Author Topic: New Member  (Read 1677 times)

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Offline Renidrag45

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New Member
« on: October 20, 2019, 04:33:50 PM »
Hello, my name is Jim Gardiner & live in the North East of Scotland. I have made several mistakes on trying to access this site. Sorry but I have never been on a forum before so this is strange territory for me.Anyway here goes. I lost my wife Margret to Ovarian cancer at the end of July & am finding things really tough at present. We had only been married 3 days short of 8 years & had known each other for 10 years. We had both lost our spouses previously. Margret lost her husband in 2006 & I had lost my wife in 2004 both to cancer. I never imagined growing old without Margret. I found it very hard when I lost Betty, my first wife & mother of my 3 children but this time is different. Perhaps because I am 15 years older. trying to motivate myself is so difficult. I don't know what more to write not having seen what people do write on forums. Thanks & forgive me if I am doing this wrong.

Offline Sandra61

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Re: New Member
« Reply #1 on: October 21, 2019, 12:31:34 AM »
So sorry to hear about both your losses, Jim. To go through this once is bad enough, but to have lost a partner twice must be dreadful indeed. Sending you a welcome hug.  :hug:

Don't apologise. You can say anything you wish here and no one will judge you and we will all do our best to help eachother. It is early days for you, so I am sure it will be hard for you at present. I think an inability to motivate yourself after any loss is perfectly normal. You are grieving and that just takes time. Don't be so hard on yourself. And don't worry about 'doing it wrong' on this site. There are no rules or requirements. Just say what you feel and feel free to post as often as you want with anything you want to say.

Thinking of you.  :hearts:

Offline Karena

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Re: New Member
« Reply #2 on: October 21, 2019, 12:17:22 PM »
 :hug:I have been in  a similar position  I lost Mark to cancer, keith lost Pauline to cancer, two of our children were at school together and having lost a parent were drawn to each other -so we became friends too  helping each other out with the practical stuff around the kids initially but also being able to talk too each other about going through that in a way no-one else understood. Over the years that friendship gradually became much more, we married, and then Keith died after a second stroke, the first had left him needing care, no-one warned me about the chances of a second ending his life.
 You are right it is different the second time - i dont know why but i supose every grief is different and there will be different reasons - for me the first time i had to get on and make a life for the kids to be the strong one - but the second time they were all grown up and left home with lives of their own so there was no-one to be strong for and it seemed at the time absolutely no point to me being here either - i wasnt needed any more.

So i went to pieces completely probably over them both having play acted being OK the first time and in between that, my mum who was there for me the first time had also died so that grief hit again as well.

There was a time when i really thought maybe it was me that i was somehow a curse or was being punished for something - a lady i knew who had also been widowed twice earlier said that she felt she was being punished for something done in a former life, but when i replied what came out of my mouth suprised me -what i said was if there is such a thing as that kind of fate maybe we are, or maybe we were chosen, because we got to be with two very special people at the end of their lives and the care and love we had given the first showed we were capable of the kind of care and love the second deserved - i dont know where it came from but i have tried to think that way ever since.

That was eight years ago, i am still on my own but i have made myself a life - i have grandkids, i have travelled,and  i have done courses and found a new kind of passion for life through doing those but it wasnt an easy journey i still miss both of them in different ways but i have learned to live with that because in some ways i have brought them forward with me in other more  positive ways, rather than trying to leave them behind. Finding this place was a big step forward and a big help and i hope that it will be the same for you.

Offline Renidrag45

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Re: New Member
« Reply #3 on: October 21, 2019, 07:48:47 PM »
Thank you Sandra & Karena, for you replies. I know it is early days for me. last time, like Karena, I had my kids nearby & only one grandchild. But now the family are scattered all over the country & now 6 grandchildren. I do think because of this it is harder to cope with this time. I just find I cannot talk openly about Margret without choking up which I think is about the fact that her last 3 weeks were just a total nightmare. Something I just cannot get out of my head & too fresh. I do want to talk about her, I want to sing her praises and tell the world what  a wonderful she was wife to me, even though we were only married 8 years. I just imagined us getting old together. I have also thought I must be cursed or done something bad to cause such things to happen to the ones I loved the most. I just need more time perhaps.   Thank you again for your replies.

Offline Karena

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Re: New Member
« Reply #4 on: October 22, 2019, 10:20:28 AM »
 :hug: you may find writing helps -sometimes its a way to express what your voice wont let you because of the choking up and it helps you to clarify things in your head as well in making sentances you have to make sense sometimes the fog we find ourselves in prevents that.Time does make a difference as you will know from last time but grief takes different routes and the time it takes to heal is different too so it wont be the same.
I found living life for Keith helped as i couldnt see a reason to live it for myself.
I did that in different ways in part by creating a legacy  even though your grandchildren are not close by i think it is important that they know someone even when they are not here, they might ask you when they are older so even something like putting together a memory box would be an idea - maybe not now but when you feel up too it -  it is a way of telling the world about her and how wonderful she was and taking that into the future so she is more than just a name.
In my case the older ones remember him but they were still very young, the younger ones were not born but they feel as though they do because their older siblings have told them and so have i. The eldest is 15 now and wants to be a mechanic like his grandad and once qualified go abroad and teach mechanics in deprived areas - which Keith also did - obviousely its a choice for himself as well but Keith remains his inspiration from the moment he stood on a box and the two of them looked under a car bonnet together.
I also went back to some of our favourite haunts and planted native daffodils,i dont have a headstone and we need somewhere to grieve and for me that works better than a cemetary because i love to be in the natural world as did he.
I did some of the things went to places we said we would like too but didnt get chance, and some of the things he would have liked to do and i would have sat out on which stretched my nerves a lot -zip wiring over gotges was never my idea of fun but it did it and so i was doing new things and he was behind me doing them, and in doing all that i had to plan and even the planning gave me some kind of purpose a way to move forward.
 I thought i would not be able to do those things on my own and it certainly wasnt easy but it was worth it because it meant i did have a point in my life after-all and i was taking him forward with me not leaving him behind. There is a place in Wales we went at every opportunity to watch the dolphins, we were going to retire there it took over a year to go back and the first time was exceptionally difficult - i wont be able to retire there now, but i do go back every year and after that first time i feel closer too him than anywhere.
I cant forget those last weeks though, how he struggled after the first stroke -how he sent me out to see if the daffodils were out yet because he couldnt see for himself any more -how they didnt come out until his funeral -how he struggled and tried to do things he couldnt, just every day things, hated the medication hated the hospital and all the apointments - hated being dependant, but grinned with triumph when he managed to get to the kitchen and steal half a shepherds pie when i was out - even then there was that humour and mischief that was always part of him - and the last days back in the hospital were horrendous some things i just dont understand about the way he was treated there, but  those are not the things i dwell on now, because there were so many more happier things that made up our lives together when the awful memories come up on the card i am holding in my memory, i have learned to drop it and pick up a better one.