the ok part is what counts...somedays i have to remind myself that there still are important things in my life i have to live for...somedays i dont feel that way, but somedays i do...

I think you said it beautifully. Nothing seems to be important anymore. Only being kind to others. Letting them be kind to me. Business details seem to float around me. I just try to be ok with what I am doing. I hope to make him and me proud of how I go about it. Sometimes foggy, sometimes clear. Sometimes music helps the strong feeling. Sometimes only the quiet helps. I can now at 8 months stand quiet. Thanks for listening.

I think when we are married that we go hurtling through our lives at top speed - always looking to somewhere off in the distant future when we will be able to stop and relax and somehow everything will be just dandy. Then we become widows/widowers and everything unexpectedly comes to a screeching halt. All the plans are gone, so what is the future supposed to look like now? We are so used to planning everything, and planning it together, that we don't know how to just stop.

The backlash when you come to the screeching halt and realize your expected future is gone is to then go back to your past. We agonize over everything we did or didn't do or both. We go through the 'woulda, coulda, shoulda's' and put everything in our past under an emotional microscope.

We get angry, we scream, we cry, we cuss, and then the pendulum whips back the other way but there still seems to be no future, so we become despondent, lose all motivation, don't see the point of anything, and lose a very precious commodity - HOPE. I remember at one point the best I could say was that I was hoping for hope, because I had none - I had lost it all when Cliff died.

The back-and-forth, the up-and-down rollercoaster ride does start to even out. Every small step of survival helps along that path, and at some point you realize that you are going to be okay. Life can still be good, the days can have meaning again, you can even experience joy again.

You never forget - that whole 'getting over it' thing is a misnomer. You remember your life with them, AND you remember what the grief you endured was like. And then one day something happens - it's different for each of us - but something happens and you suddenly realize that you were glad to still be here and feel you have a purpose again, and you know in your heart-of-hearts that your love smiles again because you smile again.

It's a weird process, and it's not something I would wish on anyone, but you can get through this, you will get through this, and you will find ways to be here today and not agonize over the past or the lost future. It's very tough, but peace does come. Don't give up - the fight is worth it.

Wishing you better and brighter days. Love and Hugs, Martha

WOW Martha just said everything I feel every day.

Agonizing over all the woulda shoulda couldas, lost future, and not KNOWING at all who YOU are anymore.

Especially after losing my mom too recently, I'm no one's daughter, no ones wife, and kids are pretty much on their own now. so who am "I"?

Sweet memories of the past with my husband, and bitter throughts as to the why's of it all still. when my mom passed, all I could think of was I wanted so much to talk to my husband. He could always make it all better, no matter what "it" was. Calling his cell (can't have it ended yet. Haven't even tried), just to hear that voice. Then thinking 'You are NUTS!!. you know he's not there, but HAVE to anyway.

I was his caretaker, my mom's caretaker, my kids caretaker, and the 'who is this now?" question streams over and over in my mind.

I was so HOPEFUL for a future with this man it took me so long to find. The perfect Yin to my YANG! And then all gone?How we wanted to take a trip, but No, 'after transplant". We wanted to go out to dinner, but can't have anything the restaurant offers so "after". Want to do this or that, but maybe not reccommended by the doc so "after". But "after" never came!! If I'd have known even for a second there would be no "after", I'd have had him eat all the junk food he could handle, and not have been so much his "Nurse" at the end.

Want to make him proud, just sometimes don't know how to do that anymore.

guess at 10 weeks too raw to even think about it clearly. still in that Woulda shoulda coulda stage.

Worst part is he wouldn't want that for me.

So guess just gotta keep pushing, and hopefully break throug it all at some point.

I'm thankful we can all still do that!!

lovely and oh so true post. thanks for venting and speaking for many at the same time...I started to cut out things from magazines to create an idea board but have run out of inspiration to keep going...sigh..

Thank you venting.

I was luckier than most having been married for 46 years. My husband was 76 when he died. I am 10 years younger than he was.

This did not, does not make any of this easier.

You all have said everything I feel.

Thank you.

I hope that through all I have gone through, that I AM a good person. I have to do double duty in the role model department now. As for the old me; I think I need to be as much of the old me as I can for my kids. They do not do well with change. My hopes and dreams are all centered around the kids. I am mommie for a long time to come. Any resemblence to me as an individual is out the door.

Maggie