My deepest sympathy, hlanlee. I lost my wife, also named Connie, after 24 years together. In November it will be eight years since she died.
You never get entirely over it, but i can tell you it does get easier with time.
It may help in the grieving process to perform some personal rituals – things that have meaning only for you – beyond those of the funeral or memorial service.
I visited the beach where I proposed to her, took my guitar, and played a simple song, “Connie’s Waltz” that I had written for her many years earlier. I also brought roses from our house (that she had planted) and left them at the exact spot where she accepted my proposal.
When the date that would have been our 25th anniversary rolled around, I took my kids with me to Victoria, British Columbia where we had honeymooned. We were never able to afford the return journey and had planned to go for our 25th. It was not always easy, and there were some crying bits for all of us, but it was, for me, healing.
The other bit of advice that came in the most handy for me was to make no major changes in your life at a time when you are unfocused and adrift. If you have kids, that’s triply important. They have already had a serious shock and desperately need the rest of their lives to be stable for a while.
Good luck and remember that there are many friends here who care and are thinking about you.
Oh my god. I’m so sorry, hlanelee. You just mentioned her in the Brag On Your Spouse thread, but I had missed this thread a few days ago. My condolences and prayers are with you.
My deepest sympathy. I had just read your posts about her and how special she was to you. I can’t even imagine how much pain you are in, and I am so deeply sorry that this happened to such a wonderful person.
I am very sorry that you have suffered this horrible loss. I went back and read your prior posts about your wife. The love and devotion between you two really shows in what you wrote about her. My thoughts and prayers are with you and the others who have suffered tragic losses recently.
I’m sorry to hear about this terrible thing which has befallen you. It feels like I’ve been offering a lot of condolences lately both in my “real world” life and my SDMB life. It never gets easier, but my feelings and wishes are the same: I’m deeply saddened and I pray that you find strength to make it through the days ahead.
And we would sit here with you. You are loved, even though not all of us know you as well as we would like. It says a lot for the humane-ness of us all that we respond to one of our own as we have in this thread.
There are more intelligent people here who can express it more eloquently than I ever could, but you are cared for here, hlanelee. If there is anything I can do for you, my e-mail is in my profile.
