Living Your Life After Loss When You Don’t Know How
30 Days Step-by-Step on How to Live your Life after Loss
Life as you once knew it has gone…forever and right now it’s just become a case of doing your best, day-by-day. Wake up, survive, sleep. Does that sound like you? Maybe you’ve been thinking, “How can I go on living without them? It just doesn’t seem right.” The guilt starts to creep in and you feel as if you’re betraying them in some way if you even consider it.
I know what that feels like! As a bereaved mother, I spent many days trying to make sense of my loss, my grief and the question of “How could I possibly have a life…NOW!”
My beautiful son Stuart. This was the last photo of us together before he died tragically in a car accident…
Some days facing one minute is your challenge. Some days you live hour by hour. Some days coming to Facebook with others who are grieving and finding hope becomes your lifeline.
Some days all you can do is just get through this day as best you can and hope for a better tomorrow. Knowing always that beneath your sadness and pain remains love, always love.
Today I want to reach out and touch your heart because I see beneath the smile, beneath the words, beneath the “I’m OK” all the pain and anguish that such a loss brings.
~ If there are days when you are struggling with the aching loneliness of your loss.
~ If there are days when you have become lost to yourself.
~ If there are days when you no longer recognise who you see in the mirror.
~ If there are days when you long to hug them forever and ever but don’t know how.
Then please join me in this daily email series:
‘ Getting through step by step’
‘Keeping them in your heart always’
`The hope of a better tomorrow’
‘Feel comforted as you face each day’
‘Know you never have to let them go’
……..and so much more.
To begin facing your tomorrow, when you don’t know how…
This series is no longer available in a daily email format, however you can download the whole 30 day series for free by clicking on the link below. (Please note it will download as a pdf file which you can view on your computer day by day or print out for easy reference)
Click here: 30 Days: 30 Ways
{ 31 comments }
The last 30 days have given me an inspiration..Hope you come back with something new.I enjoyed it very much.Thank you very much for so many kind words..
i would like to receive your daily emails. Thank you
Lynn please click on the link below. You will be taken to a page where you can enter your details into the box near the bottom of the page and click start now.
http://esdeer.com/living-after-loss-when-you-dont-know-how/
Maureen,
This is the only place I feel safe being completely honest, and not be afraid of others judging me for my feelings or my thoughts. Today is my son's best friend's 27th birthday, they were best friends all through high school and up until my son's death 14 months ago. I woke up with a dark cloud over my head today, thinking of how life goes on for everyone else, how my son's friends get older, have new girlfriends, go on trips, get new jobs; and my son will not experience any more of those events. He will be forever 25 in our hearts and memories. It breaks my heart and it feels so impossible to me. Thank you for letting me share.
Maggie I think that is another one of the hards, hards, hards we have to deal with. For others there are birthday celebrations, weddings and children perhaps in their future, but for our children we have not only lost their physical presence but we have lost their future and our future together. And that is a painful moment to see in the experience of others close to them and to us. Hugs ~ Maureen
Thank you Maureen………It was a difficult weekend for me to get through, even after 14 months, it still feels so unreal and so impossible to believe.
I lost my daughter. She was 23 and a twin. She died in a horrific car accident while on the job. She was killed by someone who should not have been behind the wheel of a car. Our justice system is not working for me.
ive had a really difficult year and a half. i lost my dad to esophigeal cancer on july 27 2010, we found out he had cancer in april and 3 months later he was gone. and then on dec. 29 2011 i got a call from my mom, my sister and her daughter were in a bad car accident. my sister passed on jan. 4 and my neice passed on jan. 6. it was the day after my niece turned 17. its been so hard. i dont know how to move on without them. i get so angry and sad all the time. ill be ok one minute and crying the next. i dont know how to cope with all this pain. i feel like people judge me when i talk about how im feeling. i feel so alone even with family and friends around. thank you for letting me get all this out.
Lisa my article this week is about not feeling we can be who we are in our grief, leaving us feeling very alone and very misunderstood. I am sure you will get much support and understanding from this 30 day email series ~ Maureen
Maureen, I look forward to your daily words of wisdom and courage to make it through my day. I too have lost someone so special to me, my husband of 21 years in Nov.,2011. He took his own life and I am still stuck. Everyone around me thinks I should be better than I am but reading your letters I know that everyone heals at a different pace and I will never be the same person I was before. I thank you from the bottom of my broken heart for helping me when I thought there was no hope.
Maureen, I've heard that the second year is so much worse than the first. I can believe that. Up to this point on my journey there were so many ups and downs that I couldn't see straight and then there were times when I just didn't care anymore and (I remember posting) that it would be sooo easy just to give in, give up, and let go; I didn't have the strength to continue and didn't much care either. I worked through that …. June 8 will be the two year mark for me. I thought the first year was horror enough, but, this second year …. so much more difficult. I've been in the process of a meltdown for a week. I find myself struggling to take a step or two forward and I feel like this black cloud of – I don't know. Since my husband died everyone I've ever known or cared for just left – and didn't come back; as though it was just another day in the life and it's over and done. Fortunately, a Facebook friend I didn't even know gave me the link to a widows website that became the family and friends that didn't walk away. It was on that website where I first heard about Stepping Through Grief. There are days now when I'm not sure I'll get even get through. Then, when I think that there is nothing left, no words that could possibly help, I get your email. I read it. And I pause. Thank you for the pause.
You describe so well what grief is Lori and I’m so very grateful you have found your safe places where you do have support and can take a pause ~ Maureen
Thank you Maureen! This opened my mind! And helped me!
Hi everyone, Tomorrow will be 5 years since I lost my first love, best friend, soul mate and wonderful husband. I am so deep into grief. When they buried him they actually buried half of me and almost all of my heart. It is so hard to take my first step for the day and make my other leg follow. I look in the mirror and I don't even know who I am anymore. I have no one to talk to about my grief, not even my children, so I have 5 years of grief stuffed inside of me. I can find no purpose in life without him other than my belief in the Lord and our Savior. I cry everyday for him. I thought we had forever together, I never dreamed I would be a widow at 46. As each year goes by I lose more and more interest in anything especially myself. When he died I basically gave up my will to live. I barely ever eat, down to skin and bones. I just want him back, I am so lonely. I never did like doing anything alone, especially eating. My heart is in so much pain so much of the time it actually hurts. I can only pray that this dark cloud I have all around me will lift someday and I can smile and laugh again and look forward to a new day. It is so hard to see other couples together, I always think why? Why can they still be together and I am alone? I know that I am not alone in grief and that everyone grieves differently. Just was hoping that someone would understand what I am saying, and to let a little bit of my grief out. That was very difficult after 5 years of silence and no one that understands. Thanks for listening. God bless you all, and I pray that you will find the peace in your hearts you need as well as for myself.
Hi Ms. Wanda:
I just wanted to write in response to your comment. I know you wrote this back in May and now it is September, but I hope you get my reply. I would be very interested in communicating with you. I won’t go in to the details of my story here, but I am 24 and I feel like none of my friends understand me and they feel like I should “get over it.” But, as we all know, we don’t “get over it.” Like you said, every relationship and person is different, so I don’t know exactly what you’re going through and you don’t know exactly what I’m going through, but we do have the basic pain and stuff that goes along with it in common. I have experienced many of the same things you have (not eating much, feeling as though I lost my purpose, etc.). Anyway, if you get this (I don’t know if this will get kicked to your e-mail – I hope so), please write me back and maybe we can communicate a bit.
Hi Leah, I think we may be able to talk this way. I put my facebook page addie up, add me for a friend. Hope to see you. Take care. God bless, Wanda
Hi Leah, got it figured out, click on my blue name Wanda and it will take you to my facebook page. Hope to see you there. God bless, Wanda
Hi… It has been almost two years since i hugged my 22 year old daughter. After a long 2 year battle with Leukemia, my Christina passed away on June 16, 2010 at Mass Gen Hosp in Boston. it has actaully taken me these two years to really begin to talk about my feelings to anyone else. I am a single mom (Christy's dad left us 9 years ago) coping with life one day at a time. There are days that go by that I do not cry. But there is never day that goes by that i don't think of her in some way. I have begun to smile more at the beauty and love i see around me. I guess i am healing as they say but I know this is the way i will live the rest of my life. I miss her. I am still her mom and still feel like a mom. I do have a group of friends from church who talk to me because they knew her and loved her too but most folks do think .." it is time to move on." Well i don't think that and I want to always remember her smile and love of others. and yes. year two has been very hard, the fog lifted and the pain sets in…. is the best way to discribe it.
So thank you for a place to write this and read about others who share in this comunity of loss. Praying for you all
susan
Thank you for your efforts – it helps not to feel alone in grief. There is not much understanding of loss. It is not well treated. There are few resources. When my wife died I felt lost in a world that could care less – they all "had their own lives to lead" – which is true and difficult to hear. How much did I show compassion to others in their loss? Without experience of such a deep lasting separation from a loved one, their is little understanding. I remember a line from the movie Sleepless in Seattle – I wake in the mornings and I try to remember to breath. I thought that captured some of the feeling of separation in loss. The disconnection with what everyone else seems to think is important and the frustration that they cannot share the understanding that life is such a precious gift which we seem to throw away so easily. Understanding hearts are rare. It's true. And hard to face. Thanks for your efforts. Well done.
I receive these daily emails n I look forward to them each day…..thank u very much!!!!
Hello, I lost my precious twin brother 6 months ago from a heart attack. We had just celebrated our 50th birthday together with a small party with close friends, a party which he did not want to have but, thank goodness looking back we were able to share. Sadly, I also lost my older brother at the age of 46 to a heart attack, and so I have walked alongside this grief before. Somehow the loss of my precious twin is more difficult to bear and the reality is more difficult to grasp. My dear mother is beyond sad, two beautiful sons gone so suddenly and too soon, I cannot imagine her pain but, she has a smile for me whenever we are together and we share many laughs, tears and memories. I feel as though the world should stop and remember Michael, I feel angry that he will never see his two precious sons, 10 and 13 grow up into men, experience the love of grandchildren and grow old with me. I miss him every moment and I am taken by surprise by the simple things which remind me of him, beautiful, warm days, a special song, a special smell or taste. I am slowly learning to think of Michael without being sad, some days are better than others.
Thank you for listening. Joanne
Maureen, I just want to say thank you for your kind words and understanding, your help in the midst of your own grief. May God bless you and also bring comfort to you. So looking forward to the e-mails. Also lost a very dear friend a month ago and in spite of the way we feel, I want to know the right thing to do to help his widow in her sorrow, Once again, thinking, thanking and praying for you. God bless.
Maureen…your son is so handsome. This picture must hold special meaning for you since it was the last one of you together. He looks to be a fine, young man you raised. You must be very proud of him. What did he dream of becoming in life? What were his interests? Can you share a little about your Stuart, so we can come to know the child who meant the world to you? Thank you for sharing your journey with us.
Shelley thank you for asking about my beautiful boy. He was 18, young, healthy and dreamed of being wealthy enough to buy a home, look after his family and be happy. He loved the sea, loved animals and in fact related to dogs much more easier than humans. He was loving, generous and kind hearted. He was working in a vineyard in the country when he died and always travelled with a swag in the back to stay for impromptu overnighters with friends. I think if he was alive now he’d still be living and working in the country, with a ute, his swag and beloved dog for company.
Thanks for sharing some things about Stuart. Such a tragic loss of a young man, who had so much to give and live for. It’s clear, the love he left behind, is a ray of sunshine in your life. Maureen, you’ve come a long way and used your experince with loss to help others. Stuart is a part of your endeavor and his spirit really does live on through you. Thank you for all that you do.
Your daily emails are the thing I most look forward to these days. My beloved husband passed away 6 months ago the 25th and I am brokenhearted. Life seems to have lost its meaning and I am just making it through the days barely. I am trying to stay in contact with friends and family but it is hard to find the stamina to get up and go.
Again, thanks for all that you do for us in sharing your grief. Clara
I have enjoyed your caring on facebook. I have days where I don’t think I can make it. My son Leroy Matthews was a Deputy in Adams county I daho. He was working when he vered over to the other lane. They thought he fell asleep. He corrected and went back into his lane and a car with a tent trailor come over to his lane and hit him head on. They were not going fast at all but Leroy was a big boy and had a big neck. He landed to where he soficated because of his neck. He was knocked out. He died July 6, 2009. He was a wonderful son and cop. At his funeral he had 2,000 people there. We live in a town of about 600. He didn’t know a stranger. It was so over welming to me. It has been 3 years now and I still can’t get over this. I have so many friends along with Leroys friends supporting me. But like people I hear, I fill so alone. He was my best friend. I fill like my life is over sometimes. I thank God for my daughter and Grandbabies. That is why I am here. I just wanted to thank you for all your kind words and comfort. Be happy in your life!
helloo pls just send me mails as to live each day with confidence
I just found this website. I do not do facebook or twitter etc. but this Sat. I would have been celebrating 45 years with my husband…except that he died unexpectedly last March. I am so lost and so exhausted from trying to find a new life that will give me hope to go on. The nights are a living hell. I hate being alone. I am afraid. No one really understands. I feel so very unsure and Iong so to see him again. We never even had a chance to say goodbye. I miss his touch…his hugs and his kiss. He was so many things to me and now I am alone. I wander and I cry. I really need to be held and there is no way to remedy that and I wonder if I can thrive at all if something does not change to help me. I long all the time. I need someone to tell me I can heal. Now I see it never happening because I am not able to see anything to give me hope. will someone here let me share? help me to find life again?
Sally I feel so very much for the ache in your heart right now. If you have just registered for this email series, it may bring a little ease into your brokenness. My blessings and heartfelt thoughts to you ~ Maureen
I am completely disturb after a sad demise of my father in last month. I am not able to concentrate on anything, life has become empty without him. He fall sick 2 months back due to a liver desease n we operated him under all best doctors in my city but within a month he left us. The guilt feeling in me is increasing day by day, I feel I should have done something more for him, I failed as a son. Dad was loving me like anything n was trying his best to bring everything for me which i demanded. As a son now it was my turn to help him n fulfill all his incomplete dreams but I could not even save his life, though I tried my all efforts by taking him to good doctors but still feel that I could have done something more. I really failed in doing that, guilt feeling is not going from mind. I wanted to talk to him alot, wanted to tell him how special he is for me. What a wonderful personality he was having n how my all friends were pleasing him for his personality n ability to built rapport with everyone, wanted to say sorry for the mistakes I made n how he consideed all those mistakes n still loved me after that. So many thing r unsaid and undone. I feel regreted, guilty n disturb from that day. Cant believe that I can not see dad anymore, just cant believe this. There is no ray of hope now, no source of inspiration.