Yet another widow

I have started the next chapter in my life. In widow-speak we call it out 2.0. And it has happened so quickly I can almost believe that Roz has decided to use some cosmic power to make it happen. Two weeks ago I had barely communicated with Rachel Grace. This morning we were looking at potential houses on Rightmove for when we move in together in 2021. Sometimes life comes at you fast! :) After the first anniversary of Roz's death I suddenly had a strong desire to stop moping and get on with my life. And I realised that, because of who I am, that meant finding someone to share my life with. The feeling was so strong I do now wonder if it wasn't Roz telling me to do it. I can hear her voice saying "Ok that's enough now. You've missed me long enough. I have found this amazing person for you and she needs you. She needs the strength, support and love you provided to me. She's a geek like you. She loves videogames and sci-fi and fantasy - in all it's mediums. S

Roz was the first ever female Knight of Herstmenseux Castle. To know almost everything you need to know about Roz you just need to know why she became the first ever female knight of Herstmenseux Castle. It was because a man in a pub told her a woman could never do it. I’m tempted to just walk back to my chair right now. I sometimes think my greatest mistake was being nice and supportive to Roz when she was diagnosed with cancer. I should have snidely said there was no way she could beat it. Not only would she be cancer free now, she probably would’ve invented a cure! You’ve heard about how talented Roz was. About how she could master almost anything she put her mind to – the exceptions being arithmetic and cables. I’d tell you stories but the emotional scars are still too deep! Sorry – but my favourite thing that I heard from people over the past few weeks is that they could be themselves around her. No matter who the person was or where they came from they could be totally genuine an

So I did it. I managed to survive the first year. I haven't always wanted to. In fact for a large chunk of it I would have preferred it if I didn't. But survive it I have.  I haven't done much else. This has definitely been a twelve month period of surviving rather than living but I am still here.  Getting here has been very different than I expected. I touched on some of these points in the Myth vs Reality post -  https://unhinged-ramblings-man.blogspot.com/2020/05/grief-myth-vs-reality.html  - but I wanted to use this post to reflect on the last twelve months and what I hope for the future ahead. The biggest surprise, and I think this is unusual, is how little I've cried. The tears just haven't come. The heartbreak has - a gut-wrenching, almost vomit inducing pain - but the tears haven't followed. I've cried more for each of my cats that I've lost than for Roz. I have no idea why this is - perhaps part of me still doesn't believe it really happened

Today is the first anniversary of the worst day of my life. May 2017 It's not the day Roz died. That wouldn't arrive till the 2nd July. It was the day she sank into what was essentially a diabetic coma.  The day I realised I could never talk to her again. My Rozzie had left me. Only her shell remained. ...and it had all happened much quicker than anyone predicted. After fourteen months of slow tumour growth Roz's body had essentially given up in June and the tumours grew at a much more aggressive rate. After being confined to her liver, they were now in her lungs and lymph nodes. On the 24th June we were informed that she had about three weeks to live. While the number of weeks was a bit of a shock, the fact that this was now officially terminal was not. Roz had rapidly deteriorated over the course of June and we were waiting for this shoe to finally drop. In a way it was a bit of a relief. We had held off informing others until we had an official diagnosis and timescale so

I'm sitting at my desk about to have another panic attack. It's been three weeks since Roz passed away and I can feel myself start to hyperventilate and my heart start to pound.  I get up and go to one of the small meeting rooms, darken the lights, curl up in the chair and try to relax.  It's at this point I realise - I need help. I had already discussed the extreme highs and lows I'd been having in the very early stages of widowhood with one of the hospice counsellors. She had been very helpful and told me this was perfectly natural for the first three months and that it would even out after that. She also recommended I hold off having counselling until after that period was over. I realise now though that I cannot wait that long for support. I google "How to cope with grief" and stumble upon a site that lists some support groups. There I see Widowed and Young. They seem to be exactly what I'm looking for and I apply for membership. A few days later my me

On this day last year I was watching Liverpool win their sixth European Cup. I was sat in a holiday lodge in Somerset watching on my tablet while Roz slept in the bed a few feet away from me. She had driven us down to Somerset that afternoon, was on very strong antibiotics and totally exhausted. Between Saturday and Tuesday, when we left, she probably slept for around forty hours. Her exhaustion had been brought on by a round of new, supposedly more gentle chemo tablets that caused such an anaemic reaction that it almost killed her. After a week in hospital with two large plasma injections - oil changes as she referred to them - she was able to leave and we were able to go on a small holiday. So there I was, watching my beloved Liverpool play a sloppy, boring game of football for the greatest prize in the world - a prize they had gotten so close to reaching the year before - and I didn't really care.  In 2005, after watching the Miracle in Istanbul, I sat in total elation and disbe

One element of widowhood is that you have to learn to do a bunch of things you relied on your partner for. This can be anything from D.I.Y. to handling the utility bills. From driving to being sociable on your own. For me it's cooking. Roz was a great cook and, with her health issues, we divided up the tasks into her doing the cooking and myself doing the majority of the tidying and cleaning around the house. I hadn't cooked anything that didn't require throwing things into an oven and turning on a timer in two decades - the exception being the occasional "proper" chips. So widowhood meant I had to improve my cooking skills and I'm happy to say that so far they're pretty damn good. I can make a delicious roast dinner, a very decent fry up and nice omelettes. I even started poaching eggs and have almost nailed it within a  couple of attempts. The irony is that you desperately want to share these achievements with your deceased loved one. Every time I make a

I've been thinking about this phrase a lot recently. Before widowhood I thought of it as a clear divide between the living and the dead. When we are alive we move on with our lives and, slowly but surely, we think less and less about our loved ones we lost.  For the vast majority of people I think this is absolutely true. It was for me after losing my father. It has been for me after losing a few friends and other family members. You miss them occasionally and you think about them from time to time but, faster than you expect, you move on and continue with your life. Roz and I would occassionally feel guilty about this and talk about it to each other. We would say how grateful we were that we still had each other and I would glibly state "life is for the living" and shrug my shoulders. But for a few of us - widows, children or parents of loved ones who left us before their time - we don't move on. Widows are in a third category - not alive, not dead but in limbo. We h

I had a chat with a non-widow friend a while ago and we had a pretty frank discussion about the myths and realities of widowhood.. To be clear these are my thoughts from my journey so far and everyone's journey is going to be different. That being said I've heard these sentiments repeated from most people I've spoken to. Myth : Grief is a linear journey with a beginning and an end. The first day is the most painful and it gets easier over time until you feel normal again Reality : Grief has many phases and while it does get less painful over time it isn't remotely linear. My experience and understanding from those further down the journey than myself is this:- First couple of weeks - I think this very much varies on whether you knew your loved one was going to die or not. For someone like myself who lost his wife to Cancer and had been watching her slowly die over time the first couple of weeks were a relief. Whichever way it happens you will have friends and family aro