Widows Quest » Grief

One step forward….

Anna Farmery — Sat, 19 Dec 2009 20:00:27 +0000

Some thoughts I had on grief and on widowhood

I start to smile and start to think

That I am moving forward from the brink

Then something small happens to me

And that step forward I can no longer see

My belief that was shaky starts to drain

As the demons rear their heads inside my brain

One step forward and then two back for eternity

Yes, I know this is what grief will continue to be

A rollercoaster ride of emotions for the rest of my life

Now that I am a widow and not somebodies wife

I will hold on strong and keeping taking that stride

Knowing that he will be watching with utmost pride

Because maybe our life together was not meant to be

But he saw something inside of me

So on those days that I feel teary and weak

I will remember those words that he would speak

“I will love you until the day I die”

And I sit down and think….so will I

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The Power of the Voice

Anna Farmery — Tue, 15 Dec 2009 22:08:44 +0000

We talk each day and yet have you thought about how we take the human voice for granted?

When someone dies, you miss their voice….you still have their love….yet one thing I miss the most is their voice.

I know when I was Nana last month, because she had a stroke she could no longer speak…she could see, she could occassionally squeeze our hands…but she couldn’t convey how she felt. I wanted to know whether she was scared, I wanted to know whether she knew how loved she was…and yet she had lost the power of her voice. And in that silence lay the most incredible pain, my most incredible heartache.

I was thinking about that today and how much we undervalue the voice when we are surrounded by our loved ones…but when they pass away, you suddenly value the power of their voice.

I want the loved ones to find a way of speaking to me, I want to speak to them. I want to check if they are OK, I want a way of still communicating.

How do I cope….well, I continue to have the conversation anyway, in the hope that one day I will hear their voice somehow and they will answer……Grief can be lonely, not just because they are missing from our lives but because you are surrounded by voices – just not the one you REALLY want to hear

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Learning the Lessons from Grief

Anna Farmery — Thu, 10 Dec 2009 20:41:51 +0000

When your loved one dies, I think that it is a huge learning experience. Yes, it is hard. Yes, it is painful. However, I think that one positive that we can take from death is to enhance our life and the lives of others by learning from the pain of grief.

From the loss of Nana I have learned

The importance of family.
The importance of dignity and respect and how when you are with someone dying. it isn’t about your feelings – it is about what you can offer them
That you can never take anything or anyone for granted…even for a day.
That Nana was right….be true to yourself. Be empathetic for others, look out for others, be respectful of others but never lose your true self
That no matter what you do, no matter how close you are….you will never feel you have done enough. However, doing your best and telling people how you feel will lesson the regrets.

What did you learn? Do you see grief as just too painful to learn from…or can you take something concrete to enhance your and your friends/family’s life afterwards?

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The Day After the Funeral

Anna Farmery — Tue, 08 Dec 2009 19:44:16 +0000

Thank you for all your good wishes and we managed to keep it together for the eulogy and to give my dear old Nana a wonderful goodbye. I find today a strange day. Nana is still very much in my mind and there is almost part of me that feels that I have abandoned her at the graveyard.

I found it hard to walk away, it felt as though life had already moved on and yet Nana was still there….I know it is only her body (Gosh this sounds a bit macabre) but I didn’t want to leave her alone. I had spent all that time at her bedside and now I was walking away from her…

I know what people say….the spirit lives on and in my mum, aunts and uncle she surely will….but I am still a little numb, a little raw today. I keep asking myself

“Does the world REALLY remember you when you have gone? I know I will, I kiss her hankie each night before going to sleep….but will the people who were there yesterday?”

The answer is clearly not on a daily basis and in that sense it is right….the idea of The King is Dead, Long live the king kind of thing, I mean life must carry on….yet when you are so close to someone that feels awful…

I am thinking this is normal, this is grieving…but still it makes you wonder about your own legacy…who will really remember us?

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The Footprints of Life

Anna Farmery — Sat, 05 Dec 2009 11:38:55 +0000

One sentence I have written at the end of the euology is about the fact “the footprints of Nana’s life won’t be washed away through the tide of grief“. When we live we are creating memories both for ourselves and those around us.

As widows or widowers, we have bad days or bad periods when we feel we cannot cope. How I look at it is this…..we have created footprints, for a time we were walking with our loved ones, so there were two sets working together….but

When they die as above – the footprints of their life won’t be washed away through the tide of grief, our memories will protect that
Remember we are still walking, forward through life. We are still creating those memories for those around us. Whether those memories for our family and friends are good or bad – well, that is up to us. If we stop forever protecting eventually we will get pulled away by the tide of grief….and for those around us that would be unbearable.

We have not stopped, we are just in the process of protecting those footprints from being washed away during grief. Once we have protected then we get the chance to moving forward, once again planting memories which inspire other people.

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Death is not Extraordinary

Anna Farmery — Mon, 30 Nov 2009 19:48:11 +0000

When you are suffering from grief, it is easy to think you are the only person in the world feeling this way. It made me wonder how many people are feeling this way. I looked up the worlds current death rate and found the following

Based on this rate, here is an estimate of the incidence of death among people now living in the world:

1.78 deaths per second
107 deaths per minute
6,390 deaths per hour
153,000 deaths per day
56.0 million deaths per year
3.9 billion deaths per average lifetime (70 years)

Death may feel extraordinary but in fact it is literally happen as I write this…..

That made me think that although death may be ordinary, there are aspects of grief which are extraordinary

The love that we feel
The depth of our strength to cope with loss
The way it changes your outlook in life
The way that widows and widowers cope so differently with their loss – there really is no one way of handing grief.

And of course, the extraordinary way that YOU have helped me throughout this time xx

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When you feel you are dying

Anna Farmery — Sat, 28 Nov 2009 11:52:13 +0000

I wrote yesterday about In death life goes on and Roberta left a heart wrenching comment which I wanted to highlight

“I felt that although he was the one who was sick I was the one who was dying”

I know that this sentence will hit straight at the heart of each of you. I know it does to me. As humans we live off the life of others, we live for others, we feed off the love of others. When our loved ones are taken that source of life is taken from us.

It is easy therefore to think that we can not live on, that somehow we have died as well. I know that I have thought that way. However, we must realise that in truth we are our own beings, that we breath the air through our own independence. A part of our heart may have died but we are very much still alive.

The difficult bit is finding a new source of inspiration, a new source of love and friendship to help us fulfil that need that humans have…..and the only way we can do that is

To allow time for our heart to heal the wounds of loss.
Then to start to rejoin life as a source of finding that new inspiration
Acknowledge that this will be hard, it will be against what our minds will want to do. But at this point we must override that urge to isolate and force ourselves back to…well, normality.
In taking these first few steps, know that it will be painful, lonely and uncomfortable but in time it will become easier
To know that living again is not about forgetting but about feeding our soul. Guilt can overcome you, but I know that if I could speak to Nana for instance, she would want me to live past her death and to live a life which she could be proud of…

Death may numb part of our heart which has loved intensely but hearts recover in time. Death may part us from our loved ones, but it can never take that love away. Death may challenge your beliefs but that is a good thing…..without that challenge we could take for granted this wonderful world and not enjoy the little things in life which make this world so special.

Post from: Widows Quest

Death may part the bodies but…

Anna Farmery — Wed, 25 Nov 2009 21:34:14 +0000

Last night my Nana died peacefully, I was holding her hand making sure that the last words she heard were her family saying they loved her….

Gosh tonight feels…well numb. Physical and mental exhaustion has hit, there was me thinking sleep deprivation hadn’t affected me then …pow! Amazing isn’t it how our bodies just keep going through pure adrenaline.

Numb also because there is this huge void – my best friend for life is no longer here. You all know the feeling so well. Numb because I almost don’t want to feel the pain – as I know how much that hurts.

Numb as well as because for 11 days and nights Nana was my focus….so what can you focus on now? If you try and think then those final few images come into your head, if you don’t focus then you just sit and drift without purpose. Again I know you all understand….

I have her handkerchief which she held in hospital, I will hold that when I need to feel her love…and as always when we all lose people….we will never forget, love is an unbreakable bond which survives the toughest tests.

We may lose their bodies but we never lose their souls or their love. They live through our thoughts and actions which they helped shape through their time on earth.

Sleep well Kate, you were a special, special person. I was proud to know you, proud to call you my Nana and you and your spirit will stay in my heart forever…nighty, night

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I Fear Grief Complacency

Anna Farmery — Tue, 24 Nov 2009 00:25:57 +0000

It is now 11 days at Nana’s bedside day and night. I am truly proud of how she is fighting to the end. She is showing me that although life is sometimes not easy – never give in, never give up the fight. However, her fight will soon be over as she has not had fluids etc for 5 days now….it is imminent that nature will finally make her bow to its superior presence.

The reason for the post is that as I sit here tonight, I know that it is imminent and yet I am not sure that I am prepared? I am lucky in this situation, lucky in the sense that we have said our goodbyes, that we have been with her throughout, that there are no regrets whatsoever…BUT…

Because we have been here so long you get used to her fighting, you have become unprepared for death. Does that sound strange? I am hoping by writing this blog post, I start to re-prepare for her leaving me. You see over the last few days we have had such special moments, she has come back from her ‘final retirement’ so many times…..I have grown accustomed to the fight and not the end. There has never been any hope…however, somehow and in some way…you just wonder….

Maybe what I will feel is numbness….a few tears yes, an aching heart yes….but maybe not the terrible shock, as that part, the days have helped to ease. I will be honest that in some ways it scares me as I don’t feel ready again…I don’t want and in some small way..even expect her to go.

I hope that you will all understand almost a selfish reason for this post….not one which will necessarily help readers…but one which will make me sit up and get myself prepared again….if so thank you for letting me lean on the Widows Quest community when I most needed it…

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5 Thoughts from a bedside

Anna Farmery — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 01:06:35 +0000

If losing someone is this painful why do humans love at all?
Isn’t it strange how you can lose the power of your senses but still feel and show love?
True love is not that romantic love at all, true love is an unwavering, unconditional state of the heart which loves from the soul not the eyes.
When a human is stripped bare, when there is nothing around…what is the one possession which matters? A heart that has loved and is loved.
Life is what we make it, maybe death is what we make it too?

When you love someone, it is not just about loving them whilst you are together, it is also about loving them enough to let them go. I have sat now 11 hrs short of a week at this bedside..even sleeping here….and what I have learned is that love is not about holding on in grief, love is about letting go in grief.

I have said to Nana so many times when she has been at the brink, don’t be scared….don’t be frightened…it will be OK, however we don’t say that to ourselves do we?

Love is about 2 people and you are one of them…whilst grieving we should maybe talk to ourselves and say don’t be scared, don’t be frightened…because just in the same way, love will guide us to a better place.

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