Hopeless

Just a week or so passed 5 months since I lost my sweet Peg to a sudden brain aneurysm. I'm getting damn tired of this one foot in front of the other, one day at a time crap. I'm so sad, lonely, angry, crying, and just plain hopeless. My life is in pieces I can never pick up. My future plans are shot to..... I was looking forward to retirement in just one more year. No reason for that now. We had 25 great years together and the best was yet to come. I don't know why I get out of bed every day. I'm lucky to be working with this stupid virus everywhere. I don't know what else to do.I'm hopeless!

 

Hey man I am new at this but you are not alone,I lost my wife February 2nd to cancer age 59.Just like you was going to retire in January but quit in October after we got the news in September that her cancer came back.You are right you do everything that you and your wife were suppose to do so you can spend time together and this is one big punch in the mouth.All I know it's a battle at war with our minds our hearts our feelings it's the hardest thing you can face in this life . l don't have the answers but but I put in big letters to my wife during her chemo on kitchen wall "WARRIOR" beneath that Isiah 40:29 ,it now applies to me.Yeah I am angry sad I never knew I could cry so much but I know I have to fight my wife would want me to and if all you can do is just breathe then for now that has to be good enough,hang in there.

 

Thank you. That was nice to read. I just can't believe how many of us are out there. Everyone close in my life has gone back to their lives and doesn't want to talk about it anymore. I was seeing a therapist once a week for a while but in person meetings stopped when Corona virus started to get bad. I feel better today then yesterday. That's a good thing I guess. One more day behind me. Take care and hang in there too.

 

Barry,

So Sorry Barry about feeling the pain for Peg. None of us can promise how long it will take for the grief for Peg to ease over time. When we lose our sweetheart, a piece of heart has been torn from us, and washed away with time.

We might spend so much time trying to come to terms with our loss. What I have found from my own loss of Nadine is we each are so unique, we each value the loss strongly and may search for answers on why and how we face the future.

I just know we each lost one of the most important persons in our life. Our sorrow is strong and seems so unforgiven at times. I wish we all could not lose ourselves as we grieve. Tears are unending and so very meaningful.

Barry I am not sure how you met Peg, but Nadine wrote to me in Vietnam along with 34 other girls. I eventually realized she was just someone I needed to know better for she could reach my inner feelings.

I will never regret that choice I made in life to ask her to marry me. Besides her dad and two brothers were huge lumberjacks and I did not want to make them mad at me. I am so happy I made the right choice in life, as I am sure you did as well.

We made so many plans as a young couple, just like you were waiting for the day till you could spend so much time with Peg. Alas, for both of us, it was not to be. But I will forever hold within me all the memories she gave me for the rest of my life.

Barry please never give up, Peg would not have wanted you to, she loved you intensely. When I am troubled I think of so many memories we shared in life, sure I feel melancholy, but it touches me deeply, as I am sure it would for you as well.

I know this isolation has taken our support systems away. In these troubled times we need to find other ways to reach out for our own peace of mind.

Personally, I still connect with former service members, I talk with my siblings often, and I talk with others here on the forums. Barry, your feelings will take time and an effort. Life is so worth the effort.

Those 25 years you speak of must have had so many memorable moments in life, you just need to remember and throw caution to the wind and allow yourself to feel those strong emotions you have made from life with Peg.

Please keep connecting. Please never give in despair and take care of yourself. I know you are wounded, so natural. But your life was important to Peg. Just remember she is with you in spirit, in your mind, in your heart, in your soul - that is where she will always be. Peace Barry.


-david


A song for you

 

Tgotyall,

So sorry for the loss of your wife. I also lost my wife Nadine to cancer after her 10 year battle with it. We never have all the best words when we lose the one who meant so much to us in life. On the 19th it will have been 5 years since she passed.

Cancer is such a relentless disease. Our hopes and dreams are renewed and then possibly taken with each new test we receive. One trip with her to the blood lab I watched in horror as they took 45 vials of blood from her. I was speechless, but like a true person of faith she endured it and held out hope that something would be found to help cure her.

You are so correct that we plan for the future. Then some event comes along like the movie, “Something Wicked This Way Comes.” I didn’t at first realize how profoundly my sons were affected until one day they shared their intense sorrow with me. As a father I was so crushed, and shared my sorrow with them.

Of course no one has answers after we lose the one who we planned out life together with. Of course you are angry, I was but my anger turned to wonder on her last days in hospice. I need to share with you this story of her during her 10 year trip.

I have written a long story of her ten year journey. There were tears in my eyes as I wrote and finally finished it. I hope you don’t mind me sharing it with you. I am a Roman Catholic and believe she is in heaven now.

Nadine’s Journey to God

I am here today, on Earth for some reason, I can’t know for sure. Let me explain further. When my wife was struggling with cancer, my son and I took her to the Cleveland Clinic in Weston, Florida and left her in the car as we both walked to get a wheelchair.

My breathing became labored, it was 98 degrees out, as I continued to walk, I saw a bench ahead and made it to it. I sat there, holding my chest and told my son to go ahead and get the wheelchair. What I would realize years later is I had had a heart attack and destroyed a small part of my heart. We were all so concerned with Nadine I completely forgot about myself.

When we got back to Nadine in the car, she was on the phone, with the insurance company. She was crying, begging them not to cancel her insurance. She cried that she wanted to live, both my son and me stopped in our tracks.

I can’t tell you how my son reacted, but he would tell me just recently on that day he died, inside of himself. From that day forward he said he no longer cared for life anymore. I was just shocked at what my wife had been put through, finally, after all the pleading she got the ok to go into the hospital and take the tests. It was on those days she found out she had terminal cancer.

I can’t put into words, how we all felt from that day forward for a long time. Life was so foggy, sure we cried, we hugged and kissed each other and it was from then to this day that I never truly realized how messed up our world had become.

As the days, weeks, months passed, there were so many tests, so many disappointments, but she never gave up. We were with her every step of the way. We knew that cancer had taken an interest in Nadine. No amount of praying, silent crying, willing to sacrifice ourselves for her were ever answered.

So we took each day we had with each other. Music had always been such a devouring part of my life, I could get lost in it, I needed it, we all needed it. I can’t tell you how many sad days and nights we had, but we kept each other close, dreading passage of time, and so many disappointing answers she would receive. But what amazed me, and my son was Nadine. She refused to give in to despair. She truly kept us grounded, each of us so fragile at that time inside.

I won’t soften it for you or anyone else, grief can start before death, it can take you to a place that is hard to come back from. As time passed, and she was removed from the transplant list for the third and final time, words can’t describe how we moved forward in life from that point.

Her former boss paid for her life flight back to Maine, where we closed up the house, waited for the packers to empty the house, signed the papers with the lawyers to take the house, and we had a grueling 3 day trip back to Maine to Nadine in the Auburn, Maine hospice house.

During this time, her last remaining sister Linda (her two brothers and other sister passed while we were married) and Lisa, her niece, a U.S certified travelling nurse stayed with us, until they accompanied her on that life flight back home to Maine.

There were many other occasions, tons of exasperation with life in general, so many touching moments, so many tender moments we all shared with one another. Life is such an enigma, we never realize until it happens to you just how fragile we all are inside.

I won’t go through the remaining 3 months of Nadine’s life, I will just tell you even though we had ten years to go through this cancer process with her, I am sure we were such an unknown to so many people. Nadine’s faith carried us through to the end.

I will say she was visited by an angel in her dreams, there in hospice, she told Nadine in heaven she would take care of all the unwanted children. Her face had an amazing look, I am sure there were many tears streaming down everyone’s face that moment, as we all sat, listened, it was so quiet in the room.

I am a Roman Catholic, I believe in God, and pray to him so much. So when others wonder why I am so strong, it is because of who I have become in life, Nadine, God, my sons, my life experiences, all the losses have brought me to this time and place.

I have many regrets. I have wished for so many things in my life, sometimes all prayers can’t be answered. Sure life can be so unfair. But I refused to ever give up, I will try to give my strength to my sons, through love, through talks, through hugs and kisses and through memories, some more painful than others.

How do I find these songs? My heart and mind find these songs. I spend literally hours searching, listening, hoping I found a particular song for others, and even for myself that so profoundly grabs us all that after I find it and post it, I know I feel better inside for doing it.

I am not sure where life will take me, and when life will come to an end for me. I know, after all I have seen in life, how it has affected so many people, and admired how people found a way to overcome so many losses, and obstacles in front of them.

I have been so changed by life, but that is ok with me. Sure I don’t know if I can help another, but I know that inside myself, I face the night as I crawl into bed with some peace of mind, that I too will refuse to give up on life. I am here, until I am no longer. I will cling to life for as long as God will allow it.

Last year around Nadine’s birthday in July, as I slept, I had a dream that when I awoke I remembered it so vividly. I had dreamed a spirit all in white had laid on my chest that night. I felt so comforted by that dream. I just believe my wife had reached out to me in my greatest time of need and allowed me to finally start to heal inside.

I would say some days my hands, my thoughts may not be my own, they are pushed by a feeling, a desire to do something. I truly hope you will allow yourself to take the time you need to face those enormous emotions you have built up inside.

Loss is truly so hard to face, let alone, take the time to open up your heart to others. It is scary, and one we all don’t know where it will take us to tomorrow. I just hope as you read my words, you understand, yes, others have felt loss, we are in ways so connected by our loss.

Please just take care of yourself and talk as you are able. We all will listen. Peace be with you tonight.


-david


I hope you don’t mind a melody

 

Thanks for sharing Nadine's journey it was truly inspirational.I remember watching America Got Talent with my wife when Jackie Evancho was on and we thought what a voice so the video brought back good memories we loved to watch that show.My wife and I both have strong faith and like Nadine she never stopped believing always a fighter in fact her nickname and on her gravestone is "Superwoman"l find myself angry with God , my wife Gina would tell everyone "to many people especially my husband need me God is not done with me yet"She truly was the most amazing woman I have ever known and somehow I got to be her husband.She never met a stranger ,shared her faith touched so many lives ,I told her God saved my soul you saved my life.It's truly like your heart has been ripped out and a void that can't be filled , this is a testing of your faith.You feel like you did everything that God wanted and in the end it wasn't enough.The age thing just kills me,feels like you have been robbed .It just like everyone else knows hurts really bad and just plain sucks.

 

Thank you David.

 

Tgotyall,

Yes, death is not fair and never will be. As we faced those years in our family’s fight against cancer I would say our emotions were all over the place. Of course when she died we were angry, but also happy she would no longer suffer.

You never realize how fragile life truly is until as you say your heart is ripped out. In the times that followed my wife's death it was so darn quiet. We, like you missed her voice, her laughter, her refreshing attitude towards life.

As I look back over the years I have so many great memories to remember her by. I pull out her music and it brings back a time we sat in concerts listening to our favorite artists. I look at our videos and see the cruise we shared together to another land, and the adventures we had there. I look at the pictures and see all the places we have been in life together.

Man, we did so much, seen so many things but it gave us great memories. Sure I will always miss her till the day I pass on, as will my two sons. But together once as a family we lived such a wonderful full life, even with the cancer and her no longer here.

I will cherish forever my memories. One day, I will see her again, as will my sons, and all those I lost in life. It is something I hope for, it is something I know. With all I have seen in life my faith has always been with me and will be forever.

I hope you will find some inner peace. It takes time to heal. It takes time to recover from loss. It is never easy when we once again walk without the one we loved so much in life.

Take time to remember. Make sure you never give in to despair. If you find yourself falling reach out, we will be here. Take care and peace be with you.

-david


This song is for you

 

Thanks David yes I have to start remembering so so many good and fun times within our 36 years of course we all wish it could have been more.