18 months from losing my husband

OMG Deb just hearing your Mother’s words of a punishing God brings back terrible childhood memories. Mom’s side were souther Baptist from Georgia. As a boy I grew up being told I was going to hell if I didn’t conform to their religious brainwashing. Those memories are lasting. Taking Mom to family reunions down yonder was hell because I still felt like they perceived me as the demon from the north. I never conformed to their insane belief system. Now I believe there is positive and negative energy in the universe. The positive energy is love. The negative is fear. I find myself in between both like yin and yang. Always changing. I get stuck in the loss of my beloved Cheerful Cheryl often. The challenge is to cultivate the love we have for beloveds. I’m going to a special place today to celebrate my love for Cheryl. It is a large flower garden at the Gene Stratton Portor Historical Site. It was one of Cheryl’s favorite spots. The last photo I took of Cheryl was here. There is a wishing well I will visit and then I will walk the trails. I’m going to seize the day to the best of my ability. Gary

 

BroGar, that's a touching tribute to Cheryl
that you're going to one of her favorite
spots, and the wishing well. One of the
wedding photos I have, has Linda & I
standing at a wishing well. As DEB would
say,it's a bittersweet memory, or as
Robin would say a happy mixed with sad
episode, bc I made a wish at the time, that
Linda & I would be happy, healthy, and
grow old together. Alas, that was not to
be. Lou

 

Thank you Bro Van Gogh. I just returned from the wishing well. Today it was a very blue sky and the lake was partly frozen. The wind low. I was the only human there. I walked the trails and looked at the flower beds still in hibernation. More good memories than sad today. I christened a new hiking stick in Cheryl’s memory too. When I got back to the car I realized I lost one of Cheryl’s gloves. I retraced my steps and couldn’t find it. On the way home I thought well I had a good time but I lost Cheryl’s glove. The typical happy mixed with sad narrative. after tearing everything out of the car the second time the glove was between the seat and car door. Amazing how finding the glove changed my whole perception. I feel alive again. Gary

 

Garbear, I choked up about your story of
Cheryl's glove, and I'm so glad you found it.
My wife believed that if we prayed to St.
Anthony if we misplaced something, that
we would find it. It would always work, if
we prayed in our small apartment, bc we knew the item was in there. Our prayer
also worked most of the time outside.



As I've said here before, I'd be distraught
if I lost Linda's cane. But, as I told Robin
who lost the cane Ron gave her, & was
devastated, I said that if that ever happened to me, I would buy another
cane which looked just like Linda's. Robin
agreed that she'd do the same. BroLou

 

Hi Gary, heartwarming to read your post, so glad you were able to visit you, Cheryl’s garden.
Brought big smile to me you’re finding Cheryl’s glove. It brought a memory back to me. I’ve worn Jack’s
Wedding ring on my left pointer finger since he transitioned, ( I visited sis and bro in Arizona several years back )
some how one day it it fell off while there, we had been out that morning, I went and traced each place we had
been, hopeful to find it.
I was so heartbroken.About six months later, their grandson, children were visiting them, adults were
all out on patio, kids in family room, their great grandaughter excited ran out to sis saying look what
I found, an eight year old “ her nameIs GRACE ” it was Jack’s wedding ring, she showed my sis where
it was, it was on that large area rug in which was vacuumed many times weekly those six months, I
had her keep it till I flew back and got it. I wear it all the time.
You and all GW “Family” are in my thoughts and daily prayers.
Blessings, Patti

 

Patti, what a wonderful story you shared
with Gary & all TGW. I've missed you, but I
know you've been following our posts, and
replying from time to time. Please try to
stay healthy and as happy as you can, on
this tiring, happy & sad, journey. Lou

 

Thank you Gary. It’s hard shaking off the poison of punitive beliefs and living in love. I do try daily to kick those demons from the recesses of my heart and mind. I miss Steve, and I regret so much from his final 8 months. I know he wouldn’t want me to be regretting so much, but I didn’t focus enough on the love that we built for our family. It’s too late now, but I’m trying to move forward and support others. Again, probably not doing enough.

 

Deb, please try not to beat yourself up.
All of us did the best we could, with what
we knew at the time. 20/20 highsight doesn't do us any good. Lou

 

I am struggling with this. Our wedding vows state: til death us do part. Steve begged me to help him at the end. And I didn’t do that. So yes, there is guilt. I broke my promise and broke his heart. I let him struggle through pain and suffering and I didn’t protect him from the worst of cancer. I am guilty of that.

 

If we can’t be who our spouses need in their most desperate moments, then who are we?

 

Deb, I really urge you to read The
Widower's Notebook, bc the author
struggles with that question. Lou

 

Dear Deborah, I haven’t been able to get in GIC much for past six months.I have missed reading
everyones postings. I’m so sorry for you’re loss of your beloved Steve.
Finding GIC was a real Blessing for me after I lost my Dear Jack after 24 Years of Parkinson’s.
He was only 57 at time of diagnoses. We were married 61 years.
Those first four years after he transitioned held all the years of memories of his suffering,
especially his last nine years. I couldn’t remember our lives before Parkinson’s. Raising, loving
our family loving each other doing everything together. My only brother Carl was laid to rest
same day God spared my husband from suffering any longer.
Deborah you did everything you could for your husband. I heard “The Serenity Prayer” as a child,
it’s words helped me through all my life, I said it many times over during the last months while
Jack was still with me,”there was nothing I could do to change his suffering.” Then came
“The wisdom to call Hospice.”
The Serenity Prayer is helping me now at age 85 to take each day as it comes, remembering
Being grateful for my many Blessings in life, finding this wonderful support group.
Sending you love, prayers and a big hug, Patti

 

Patti, your loving comforting words to
Deb, are so moving and true. You are the
grande dame leader on GIC. You and
Karen ( who I nicknamed "Ms. Hum")
were the first 2 people to welcome me to
GIC, and I will be forever grateful to you.
You may be 85, but many of us are right
behind, in our 70s and 80s. You truly are
an inspiration. Lou

 

Deb, I had to go to a grief counselor after
Linda's sudden death in front of me, from
a pulmonary embolism, after undergoing
physical therapy to help her walk, while
battling cancer. I couldn't sleep, and had
PTSD bc I couldn't get my last image of
Linda out of my mind. I was always
bringing her water, ginger ale,etc,but I
was so involved in the petty day to day
visits, talking with the dietary staff and
nurses with Linda, that I later asked myself
why I didn't hug her more, whether staff
was in her room, or not. My grief counselor
told me that the important thing is that I
was there for her, and talked with her
almost to the end. She would ask for more
pain medicine, but the nurses were stingy
about that bc she might get "addicted". It
was very hard to see Linda in pain. She
called me in the middle of the night, not
knowing what time it was, bc she was
lonely and afraid,and said the overnight
nurse was mean and refused to increase
her dose of pain medicine. I am crying as
I write this, but I want to let you know
you're not alone in your feelings of guilt
that you didn't do enough to "save" your
soulmate. Most of The Grief Warriors
(TGW), as I call us, feel the same way. Lou

 

Hi Deborah
My husband wanted MAiD but ended up having back surgery for mets to his spine. He was so mistreated by the hospital and became confused and could not eat. He succumbed in 10 days to infection and starvation. I suffer terrible guilt. We all thought the surgery would give him relief and ability to continue immunotherapy. He knew better.
We do our best with what we are given and are driven by love. If the roles were reversed the scenario might be the same. Who knows. We do what we do because we love them. Guilt will not help anyone now. It is important that our beloved knew they were loved. That is most important.
Self compassion now for you.
Jan

 

Jan, I agree with you. Thank you for
helping Deb----and me--- this morning.
As I've said many times on GIC,I cry every
morning for Linda. How could I not?
She was a big part of my life, in our 25 yrs
of marriage, and still is. All I can do, is
remember the line from Frank Sinatra's
sad ballad, Cycles: "Life is meant for
living....". Lou

 

It is a Beautiful feeling finding something that we lost of our beloved Patti. Six months is a long time to go to finally be reunited with Jack’s wedding ring. Good to get your message. Gary

 

When I die I want your hands on my eyes:
I want the light and the wheat of your beloved hands
to pass their freshness over me one more time
to feel the smoothness that changed my destiny.

I want you to live while I wait for you, asleep,
I want for your ears to go on hearing the wind,
for you to smell the sea that we loved together
and for you to go on walking the sand where we walked.

I want for what I love to go on living
and as for you I loved you and sang you above everything,
for that, go on flowering, flowery one,

so that you reach all that my love orders for you,
so that my shadow passes through your hair,
so that they know by this the reason for my song.

--Pablo Neruda,

 

Thank you, Deb, for your beautiful poem
and serene picture. I just woke up,at 7am,
my time, and it's a nice way to start the
day. It's also the first day I haven't cried
for Linda. It's probably bc I'm focused on
my own health, bc I have a doctor's
appointment this morning. The sun is
shining, the birds are chirping, and I sense
that spring is on its' way..... Lou