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.
This should probably be in my journal but I find when I put it "out there" to the rest of you, I find healing in letting it go. As if it leaves my circle and can either evaporate or hopefully touch someone else so that they too don't feel so terribly alone..... but effectively it somehow stops rambling around in my head....
Lesson 1: I FELT the truth today of this statement:
When you're in a bad place you can't make good decisions. So mistakes and regrets I have from times before? I can let go now. They seemed a good idea at the time, but that was because I was in a bad place and didn't see better.
This is also true today because in the space where I am seeing only my loss, loneliness and desolate grief, I cannot see that there might one day be sunshine in my life again. I just have to Trust and have Faith. God DOES NOT LIE!
Lesson 2:
When I went on my roadtrip to "find" Mark - I realised I was looking for him in the old memories we have together, I found a remarkable number of places that we had been to together had closed down. It wasn't great places, but they were significant places. A restaurant called The Copper Kettle in Grahamstown where we had our first date. A rather dodgy looking little caf called "Bambi's" that made the best Curry and Rice I've ever tasted. It was our favourite and we spoke of it often in the last few years.
I have a small copper kettle keepsake on the dining room sideboard cupboard and recently Mark asked me why I bought it because I don't like copper ornaments (to me there's just something cheesy about them - no offense intended to anyone's taste....lol)
And I said, when I saw it, I knew it would always remind me of our first date - and he commented that he'd never known why I had bought this copper kettle considering my aversion. But the look of love that filled his eyes when I explained it, was so priceless. I will treasure it forever.
Anyway, my point was that I realised today, lesson no 2:
It is not the place that makes the memory. It is who you are there with, who shares that moment in that place with you. So now I cherish the people who are in my life every moment of my life. Because I never know how long they're there for.
A colleague just asked me a question: and I was stunned that I didn't know how to answer. He said: How did you manage to pick yourself up and go on after losing your husband? You so obviously loved him so much. How did you cope?
I DON'T KNOW? !
Lesson 1: I FELT the truth today of this statement:
When you're in a bad place you can't make good decisions. So mistakes and regrets I have from times before? I can let go now. They seemed a good idea at the time, but that was because I was in a bad place and didn't see better.
This is also true today because in the space where I am seeing only my loss, loneliness and desolate grief, I cannot see that there might one day be sunshine in my life again. I just have to Trust and have Faith. God DOES NOT LIE!
Lesson 2:
When I went on my roadtrip to "find" Mark - I realised I was looking for him in the old memories we have together, I found a remarkable number of places that we had been to together had closed down. It wasn't great places, but they were significant places. A restaurant called The Copper Kettle in Grahamstown where we had our first date. A rather dodgy looking little caf called "Bambi's" that made the best Curry and Rice I've ever tasted. It was our favourite and we spoke of it often in the last few years.
I have a small copper kettle keepsake on the dining room sideboard cupboard and recently Mark asked me why I bought it because I don't like copper ornaments (to me there's just something cheesy about them - no offense intended to anyone's taste....lol)
And I said, when I saw it, I knew it would always remind me of our first date - and he commented that he'd never known why I had bought this copper kettle considering my aversion. But the look of love that filled his eyes when I explained it, was so priceless. I will treasure it forever.
Anyway, my point was that I realised today, lesson no 2:
It is not the place that makes the memory. It is who you are there with, who shares that moment in that place with you. So now I cherish the people who are in my life every moment of my life. Because I never know how long they're there for.
A colleague just asked me a question: and I was stunned that I didn't know how to answer. He said: How did you manage to pick yourself up and go on after losing your husband? You so obviously loved him so much. How did you cope?
I DON'T KNOW? !
When a couple split / divorce and you see a photo torn in half to remove the other person from the picture.....?
When my picture was torn, It took half of me out of the picture too.... So all of him and half of me is gone... I can only be half till I work through my grieving and loss, and maybe I never get all of it back....
"In all things, throw your anxiety upon Him, because he cares for you".....
Like you I have my faith and will pull thru this but it is never less than difficult. I am Christian but human with all the faults built in.
It is rough.
Take care.
Peace, Tim