I guess I feel a lot like Kathleen in her original post--my real hope is Heaven and the reunion with my beloved D. As for life on this earth--sometimes I would like to love again, to take care of someone and give myself to her, perhaps even help someone to heal from her own loss. In the meantime just trying to make a difference in the lives of those I come in contact with--to be a good dad and grandpa and brother and friend. Thanks to all for some thought-provoking comments...

Thank you Jeff!

Hope, an interesting topic. I too am focused on the hope I have in my redeemer to take me to where my husband is. James died at age 57 of a heart attack, six months before we were to have retired together. I have had to face the fact that as well as being deeply grieved, I am very angry about that. I have noticed lately that I seem to have a self pitying chip on my shoulder. It's probably been there for a while but it isn't serving me well. I want to get rid of it. The best ways I know are:
a) practice gratitude for the littlest things
b) try to stay in today
c) do what I can to help others
d) set tiny goals
Sometimes I do all this and it works beautifully. Sometime I fall on my face. I always feel somewhat sad. I really don't want to become
a woman who is looking for another man. From what I have seen among friends these women end up becoming caregivers or financing thier man's life and causing problems with children. I could be wrong about that. I really don't know any single men that I interest or that would interest me. I have met some nice new friends through volunteer work and I will be attending a historic Christmas presentation as well as a harp concert with two of them later today. I have asked my Higher Power to remain with me because I really can't cope with life alone. I'm sorry if this post sounds like a bad self-help book but it is the best I know. If I learn better ways of coping with the fact that my life, my hopes, my heart and my dreams have been blown up, I'll write and tell you. For me, I just can't sit home and count the ways I've been made miserable. 2013 is goingt to be my year of imroved attitude. My husband wants that for me and so does my God. So do I.

Earlier this morning I came to DS and wrote (ranted about my total meltdown and the absolute loss of hope. How it died with my husband less then 6 weeks ago. At 63 we were so looking forward to the spring when he was going to retire and all our time would be ours. We had celebrated our anniversary just days before we left on our annual trip to Hawaii. At dinner that night we talked about all the plans we had made and the wonderful future we had waiting for us. He took my hand and told me how much he was looking forward to "our wonderful new adventures".

Those dreams died in the waters of Hawaii. Since then I have felt so alone and empty and the future does not exist. The only thing keeping me going is the promise of my faith and that we will meet again in Heaven. But that faith is being tested because I cannot see hope for any time here on earth. The time before me is empty.

Again as usual, reading what some of you have written have given me a thread to hold onto....slim, but still a glimmer of hope. For that I thank you and am praying that I can hang onto it and pull my self forward.

My true peace is found in the HOPE of being reunited with my husband when my time here is over.

Till then my purpose in this life is to share a bit of solace with other human beings along the way.

I recommend 2 books: A Grief Disguised by CS Lewis, and Man's Search for Meaning by Victor Frankl

Such wisdom...such beauty and grace in these responses. As I read each, my mind and heart cry "Yes, yes...that's me"...and yet it is not. I had 48 of the lovliest years with Vern and I never dreamed it could be so. We were blessed in that we were almost always together...joined at the hip was my favorite expression. And a true one. He was my life, my joy, my existence. But now he's been gone over a year and I find that I had a strength I never knew I had. It comes from 'way deep inside and never screams that it's there...just lets me know in soft, sweet whispers that whatever comes along I can manage, if not conquer it. ***the voice sounds a lot like Vern's all tangled up with my Creator's***

My hope for the future? What a wonderful question, Kathleen. I have no special hope for anything right now. Just learning to appreciate every minute...yes, even the lower-than-a-snake's-belly ones. My kids are grown with families and even though we're close I'm learning to appreciate the solitude of just being "me" and finding that I actually am an okay person all told. I've a long way to go, but, like Scarab, I've always known that there is nothing more important in this life than love. And there are so many facets to that word that it's easy to live with and use to make others' lives perhaps just a tiny bit happier.

My biggest hope is to make Vern proud of me. And I know he is because he loved "me"...not how I look, what I read, whom I also love...and that makes the learning how to be "me" again - the one he fell in love with and is a part of - easier.

I love you people on here! You lift me up when I slip and you make me laugh and cry with your stories. YOU have made it easier for me to go on, to hope for something else, to know that as long as there is love...there is hope.

Bless you...Marilyn

Dear NewRoadforMe
I identify with so many of the expressed feelings of hope or lack of, as those just shared here, and for myself trying to use the various comments on coping if realistic for me to get thru one more day. So I say to You please try to hang on!

Not sure where I am, as the Christmas holiday approaching, no lights are up, no tree is up, made plans to go to my only Sisters' place over Christmas where plan to watch the sun rise over the atlantic ocean at Outer Banks to celebrate my Love and Her Love of Us though not Us anymore. Just following each breath with another, taking a few footsteps at a time, will be 16 weeks, where did the time go?

So busy with Life's stuff, not sure actually living, though know important to have done what I have over the past few weeks since Thanksgiving. More things needing to get done yet I know I have no energy, feel apathy so do not care, and really why bother yet!

On the DS site Reading all about Joining my Wife sooner then later, Hope, Wishes, Love, God, Focus, Who am I, Old, Coping, Friends and Family are they (good people, silent people, suck the life out of you bad people)? Realize suicide is not an option, so going for Hope, Love, and making each day count as try to make one thing a little bit better then I found it each day. Well it seems attainable simple goal and as others have stated; our spouse would want us to go on... So One Day at a Time I shall plod on.
Best Hope to You always and thanks for helping me just now.
Rick

Hope? When Jim was dying I had lost all hope. Now I just hope to get through my life and find more happiness than I have had in the past 3 1/2 years. I hope I am making Jim proud of me as I learn to live by myself. Oh yes he is still in my thoughts and always will be. I hope to be stronger and stronger and it's slowly happening. But my biggest hope is that I will be with Jim when my life ends. I can only imagine what great joy that will be.

I've read all your thoughts on this and identify with many of you. My husband has only been gone since October 12th - he had lung cancer and we knew there was no good way out of his illness. Like many of you I thought I was better prepared. He was the love I had looked for all my life, we met in our fifties so I knew we would never reach a 50th anniversay. I had hoped for a few more years together, we had even started talking about how many more years he needed to work before he could retire. When Bob passed I knew it was what had to happen he was so very sick. I made it through all the arrangements and the funeral - then the hard part came. Part of me is resentful that I have to join the ranks of 50 somethings that have lost their husband that is not a group I had wished to join.....another part of me is hopefull about what my new future holds. I know God has not done this to punish or torture me - that there is a reason all this has come to pass. I have experienced many difficult times in my life - this is by far the most difficult.
Hope springs eternal

My hopes and dreams were going just the way it was meant.
Retired and semi retired doing things together: camping, fishing, archey, horseback riding, white water rafting, and some traveling...than boom

My hopes now are survival: financially to keep my animals and I going. My other hope is to find a pt job and some ways to fight the loneliness....

I also hope I can be a better person to all

At 6.5 months, I still have unfinished business to deal with, figuring out what to do on the weekend being alone. I am not feeling anything, no wish, no hope. just blank. Maybe when things are settled that's when I could feel again and hope again.

A time machine or to wake up and find this been a night mare....

I watched a movie called The Lamp and it has helped me when I felt hopeless.

A couple loses a child and the husband has retreated within himself. They are given a lamp and a man appears who is a modern day version of a genie. He tells them he will grant wishes with only three conditions. The wish cannot be 1) to bring someone back to life 2) to force someone to do something against their will or 3) for something that you can do yourself.

I often think of this when I hope for something.