You are SO right. I guess I always knew that, but I never realized how profoundly changed it is. And there is no going back. We can remember fondly. We can honor. But we can't go back.
This is so true, but so hard to take on board.
Thanks.
Kirk

So true. I've come to know this well over the past months. I think at first the mind sees this whole experience as something temporary. Then you realize this is it. A new normal and you learn to redefine happiness.

So true. : (

And it STINKS, but i have had to explain to people, i will Never be who i was. I will be o.k but NEVER who i was. I believe my adult chidren and close friends keep waiting for me to get to who i was two months ago, before i lost my soulmate. I finally have let them know, that person will never be me, without him.

Yes it sure has....the trick I think is to find yourself again.

This is so true!! Couldn't even be put into better words. Our lives have been forever changed, and we can never go back. Bobby was my life and with out him I am completely empty. I truely feel lost. I don't know how to live my life for me or even who I am.

Wow, such a short statement, but such a profound truth. It sums up for me the difference between losing a spouse/life partner and other losses, where you mourn the person you lost, but your life itself is not changed. When I lost my father, I lost my father. When I lost my husband, I lost my life as I knew it.

slgooch41 you are so right: I do believe my family, my kids, my friends, my co-workers, are all waiting for me to get back to the way I used to be. I have tried to explain that even if I come to a point of true "acceptance", I will NEVER be exactly the person I used to be.
I guess that's the second, implied part of the statement: "I HAVE CHANGED and I will never be the same."

Being with Wayne during his last weeks, watching CJD steal a little of his brain and him every day, and the finality of him being gone, are now all part of who I am. And without the life we built and shared, I am not the same person either.

I feel like getting a tattoo or a sign or something with that statement. And I think that's part of what feels so wrong right now - trying to live my life and go on every day as if it's the same, as if I'm the same, when I am not. And where the significance of the changes hits me in the face several times a day.

Thank goodness that this is one place where people do understand that. As we all struggle to learn how to navigate in this new life, and to find our place in it, it truly does help to have your company. thanks, Marisa

Yes, this is very true. I feel like I've been reborn and am starting my life over. I'm making all the decisions for myself and trying to figure out my new purpose. The second chapter of my life is yet to be written.

Everything everyone says in their replies are true life will never be the same and neither will we. I discovered a great verse this morning in my morning devotions.

1 Peter 5:10

"And the God of all grace who called you to his eternal glory in Christ, after you have suffered for a little while, will himself restore you and make you strong, firm and steadfast."

My future was wiped out the day Steve died. All I saw for quite a while was a vast empty hole. There is only one person who can ever fill the hole and that is my Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. I know I will never be the same person I was before but I accept that God will "restore me and make me strong, firm and steadfast." All things work to the glory of God and I know God is in the process of transforming me into the likeness of Christ like he promised in Romans 8:28,29. So keep the faith and look forward to the strength we will all gain in God's time.

My prayers is more of Jesus less of me.

God bless

Shirley

That is sure right. Nothing in my life will ever be the same, ever. It is like writing a whole new chapter. I am not sure what the chapter will be like. Will I ever be happy again? I will have some happiness, I am sure, but my husband's death will always be there. Now that I am a widow, I understand why my mother didn't live that long after my father died. She seemed to just lose her will to live. She wasn't much older than I am now. I hope to be able to ease into some kind of existence, but I will be forever changed. Judith

I would agree, but human beings are always changing, always having to change.

It is also up to us, and us alone, what our lives will be like from this day forth. In the early phases of grief it seems that life has lost all its color and meaning. After a time the pain gets a bit softer and we realize that life in its many forms is still a gift.

I should say "I." This is what I have found.

Hugs,
Amy