My husband died today

[NarcSis]

Surround yourself even if you feel you want to hide

Thank you for this, I did this tonight and it was so unburdening. I feel an entire ton lighter right now. I find it odd that my sister needs to turn to our family to find comfort and support, yet, I would rather turn to old colleagues and non-family members that I call "brother". My own family treats me as if I am incapable of handling myself and place undue pressure on me to make rash decisions about what to do with MY home. I do not feel they are helping, rather they are increasing the stress i am currently feeling.

On the complete opposite side of this are my husband's old colleagues, my former preceptor and his station partner; they were the best of friends for the longest time both before and after I came along, yes, they drifted apart over the years but they were bonded. We went to dinner with them tonight, I was so worried about how it would work out, but I laughed and a burden was lifted from my shoulders, my heart felt so light, the comfort in seeing them again, reminiscing about the old days, talking about my husband, sharing stories. I could just feel him there with us. I really could. My heart felt light and when we were laughing at one point, it was like I was physically laughing, but another part of me somewhere within, in my very heart was also laughing and however odd this may sound, I knew it was his laugh. I felt his laughter. I felt it in my heart somewhere. I fully expected to turn and see him sitting next to me.

How can I even describe that sensation? It was totally metaphysical. That tiny shaking happened in my tummy, intuition or whatever it's called and the words that came to mind were, "I'm here". I wanted to cry. You could just see the love of him radiating from those two. You could just see the bond they felt to him. it was like I was now an extension of him, I was his replacement at that table. Oh and big kicker here, they chose a restaurant that just happened to be our favorite - very strange.

I didn't want that meal to end. I want to run back to them and feel him so strongly again. I want to feel him so close to me again. I want to feel that laugh again. I want to see that face again, touch his skin and feel him near. The hugs were tight and so warm, it was a homecoming. We promised that we would meet again, if not for another meal than a walk and I'm hoping it's not just lip service, I'm hoping that it is real - I so need it to be real. A real life PTSD brother to whom I can relate to on a complete different wavelength. It is so nice to be understood and acknowledged and to be able to do the same in return. Those hugs let me know that I truly was not alone, that I have people who care. It feels so good to have that.

Today was a better day. Today was a day of renewed hope....tomorrow, back to the grindstone.

 

[The Albatross]

So glad Medic that you went to dinner and wrote about your experience here... it can be an anchoring experience to come back to when you need it... I like to do that cuz when I low or sinking fast... it can stop or slow the slide/downward trajectory/cycling.

 

[NarcSis]

So as per my entire life, my sister has now connected with "my" friends through fb. She is now some kind of caring star in their eyes, how gracious of her to give up her time to come to look after me, how caring a sister, you must be so grateful to have such a wonderful loving and caring sister.

I want to puke.

It's been this way my entire life. I struggle to let people see me, warts and all and then she comes along and with her "charm" essentially steals any supporters I may have collected along the way. Oh and if she suddenly starts hating one of them, I'm no longer allowed to contact them. My hubby used to see it happen every time and he used to scratch his head and say, "How do these people think she is so great??? How does she do that? We KNOW her and she's nothing like how they see her."

I just feel suddenly like the wind's been taken from my sails. She's been talking non-stop about them all day, how "hot" my old preceptor is, how amazing a person my hubby's other friend is...she's enamored, and gushing simply because two guys talked to her. I mean, she is totally imagining herself with either one of them as if their going out with her is a foregone conclusion. I miss hubby, he was always so good at protecting me from that and reassuring me that I was a good person who deserved to have friends of my own that loved me and knew me the way he did.

I feel like I always end up being an afterthought in this life. This is likely why I still connect on a semi-regular basis with a friend of mine whom she hates...he's the only one who can just be "all mine".

I've been missing hubby today. We went out to the mall, all i could think of was the many times we drove those same roads, the little driving jokes we shared, the games...the little things that I can't do with her, they're things she'd think were stupid and just don't have the same meaning with anyone else. I bagged one of his shirts today, he wore it the week before he died and it still smelled like him, so I put it to my face, inhaled deeply, then folded it and put it in a ziplock bag.

His ashes are ready to be picked up at the funeral home so we're going to go get them on Wednesday. I will call his mother tomorrow to arrange for her to either come get her share or take them to her. I'd prefer the latter because I need to get out of this house, it would be a nice road trip and more than likely the last one I may make down that way in my life.

I also received an email from an old work friend who informed me that she was emailing me a copy of the eulogy that one of his old partners made at the funeral. Apparently, his mother had asked for a copy of it, so could my friend "forward it to my niece". He didn't once mention me by name - this, the guy who used to smile at me and laugh but who is now a manager and has some kind of hangup with me now. Of all of the pallbearers, it was important for him to be there, he was partners with my husband the longest and I don't even think he came to express his condolences to me at all in person. I screamed that he was a gutless a-hole and just sent the stupid email to my mother-in-law.

Wow, there's an eye opener - is she even considered my mother-in-law anymore?

What happens to my life now? How long until I'm completely alone again and the reality of living alone sets in?

 

[seedling]

He is so close to you now. I'm glad you had that time to feel it with others who knew him well.

You aren't an afterthought, you are the thought and your sister wants that. She can't make a life of her own so she's sucking up yours.

 

[scout86]

I want to puke.

My therapist tells me it's possible for someone to be extremely self absorbed without actually, technically, being a narcissist. So I'll give your sister the benefit of the doubt. I guess. For the time being...... (Any progress on getting rid of her?)

Of course those guys are amazing, they had the good sense to be friends with you and your husband.

This is likely why I still connect on a semi-regular basis with a friend of mine whom she hates...he's the only one who can just be "all mine".

Good for you! I hope other people come to see her for her true self. Soon!

so I put it to my face, inhaled deeply, then folded it and put it in a ziplock bag.

:tup:

is she even considered my mother-in-law anymore?

I believe you could call her your "former mother-in-law" if you wish. Or your "beloved husband's egg donor" if you prefer.

 

[NarcSis]

egg donor

Ha, ha, ha. I like that. Too funny. I'd feel a little bit of a capital B using it though, so "former" mother-in-law may have to suffice. Thanks @scout86

 

[Deleted member 12723]

I also have a sister that sucks the life out of me and I did not go to my brothers funeral because she would be making it all about her. She got in between me and my brother and it caused problems for me. Your sister sounds so sick and disturbed and I really think that getting her out of your house and limiting her in your life would make you feel so much better.

I am sad that your family has circled the wagons around you because your husband is no longer there to protect you and with baby steps you will learn how to protect yourself because I think your husband would want this for you. just my thoughts.

 

[Kit kaplan]

When my mother died and when my niece time I got counseling right away I have a grief counselor who came to my house who is really great because the whole family needed to have therapy and one my mother and father died of hospice we had counseling right away it's really important to talk to a professional who understands grief because a lot of people sometimes are well meaning but they say things that actually are kind of upsetting like oh he's in a better place and other platitudes do not help you stick with the winners stick with people who validate you and validate your feelings make you feel safe this is the time to really nurture yourself that can be very hard to do especially you know when there's a lot of people around. you want to take care of them and don't. take care of yourself and see if you can find an ally who really knows how to talk to you in a way that you feel nurtured and validated. My thoughts are with. You

 

[NarcSis]

His ashes are ready to be picked up. A huge snowstorm is blowing through right now. Appropriate.

We're going to try to drive up tomorrow and then perhaps by Saturday, we'll drive down to visit his mother to deliver her urn to her with his kilt pin, sporran and I wanted to give two of his Paramedic of the Year awards to his nephews. I would like to give something more substantial to his brother, I just gave him his old badge, it doesn't seem like enough. I can't find anything that he treasured so much that he would have liked to have given to his brother.

Ashes. It's a strange thing to me to have someone's ashes hanging around the house - it's not him. He's gone. What made him, Him is not there, it's here in my heart with me, it's around me, it's in everything. He's not there in that urn.

It still really bothers me that he's gone. I woke up this morning and hugged his blanket and I remembered how I'd wrap my arms around him and kiss him behind his ear every now and again. I closed my eyes and felt myself doing it. I could almost smell him.

I try to picture his face and instead of seeing him happy and alive, I see his face pale, blank and dead. I feel so sorry for him to have died alone. I fear he was afraid. I fear there was regret. I fear he was angry. I fear there was pain. I fear he struggled in those last seconds. I fear he realized when it was too late that he didn't want to die and he had no choice but to die. It bothers me most that he was alone while he was dying, - cold, alone, sorry and afraid. Not my loving husband. If I could have been with him in those last moments I would have held his hand, told him I loved him and let him know I didn't blame him for it. I would have told him that I was going to be strong for him, that he had to be brave for me and that he would never be alone again.

I don't like going through his things trying to decide what to keep and what to toss. I found a bag full of old desiccated elastics today and I had to force myself to chuck them in the garbage. These were his things, ridiculous, sometimes nonsensical things that he decided to keep, but they were his regardless. Drawers that I'd never looked into. I really want to start categorizing everything, a box for flashlights, a box for lighters, a box for pouches, a small box for his various pins and collectibles....etc, etc.

My husband is dead. He's never coming home again. He'll never sleep beside me ever again. If something goes wrong in this house, I'm going to have to hire someone or call someone to come and fix it. My husband is dead - no longer living, no longer smiling, no longer breathing, no longer moving. I just don't get it.

I miss him. I feel so depressed.

 

[stillstanding2]

His ashes are ready to be picked up. A huge snowstorm is blowing through right now. Appropriate.

What made him, Him is not there, it's here in my heart with me, it's around me, it's in everything. He's not there in that urn.

Yes Ma'am, He is in you and will stay. You may feel him when you least expect it and smile one day.

Once at the park where we put my wife's ashes under a tree we donated in her memory, I was sitting alone...wishing... And suddenly one of the park's big peacocks passed in front of me, watching my eyes. And as I looked back at him, he dropped a long, perfect tail feather I've always thought of as a her gift from her. I still have it of course, along with other tiny hints of her presence in me.

I don't know if that is any help or reassurance to you, so I haven't mentioned it before now. But those little "presents" have helped me through some rough times. If this message is disturbing at all, just delete it. I mean well. Take care.

 

[NarcSis]

@stillstanding2, not disturbing at all, not in the least. It made me smile because in the days since he died, I too have had signs that were inexplicable to me and it makes me believe even more in the fact that when we die, we don't truly die, we merely transform - Einstein's Conservation of Energy Theory: Energy can neither be created nor destroyed rather it transforms from one form to another.

My hubby grew up a strong Catholic, which was odd for a Scots family apparently, but his mother was Catholic and so he was raised in that religion. When I met him I'd pretty well decided that all forms of organized religion serve the purpose of providing social mores and guiding principles for life, safety and morality. Thus in my mind, no one religion was right, rather all were designed for the same purposes, it was in their fight for supremacy where each failed. I think by then I'd already decided I was more a humanist and a nature - ist (not the naked kind), who understood the general principles of life and living according to natural laws. I was also a scientist through simple curiosity and thus believed in the conservation of energy theory as it applied to our "soul" or whatever force it is that truly gives us life.

Husband was a Catholic through and through, he lived in fear of his circumstances and the consequences of his actions although, like me, he couldn't quite reconcile his scientific background with his religious background so he was essentially in a perpetual quandary about what happens after we die. You could see the light bulb moment he had when I explained my thoughts on what happens after we die from the scientific perspective - it was what he said he also believed. There is no judgement in that belief. Death is a natural consequence to life, a natural progression of our "souls" journey. I told him how I liked to think of the concept of the soul in terms of Maslow's hierarchy of needs theory; essentially as a "soul" or life force lives in this plane it gains knowledge and enlightenment through lessons, as those lessons or needs are met, the soul leaves this plane and continues on to the next phase of learning until eventually it ascends to the level of deity or God or whatever religions like to call it. A place of pure enlightenment and full knowledge of the universe and everything.

It's all so convoluted but suffice it to say that I could never blame my husband for leaving me behind, it was his time, it was how it was supposed to be; he was not meant to be long in this plane. Sadly, I am still here and thus, in all of my belief, there is still something yet for me to do before I too can ascend onto the next part of this journey or experience. It doesn't make me miss his physical presence less, but it gives my mind comfort in knowing he is not truly dead.

On the day of the funeral, I heard the most amazing birds singing in the tree outside my brother's house. I looked around to find them and there they were sitting atop a nearby pine - right at the very top. They sounded like they were singing a song together, it reminded me of that song, "You say potato, I say pototo, you say tomato, I say tomoto..." (Can't remember the title), those birds seemed to be bouncing off one another in a rhythm....And their songs, they were so light and cheery, like they were the happiest birds in the entire world. They were also completely out of place on a cool winter's day - these were songbirds which, in our area in mid-winter should have been hundreds of miles south!!

Hubby used to talk about singing with his grandmother when he was a kid. This was the same grandma that let them play baseball in the house and played happily with them. To see those birds sitting there, hearing them sing as if together doing a duet, I just felt like it was him with his grandma that he loved so much. Those birds sang and sang and when I got into the car to go to the church, I thought they'd be gone. I paused outside the church and I heard them again up near the steeple. I looked up and smiled at them as I went inside. My heart just felt so light and happy, almost as if I knew he was okay.

So yes, people see signs after their loved ones die. I never really believed it but I've seen things that I can't explain and I know that he's still here with me in some way and he shows me.

Thank you for that, @stillstanding2 Hugs.

 

[Chimera]

No words are enough but, I am so very sorry for your loss.
Please call on the people who love you, allow them to show their love and support.