Each and every one, except for income, but she was the reason I wanted to make money.
If I could add one more, I would add "The reason to cook." Or "the reason to eat." I cooked because she liked it and would tell me if she didn't. She would affirm my clumsy attempts or success. And since her death I have only cooked one meal, a meal she never liked but one which I could eat for several days and freeze for other weeks. And while I am eating, despite the stated concerns of family over my wieght, I really do not care. I eat so that my stomach isn't annoyed or my stress increased and I don't know that this will really change.
There are very few items on your list that I have not experienced. Some of them have ebbed and flowed over the last seven years, like hand-holding. I've held the hands of new partners, but it's never really the same, is it?
The most surprising change for me, though, has been the loss of a sense of security. In my marriage, I was never a damsel in distress. I was independent, self-sufficient, and did things on my own. Yet, after Dave passed, I distinctly remember feeling unsafe in places I once visited without a second thought. Even something as simple as going to my local grocery store became daunting, despite the fact that my husband and I never grocery shopped together.
Oooh yes, the sense of security. It's amazing how much comfort lives in the fact that someone is waiting for you or looking out for you, even if you're not together.
Unfortunately the show is not in my cards - tickets start at 1000 dollars!
I was the same Angela. The first time going to the grocery store at night - ugh!!! It is improving with time and my new job which requires some travel is helping (forcing) me to adjust to not having my protector.
The list…. So complete and true. This article should be required reading for anyone that knows someone in the throes of grief.. in other words everyone! It provides an insight to what losing a spouse is really like as time passes. ❤️❤️
Yes, most of them. Thank you for sharing. I haven’t seen a list before. I think about all these losses often. I like the idea of making my own…maybe. It’s brutal.
Yes. All of these. Feeling numbers 51 & 75, today, especially. I have been agonizing over buying a car for weeks now. The hell of dealing with all the salespeople. I literally left at one point today. Like, I’m out of here. I went back later. So frustrating for me. All the red tape with that decision process. My husband was my doctor (literally) and my workout partner and the cook! Everything he created was healthy and delicious. And he cooked ALL the meals. He did the grocery shopping too so he would have all the ingredients & spices he needed for the meals. My diet has been a joke for the last three years. Terrible.
As far as the previous version of myself, she seems like a dream. Someone I used to know. Thanks Dana, I appreciate all you share.
51 and 75 are such big ones. I never realized how important it is to have someone to bounce ideas and decisions off of, even just for validation. And as someone who just went through the car buying process, godspeed! It's terrible, but you can do it!
I couldn't read the whole list, but for me, 'magic' would be right up on top. The world is still beautiful, I still laugh, but there's something of the bell jar effect that Sylvia Plath described: I am somehow apart rather than a part of everything around me. And I'm no longer the most special person in the world to anyone.
Time. The one item i would add to your list. Living alone now that I'm widowed, takes so much more time to keep the house clean, take care of my dog, take care of myself, and so on. It leaves me with so little time to find joy. Yet, time alive without her, feels unending and unbearable.
I loved hearing the back story of your love for Garden State — I don’t think you’ve told me it was the first movie you and Brad watched together…I can totally picture you two, young and falling in love, sitting on his bottom bunk in a dorm room and watching it on a laptop. 🥹 And I felt a pang in my heart when I read the part where you said your first thought when you heard about the concert is that you need to tell Brad. I’ve had so many moments like that — where I hear about something related to something we loved and then realize I can’t tell him. Yes, all of those private losses that nobody sees. 😔
Thank you for making that list — it’s really powerful to see them all in one place…and I feel like we could still probably add hundreds more. I relate to pretty much all of them…and while I feel the losses you listed that are related to our person, currently the ones you mentioned about losses of myself are resonated a lot: Feeling of lightness, sense of purpose, inner joy, hope, the previous version of myself — those are hitting hard lately…and like we’ve talked about, there’s no “playbook” on how to grieve and mourn ourselves, so we’re often just left alone with those huge secondary losses.
All of it, Dana!! In one way or another. Looking at it all together, it's an overwhelming read. It's almost apprehendable to take in the amount of secondary losses - and yet, the 75 different losses are my life now.
I feel though, that many of the things mentioned, tend to blend in with each other. It's often impossible to feel one loss without feeling another at the same time.
For me, number 39, 47, 49, 50, 74 and 75 are all linked. As well as number 9, 18, 21, 22, 26 and 30.
I grieve all of the mentioned losses, they all are a big kick in the gut every new morning. But number 7, 32 and 54 are the most heartwrecking and gut punching losses above all others.
So many of these resonate and bring me to tears. It has only been 1 year, 1 month and 3 days so I know I’ve just begun this journey you all have been on for awhile. But I have one to add that is a recent addition in my life. Who will take care of me when I get sick? On November 21st I was diagnosed with stage 4 colon cancer. At first I was numb, then I was scared, quickly moved to pissed off and now I am at “well this is a weird chapter in my life”. But after caring for my husband in his last year I know I don’t have any one person who could do that for me. So I hope either for a miracle or for a swift resolution to my last chapter.
When I get to the airport have no one to call. When I am about to take off and when I land. When I’m driving home and there’s no one there to greet me. The rest are spot on!
I'm carrying that entire list around with me without thinking about it. Without numbering it.
I barely skimmed that list and everything my eyes rested on pressed on the same wound.
And in truth, I'm not up to reading through the whole list.
So I don't know if I could add to it.
Sometime when I'm ready to read them all, it will probably help to give direct recognition to each and every one of those things, give them space to be, and probably make them a bit lighter to carry.
But for now that feels impossible.
And reading through just reminds me of all the things sitting on the periphery of my awareness.
The monsters in the dark.
And somehow, if I just keep real still, and shut my eyes, somehow the morning will come, and I'll be safe, from all of it.
Lost my wife of 30 years some 10 years ago. All of those things save for #1 I’ve experienced. The inside jokes was especially hard. We had so many and often found ways to combine 2 or more at once & end up laughing ‘till we were out of breath. I’m lucky to have been introduced to a widow who similarly spent a decade caring for her late husband. We’ve created our own traditions and inside jokes and hope to finish our races together.
Each and every one, except for income, but she was the reason I wanted to make money.
If I could add one more, I would add "The reason to cook." Or "the reason to eat." I cooked because she liked it and would tell me if she didn't. She would affirm my clumsy attempts or success. And since her death I have only cooked one meal, a meal she never liked but one which I could eat for several days and freeze for other weeks. And while I am eating, despite the stated concerns of family over my wieght, I really do not care. I eat so that my stomach isn't annoyed or my stress increased and I don't know that this will really change.
Cooking is a huge one - so much grief wrapped in such a simple daily activity.
I am the same about food and wonder when that will change…surely it will “return” to “normal”?!!!
There are very few items on your list that I have not experienced. Some of them have ebbed and flowed over the last seven years, like hand-holding. I've held the hands of new partners, but it's never really the same, is it?
The most surprising change for me, though, has been the loss of a sense of security. In my marriage, I was never a damsel in distress. I was independent, self-sufficient, and did things on my own. Yet, after Dave passed, I distinctly remember feeling unsafe in places I once visited without a second thought. Even something as simple as going to my local grocery store became daunting, despite the fact that my husband and I never grocery shopped together.
Grief transforms you in ways you can't predict.
Will you go to the show?
Oooh yes, the sense of security. It's amazing how much comfort lives in the fact that someone is waiting for you or looking out for you, even if you're not together.
Unfortunately the show is not in my cards - tickets start at 1000 dollars!
I was the same Angela. The first time going to the grocery store at night - ugh!!! It is improving with time and my new job which requires some travel is helping (forcing) me to adjust to not having my protector.
The list…. So complete and true. This article should be required reading for anyone that knows someone in the throes of grief.. in other words everyone! It provides an insight to what losing a spouse is really like as time passes. ❤️❤️
Yes, most of them. Thank you for sharing. I haven’t seen a list before. I think about all these losses often. I like the idea of making my own…maybe. It’s brutal.
It really is amazing when you see how many little losses are associated with the one main loss. Brutal is right.
Yes. All of these. Feeling numbers 51 & 75, today, especially. I have been agonizing over buying a car for weeks now. The hell of dealing with all the salespeople. I literally left at one point today. Like, I’m out of here. I went back later. So frustrating for me. All the red tape with that decision process. My husband was my doctor (literally) and my workout partner and the cook! Everything he created was healthy and delicious. And he cooked ALL the meals. He did the grocery shopping too so he would have all the ingredients & spices he needed for the meals. My diet has been a joke for the last three years. Terrible.
As far as the previous version of myself, she seems like a dream. Someone I used to know. Thanks Dana, I appreciate all you share.
51 and 75 are such big ones. I never realized how important it is to have someone to bounce ideas and decisions off of, even just for validation. And as someone who just went through the car buying process, godspeed! It's terrible, but you can do it!
I couldn't read the whole list, but for me, 'magic' would be right up on top. The world is still beautiful, I still laugh, but there's something of the bell jar effect that Sylvia Plath described: I am somehow apart rather than a part of everything around me. And I'm no longer the most special person in the world to anyone.
Magic is a big one. And the idea of no longer being the most special person is a crushing secondary loss.
OH, yes!!! I didn't even want to say that, but I sure feel it.
Time. The one item i would add to your list. Living alone now that I'm widowed, takes so much more time to keep the house clean, take care of my dog, take care of myself, and so on. It leaves me with so little time to find joy. Yet, time alive without her, feels unending and unbearable.
yes, this is such a good addition.
I loved hearing the back story of your love for Garden State — I don’t think you’ve told me it was the first movie you and Brad watched together…I can totally picture you two, young and falling in love, sitting on his bottom bunk in a dorm room and watching it on a laptop. 🥹 And I felt a pang in my heart when I read the part where you said your first thought when you heard about the concert is that you need to tell Brad. I’ve had so many moments like that — where I hear about something related to something we loved and then realize I can’t tell him. Yes, all of those private losses that nobody sees. 😔
Thank you for making that list — it’s really powerful to see them all in one place…and I feel like we could still probably add hundreds more. I relate to pretty much all of them…and while I feel the losses you listed that are related to our person, currently the ones you mentioned about losses of myself are resonated a lot: Feeling of lightness, sense of purpose, inner joy, hope, the previous version of myself — those are hitting hard lately…and like we’ve talked about, there’s no “playbook” on how to grieve and mourn ourselves, so we’re often just left alone with those huge secondary losses.
All of it, Dana!! In one way or another. Looking at it all together, it's an overwhelming read. It's almost apprehendable to take in the amount of secondary losses - and yet, the 75 different losses are my life now.
I feel though, that many of the things mentioned, tend to blend in with each other. It's often impossible to feel one loss without feeling another at the same time.
For me, number 39, 47, 49, 50, 74 and 75 are all linked. As well as number 9, 18, 21, 22, 26 and 30.
I grieve all of the mentioned losses, they all are a big kick in the gut every new morning. But number 7, 32 and 54 are the most heartwrecking and gut punching losses above all others.
So many of these resonate and bring me to tears. It has only been 1 year, 1 month and 3 days so I know I’ve just begun this journey you all have been on for awhile. But I have one to add that is a recent addition in my life. Who will take care of me when I get sick? On November 21st I was diagnosed with stage 4 colon cancer. At first I was numb, then I was scared, quickly moved to pissed off and now I am at “well this is a weird chapter in my life”. But after caring for my husband in his last year I know I don’t have any one person who could do that for me. So I hope either for a miracle or for a swift resolution to my last chapter.
When I get to the airport have no one to call. When I am about to take off and when I land. When I’m driving home and there’s no one there to greet me. The rest are spot on!
I'm carrying that entire list around with me without thinking about it. Without numbering it.
I barely skimmed that list and everything my eyes rested on pressed on the same wound.
And in truth, I'm not up to reading through the whole list.
So I don't know if I could add to it.
Sometime when I'm ready to read them all, it will probably help to give direct recognition to each and every one of those things, give them space to be, and probably make them a bit lighter to carry.
But for now that feels impossible.
And reading through just reminds me of all the things sitting on the periphery of my awareness.
The monsters in the dark.
And somehow, if I just keep real still, and shut my eyes, somehow the morning will come, and I'll be safe, from all of it.
And thus passes another day without my wife.
Lost my wife of 30 years some 10 years ago. All of those things save for #1 I’ve experienced. The inside jokes was especially hard. We had so many and often found ways to combine 2 or more at once & end up laughing ‘till we were out of breath. I’m lucky to have been introduced to a widow who similarly spent a decade caring for her late husband. We’ve created our own traditions and inside jokes and hope to finish our races together.