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Calendar -- With a bit of a mind flip


Welthy

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A short moan and groan from this quarter. I flipped my calendar to December yesterday and was struck and saddened by this huge vacant page.

Backing up a bit as to why this hit me in a sad way...

Tony's oncologist's office utilized three month schedules and I always filled all of the months out for his chemo/bloodwork/appointment/scans as soon as I got home when we got a new "Doc calendar". This is the first month in eons that I haven't had those words written all over the calendar. He should still be here and it was an "in your face" moment for me. :( Nothing earth shattering -- just one more reminder amid so many.

Although my Mom's birthday and anniversary of her death is in these few days, I don't feel pain anywhere near what I used to feel. It is what it is and I wasn't going to have my parents forever. Somehow I don't sense this acceptance happening with Tony's loss though. I don't see myself outliving my grief for him.

Welthy

(Yes, that was a deliberate reference in the subject title for those in the know.) :wink:

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Welthy first of all let me say that you are in my thoughts and prayers. I do understand how you feel about both things. First of all someone on this board said something about losing a spouse or soul mate one time. They said something like this. "When you lose the other part of the couple you are you realize that you are no longer the most important person in anyones life". I know that sounds harsh but when you stop and think it is so true.

We may have children and grandchildren and siblings or even parents and there is plenty of love there but, and that is a big word, they all have someone else who will come first. Their own mates or parents or children. The one person you planed with and dreamed with is gone. All of those special little things that pass between a couple that no one else will understand still ache inside of you but there is nowhere to put them. It hurts and it is different and you are right about always feeling his loss more than the others. It just has to be that way.

As for the calender we had a calender in our kitchen. I kept track of Johnny's appointments and we each wrote things on it. Every month we were together was filled with comments. When I got home the morning a few hours after his death that calender was one of the first things I saw. I turned the page over to December and on December 2nd I wrote " The day my heart died". I still have that calender and I will never forget that feeling of being so lost and alone. It gets better but it never goes away.

Despite my divorce and the problems with my marriage I have been thinking a lot about my ex husband lately too. He will be gone 2 years in February. His death really shattered most if not all of my family. I have a lot of good memories of him as well. The pain has never been as great as the pain of Johnny's loss but I do feel it.

I hope you can find many happy things to write on that calender. Take care and know that you are not alone. There are many here who understand very well what you are saying.

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Oh (((Lily))) -- you so understand and say it so well!! Thanks. It's been like looking down at myself and seeing half of me missing -- and Tony was certainly my better half. :D

I still honor and cherish my parent's memory and the sacrifices they made, probably more so as an older adult with grown children, but it's just not the same.

Welthy

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Hi Debi,

If you believe in the "two become one flesh" concept that the Bible describes (which I do), then you've basically lost half of yourself, as well as the other person. But it's not a clean surgical removal -- the missing half was violently ripped away and the wound is almost enough to kill you. But it doesn't.

And I think that's why they say you truly end up a different person as you go through the grief process. I personally take comfort in that idea as I enter each new phase of my grief, because it means I'm a work in progress. I'm never looking for my "old self," because she's gone for good, and there's no way to bring her back. I think she was gone with the diagnosis, frankly. So I suppose we mourn the loss of our old selves too. There's no "getting back to normal." It's more like, "learning to live the new life."

((((Debi))))

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