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.
I feel so hollow without Clint. I no longer want to be nice to people or smile or care about them. Everything at this point seems so meaningless. I'm so negative and in pain. I awoke this morning feeling some sinus pressure and thought to myself "this is nothing compared to what Clint went through, so suck it up buttercup because he paid the ultimate price." He didn't complain. He was always more worried about me and my health. Some days I just have this numbness and I can't shake it. I live in this zone while I watch the people go by and think, "they have no idea the sheer pain and heartache I live with." I isolate myself because people around me literally don't understand. My memory of the week Clint was in the ER for 4 days and never transferred to an ICU room becuase they were too full constantly plays in my mind. They could have saved him but instead chose to worry about the almighty dollar and not about the care of the patient. I have not gotten to the angry place as of yet. For now it hurts so bad. I break down because I hurt for what he went through not knowing he was slipping away at their hands. The medical records came and there is documentation missing along with times and images. We are waiting on the autopsy to come back. We had to send my beautiful man to be sent off to be opened up and cut on. This private man was so exposed to people unfamiliar to him. I know that we are told not to feel "guilt" but how do you not feel guilt? I just want to go back. I don't want to move forward. I just don't. I don't want it to be day 62. I've never kept up with dates really but I find that I remember exact dates of everything now. Our anniversary is coming up. He would have wanted to celebrate with me even if I didn't. Every day was an anniversary to me, why celebrate just one specific day? There will not be any celebrations again. No, I don't want to think about the "good times" or think about "he lives now through you" or "he would want you to be happy." I'm not at the 'positive" stage and who knows if and when I will ever get there. All I know right now is that my world is ruined. I no longer look at life as a gift. I don't care about yesterday, today, or tomorrow. I now count the days that I will reside on this Earth and know that I have too many years to dread. If I hear one more person tell me, "you're young, you will find love again," I'm just going to lose it. How does anyone know what I feel? I'm 36. I've been there and done that. I was married, had kids, divorced, then Clint came out of nowhere. I don't need to find love again. I wasn't looking in the first place and Clint came into my life. I don't care about finding someone. I had happiness and it was taken away. Why would I ever want to feel again and then to be punished again? I got the message loud and clear. I've seen enough in my "young" life. What I had was perfect and when I die, my life will be complete again because Clint will be there. The things that bothered me before, like roaches or heights, mean nothing to me. Bring it on. What's the worst that can happen? I don't fear death like I used to. Probably sounds sadistic. I function better in my sadness. I love him. Is it possible to love someone more now than before? I would have taken his place gladly just to know he would be okay. There is an employee here at work that I guess was in some type of accident and paralyzed temporarily. I guess the other employees here thought I would be interested in visiting her at the same hospital that didn't save Clint. I guess they thought I wanted to be in the gossip of her situation. I told them I didn't care that she couldn't walk because I would have taken Clint with no arms or legs as long as he was here and I would have waited on him hand and foot. She's alive and she gets to see her family and her husband. Clint is gone; never to return.
I recall railing to God about 6 months to a year into my grief (will be 2 yrs this month, and yes, some days it seems like only yesterday still - great!) but I was praying and crying and getting kind of frustrated, if not outright angry, that I wasn't getting a consoling, comforting 'answer' to my prayers. I had received answers in the past for other emotional crises, and I thought, in fact a theme of my pleas was, of ALL the times I need to hear from you God, this is the biggest, wtf can't I get a message of some sort?!
Then out of the blue, and like a small eye in a hurricane, I got an image of a crying baby (Jesus - I believe, or an angel, but I think it was a higher spirit) and all the baby could do was look at me and weep, in that deep, hurt, anguished way babies can when it looks like their world is crushed and they simply cannot understand or speak of it. And I immediately felt the deep pain the baby was in at seeing ME suffer, and being unable to comfort me, cause he was just a baby, and I the adult going through my own thing here on earth, and I felt in turn overwhelming, motherly concern and understanding back for the suffering child and a realization of it's great love mirrored back through the suffering.
Not entirely sure what that has to do with what you are experiencing, and it was my message, not yours, but I think it's about mirroring the pain - compassion developed in grief - and wanting to assure you that you are loved so much even while enduring/ living with this pain - more than you will know. Hang in there dear one, we will make our way through this in the end.
Maybe odd to say, but I needed your post today. I have been having a tough week and what I have learned is that although these days come less often, I still have those same thoughts and feelings from months ago. I am tired of trying to be positive. To pretend that it is all going to be alright. Of filtering what I can say in case it is too much for the other person I am talking to. Of fighting back tears on days like this. Of trying to get across to others what I am feeling only to hear the pat answers coming back (I should know better by now). Of feeling like I just don't care (I think it fairly common that this sort of loss redefines what matters in life). Yes, we will get through it because what choice do we have? But what is on the other side once we are "through"?
One thing I know about adult life is that we don't always have to like it. Sometimes we just have to do it. And so that is what we will do. Day by day. Moment by moment. We will do life. For whatever it is now.
In solidarity. Kate.