People ask us all the time how we are doing and we usually say that we are doing “fine”, but I have some questions for you to answer:
1. Do you think of your husband every single day?
2. Do you enjoy your memories or do they upset you?
3. Have you accepted your life as a single person?
4. Are you ready to plan for your future?
5. Do you want to invest in your personal growth?
Mary Francis, The Sisterhood of Widows
#thesisterhoodofwidows, #widow, #grief, #griefsupport
Luanne Reilly
Good questions to ask ourselves. Thanks
Beth Finkelstein
I think of my husband frequently every day
I do not think of myself as a single person after over 4 1/2 years
I don’t really think of the future, I just go day to day although I just started meeting people on a dating app, I am not “ feeling” it at all. Just going through the motions and don’t think I am ready. But will I ever be?
Beth Finkelstein
Oh, and memories upset me , they don’t make me happy and I still cannot look at old photos
Wanda
I do think of my husband daily and say a prayer. I try to think of all the good times we had not just when he was sick. Most of the time I’m happy but now and then sad thoughts enter my mind. A song can still bring me to tears. I’m still looking at what my future holds and praying for the best. I go to a grief group still but more to assist new widows than for myself. I volunteer, go out with friends, exercise and play pickleball. I’ve just entered my third year. Prayers for all the sisters as they move forward!??
Sheila Anderson
I think of my hubby day and night
I don’t think of myself as a single person even though I am
Memories are beautiful
I wish I knew what the future holds for me cause I feel so alone and list even though I had grown children and grandchildren
I would invest in my future for sure
Tracey Costello
It’s been 3 years and I’m still having a problem meeting the day. I live day by day sometimes minute by minute. I miss his touch, our conversations. There are days I feel paralyzed. I want to plan a future but I don’t know how. Right now I’m stuck. I read your blog. I read the people on Facebook. I say tomorrow I’ll start a new beginning. Tomorrow I’m more lonely than yesterday. I wish you had a group in my area. The loneliness is crippling me. How does one move ahead. It’s time.
Hazel V Wilson
Greetings in the name of Jesus. I think of my precious husband pretty much all the time, but thank God I don’t cry every time any longer. We were together since I was 15 years old and he was 17. I was 61 and he was 63 when he succumb to ALS (Lou Gehrigs disease) on Christmas Eve 2021. I grow stronger daily by the Grace of God. I honestly feel as though, if and when there is another man for me “out there”, God with be the one to send him. I am too set in my ways I suppose, or at least too scared to venture out. My life revolves around my adult children and my grandchildren. I don’t trust very many people. And I never dated anyone, except the man I was married to for 42 1/2 years before he passed away. I don’t even know how to date. I used to feel somewhat pretty but that is no longer something I feel.
Donna Pipes
This winter missed my husband more it’s been 3 yrs. After 50 yrs together a lot of memories. I’m playing music in the house or have radio or tv on this helps. I make a weekly calendar with commitments. Then below things I need to do or things I want to try to go to. These might be there for weeks but some days pick a few and do them wow I feel a sense of achievement and some are fun. Moving forward in slow steps for me. I also try to visualize a calmness in my day.???
HBT
After 31 years together and sharing 4 children my lovely husband succumbed to a depression and took his life at 54. 4 years on and I do still think of my husband every day. He’s in the sunshine and since I believe in signs, does seem to contact me.
The last memories of him weren’t the most positive and started a year before he died. And these keep coming back because we put our faith in the medical system which finally in my mind failed us. The rest of the memories are beautiful because we loved nature and lived abroad for a while and also have 4 wonderful children.
It’s difficult to accept life as a single person as I now live in my husband’s country. I’m fluent in the language but I always said I was here because of him. I also don’t have much family anymore where I used to live. But with my children here I don’t wish to leave.
I gave myself 2 years to mourn, but suicide ended up very hard to deal with. As I’d had cancer a couple of times and lost my parents and I seemed to put myself into an older category and wondered if this was it! At the age of now 56, I’m not old, now older than my husband though! I was alive but not living!
4 years on and a job suddenly appeared, kind of handed on a plate, which I took, and really enjoy too!
I still don’t know if I have a future, I’m just keeping the house going so that the children still feel safe and could move on if they wish to. I don’t see me meeting anyone else and don’t know if I wish to, but you never know!
And I don’t know what investing in personal growth is. I’ve rediscovered that I enjoying sewing, but usually do this to take up time. I dislike weekends because I feel lonely! Children are out working and so the weekends can sometimes be quite horrible. I’m trying to be positive. Miss my husband’s touch, dancing in the kitchen, walking in the woods together, I found him so very handsome and such a beautiful person inside and we never understood how it could go all end up going so very wrong.
Sharon
I think about my husband every day. Everything reminds me of him even driving the car. He was my soulmate for 40+ years. I miss him so much. I miss our long talks late at night and I miss his laugh. I cry everyday. I am lost without him.
My husband’s family went home immediately after he died. If it hadn’t been for my sister I would have been alone. His family has not helped me with anything – not even with the obituary! They didn’t want to share memories or mourn together. There were no hugs or hand holding. They essentially abandoned me!
I struggle to get through each day. I run errands, pay bills, and go through the motions. But the hole in my heart is still there. I want to get involved in my hobby of sewing and quilting again. I want to go back to the senior center and socialize.
So I do have a to-do list – it’s just not a honey-do list anymore.
Rebekka Lindsay
Yes I do think about him everyday
Sometimes I enjoy the memories and sometimes they upset me
I don’t think I have accepted my new single life yet
I don’t know if I’m ready to plan my future yet
I guess I want to invest in my personal growth
Mary Lou L Berg
I lost my husband of 38 yrs to cancer after a 5 month battle. I sometimes wonder why I should still be here without him and feel like I have no purpose in life without him