“Life is a series of natural and spontaneous changes.
Don’t resist them – that only creates sorrow.
Let reality be reality”
Lao-tse Chinese Philosopher
For the next few posts I want to pick out some quotes which I have written down from the book I by Jim Clemmer, I told you about in Coping with Change in Our Life.
This quote stood out because it made me think how in a sense – bear with me on this! – it is not the death which creates our grief but our resistance to accepting what has happened. It is our resistance to letting go, …read more

There was a time just after losing my loved one that I found every celebration or festival …..what is the word, as I was going to say stupid and I don’t mean that….I found them trivial.
Not because I am against the celebration but my grief meant that I found these kind of events so difficult to deal with, and faced with that difficulty I just wanted to hide from all that….jollity!
Tonight is halloween and I have really made an effort tonight…there are spiders webs, pumpkins, Happy Halloween posters…far too many sweets and loads of lights.
I decided that tonight I would …read more

Grief is something that we feel so much on a daily basis and in some ways controls our lives – it made me think that this ‘thing’ that controls our thoughts and feelings, this ‘thing’ which causes so much pain…what is it? Is it tangible, is it something we physically live with….or is it intangible, so therefore something that we manage through our minds?
When I think about it….for me there is a bit of both

Tangible – there is that element of being alone, being the only person in the home, in the car, in the bed. There is that element …read more

In grief we can isolate ourselves, in grief we can shut the world out, in grief as widows and widowers we can believe that we never want to fall in love again….
When I was coughing away, by myself this weekend, feeling sorry for myself that there was no one in the house just to look after me….(how old am I!) I started to think about connection. When we enter the world we are physically connected with our mothers…we depended on their nourishment in the womb, we depend on their milk, their support and security throughout our childhood.
When you think about …read more

When you are feeling down or lonely, I don’t know about you but I tend to see the pain in my face. When I look in the mirror or catch my reflection in a window…all I see is an aging woman who I just don’t recognise.
I was trying to think the other day of the positives of getting old….?

Experience to handle life?
Memories to cherish
Ability to help younger people develop and grow
Family and extended family
More comfortable in your own skin

Maybe because it is one of those days! (I need our Widows Quest Support Group Meeting this Friday) but then I thought …read more

A strange long week for many of us and so I thought I would end the working week with a poem about hope. I found this
I Shall Be Glad
by Grace Noll Crowell If I can put new hope within the heart
Of one who has lost hope,
If I can help a brother up
Some difficult long slope
That seems too steep for tired feet to go,
If I can help him climb
Into the light upon the hill’s far crest,
I shall begrudge no time
Or strength that I spend, for well I know
How great may be his need.
If I can help through any darkened hour,
…read more

We have some wonderful people in our Widows Quest community. One of those people is Leslie who has just moved into a new house, you can read her feelings in the comments to Grief Has Made Me Emotional.
I cried when I read her thoughts..why? Because I hate people hurting…I so wish that I had a magic bereavement wand that would take away all our pain.
But it made me think about how we emotionally attach to objects….mmmm…but then is it really the object that we attach to? In Leslie’s case it is a house, with me it is a jumper! But …read more

In grief there is this feeling of lacking control. Someone has taken the love of your life from you and thrown at you – money worries, loneliness, emptiness, lack of purpose, lack of energy etc
I remember feeling totally out of control and sensing that I didn’t know which way to turn. If I went out – I felt sad. If I stayed in  – I felt sad. I was suddenly one, or more specifically a two minus one. You know that feeling, the sense that although you are your own human being, part of your soul is missing. A couple …read more

There is a saying that the first step is the hardest…I sometimes wonder if that is true in the bereavement process?
Why?
Because the first step isn’t often the one that helps start to heal the broken heart…in itself. Of course the first time going out, the first time you meet someone, the first time you go on holiday, the first anniversary are all hard…I don’t dispute that at all. However often the first step is surrounded by friends, often the first step is understood by all as a difficult step for a widow or widower.
But following that you have to start …read more

I write this post not to make everyone miserable! I write this post to show that as much as I try and write in a positive way, as much as I try and write to help widows and widowers…even I …yes little old me have those days when NOTHING seems to matter!
It started last night, I don’t know why but depression fell over my body. I realised it was coming and yet I just couldn’t motivate myself to stop it from happening.
Depression – that feeling that there is nothing to hold on to, that feeling of being alone, that feeling …read more