Serious question for those who have lost loved ones.....

[Obamarama]

Does grief and sadness just jump out and surprise you at times, even years after your spouse, partner or loved one passed away?

My first partner, Keith - the love of my life, really - died 16 years ago in a plane crash. We had been together for three years and were each others' best friends as well as lovers.

About two years after his death, I ended up meeting and falling in love with someone else and we have had 14 great years together. we have a great relationship and he actually helped me work through a lot of the residual grief I had early on in our relationship.

Yesterday I got a holiday card from Keith's sister and she enclosed a photo she had run across of Keith, she and I at the beach the summer before he died. It took me right back to that day and I was grateful for the memory. I really felt okay with it and while it gave me a tinge of sadness, I was more or less fine.

So this morning, I was listening to the radio and on comes Celine Dion singing that song from Titanic...Time Will Go On. I just fell apart and had this overwhelming sense of sadness and grief. I couldn't fixate on anything other than Keith and how his life was too damned short. It lingered for a few hours and this afternoon I've progressively started to feel better. I'm not depressed and I've basically moved on and created a happy, healthy life for myself after his tragic death.

This reaction really surpirsed me and took me off guard. Anyone else have this happen years after a close loved one has died and you thought you had resolved your grief?

[Booberdawg]

1. Sure, grief is a process

It doesn't surprise me that this happened to you 16 years later.

I lost my son 5 years ago in August, and while the really devastating grieving and sobbing part is over there are still times when grief comes in waves. Or a memory is triggered by something I've seen or heard that will either cause me to smile or shed a tear. I think it's a normal part of the grieving process that just continues over the years in pieces.

[adadem]

2. Never seems to go away

I am so sorry for your loss. I too have lost many loved ones and I don't think it will ever go away totally. the memories pop up here and there but I try to focus on the good ones. So, if you are able, try to replace the sad memories with the good ones...it gets me through the day.

Cheryl (in GR)

[Blade]

3. Yes, that happens..

I lost my grandfather who I was really close to almost 2 years ago, and I break down once in a great while. I think it's normal to do that.

[Another Bill C.]

4. It doesn't end.

I've been widowed twice. The second time was 20 years ago. I still dream of my second wife at night and think of my first wife in the daytime. They were my best friends and nobody's come that close since.

[Swede]

5. Time heals,but it doesn't cure us of the deepest wounds.

And we would never want to truly forget those we've lost.

[Obamarama]

6. Thanks for your responses....

It's good to know this isn't unusual, even after 16 years. The intensity just surprised me after all these years. Haven't had that strong of a reaction in probably ten years. I know well that it never really goes away...it just gets easier.

Thanks again....

[corarose]

7. I lost my Mom 10 years ago

I don't have anyone to turn to at this time of the year and the last 6 weeks have been very hard for me.
My Mom and I were so close that we were inseparable and when I had a chance to leave and get married I stayed and took care of my Mom instead.
She use to celebrate Halloween with me and then after that she would have me a Birthday Party. The following week we would celebrate Thanksgiving together and then a month later it was Christmas.

I have no one now and this it the hardest time of the year.

I think that is why I actually started taking diet pills 6 weeks ago. I wanted to stay awake instead of sleeping all of the sorrow off which I have done in the past but I made a mistake when I took the pills along with pain killers and it made me irrational.

It's going to be hard this year because I am horribly depressed for some odd reason and it might have something to do with my health in the past year. Several times I have been in the hospital and I have almost died and I needed my Mom real bad but I had no one.

Like I said it's going to be real hard this year.

I do know how you are feeling. It was a bit easier last Christmas and then I got sick again and I missed her when I was in the hospital and the diet pills messed me up bad.

I also lost my Cat and that triggered something in me with depression.

[southerngirlwriter]

8. it's normal grieving to experience that

even years later. Sometimes I go to the phone to call my grandmother, who died in 1997, and all the feelings come flooding back.

[corarose]

9. I know the feeling

I went to register for my last classes before I graduate and a name was on the board as a new student and the name was the same as an old best friend of mine wbo had died 12 years ago from a heart attack at 31.
I had to walk out because I got upset. I missed Ken so much and the holiday feelings came flooding back. I made a b-line for the bathroom so that I could cry silently. I miss him so bad.

[Padraig18]

10. Yes, it still happens.

My parents died almost 10 years ago and, like you, I've basically dealt with it. Yet, at the oddest times, something--- a song, a joke, a photo, even an odor--- will bring on this massive rush of emotions, and fresh tears. I've simply come to accept that as a natural part of life: the wounds will heal, but the scars will always be there, too. There is 'good grief', and there is 'morbid grief'; the former is a healthy part of life, and the latter is a crippling emotion.

One of my favorite quotes about grief is from the introduction to "Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance". It is this one, written by author Robert Pirsig, after his son Christopher was stabbed to death on a street in San Francisco:

"What had to be seen was that the Chris I missed so badly was not an object, but a pattern, and although that pattern included the flesh and blood of Chris, that was not all there was to it. The pattern was larger than Chris and myself, and related to it in ways that neither of us understood completely and neither of us was in complete control of.

Now Chris's body, which was a part of that larger pattern, was gone. But the larger pattern remained. A huge hole had been torn out of the center of it, and that was what caused all the heartache. The pattern was looking for something to attach to and couldn't find anything."

By habit, Life wills itself to continue--- this I know for a fact. Chin up, lad! We all have those moments. :hug:

[corarose]

12. When I smell Corn Bread I think about my Mama

She made the best corn bread in Chicago.

[Padraig18]

14. Bay rum after shave does it to me.

It's all my Daddy ever wore.:)

[corarose]

16. Sorry to hear that

When you take a whiff of the aroma all of the emotions that you thought that you put behind you comes pouring back.

[Padraig18]

18. It's not always bad...

... but sometimes the almost visceral hunger to just see him again that it brings back all over is a bit much...

[greatauntoftriplets]

21. And from what I recall reading, Padraig,

your parents did not die a natural death. But, as you more or less said, life goes on. And it is up to the individual to make the best of it.

[mdmc]

11. Yes....

Usually triggered by a smell, of all things. Embrace it; it is who we are. Never forget, and always love.

[CBHagman]

13. KzooDem, thanks for sharing this.

Grief is indeed something that lives with you and evolves and becomes a part of your life. It isn't that you don't move on or enjoy happy times; it's just that the relationship is still present, in one form or another.

And the desire to celebrate your loved one's life is very healthy and normal.

[ronnykmarshall]

15. You never know when it will hit.

My brother died in 1989 and normally I'm pretty good about the holidays. This year I walked into the my bedroom and started crying my eyes out.

Don't deny it when it happens. It's normal and healthy.

[corarose]

17. The smell of a Hospital does it to me also

Anyone else hate the smell of Hospitals? I had to watch my Mom die for 6 months in intensive care and she died the day before her insurance ran out.
Hospital smells make me so sick that I end up in the bathrooms of the hospital feeling like I want to pass out.

[Ilsa]

19. It is very normal to feel pangs of grief

years after the passing of a loved one. I believe it is possible to feel these symptoms of grief long after other similar grieving events, such as love affairs gone bad (really bad!), etc. Coping might include reminding yourself of the things that have helped you coped in the past, and maybe finding some new insights to help you place your lives together in perspective.

BTW, Sights, sounds, and smells, any sensory experience can set it off.

Elizabeth Kubler-Ross, in her book On Death and Dying, wrote of five stages (denial, anger, bargaining, depression, acceptance). Later she returned to her work and added a sixth stage of reaching out. But she comments that the stages of grief are not consecutive. It is possible to move back and forth between anger, denial, etc.

I'm sorry for your loss. Even though it was long ago, today it feels fresh, and that is hurting you today. Let's get through today.

[VOX]

20. You never "get over" such a profound loss, but you do make peace with it.

As long as we have sweet memories of our lost family members, sig. others, partners and spouses, we will be hit from time to time with a sadness that they're not here with us in the present.

My dad died 23 years ago, and I think about him almost every day in some fond way, and rarely, in a sad way.

My mom died last February, and this is the first run of holidays without her, so it's difficult.

My fondest thoughts to all who've experienced grief and loss...:hug:

[BlackVelvetElvis]

22. My father died in Oct 1987

and I find myself feeling the same way you do many years later.
After all, they don't die inside of us, so it's normal that those feelings reoccur.
That was nice of Keith's sister to think of you too!

[Obamarama]

23. She's great...

I've stayed in very close contact with Keith's entire family...they still consider me their "son-in-law." I'm their connection to Keith and they are mine to him, so it's nice in that way.

[Lydia Leftcoast]

24. Four years after my father died

I was a college professor, attending commencement at the college where I worked.

It was a church-related college, and the president announced that the opening prayer would be given by a minister who was the father of one of the graduates.

It was all I could do to keep from breaking down, because 20 years before, my father (a Lutheran pastor) had given the opening prayer when I graduated from a Lutheran college.

The reaction was completely unexpected.

[SOteric]

25. Yes.

The man who was my lover and dearest friend for several years died suddenly and somewhat unexpectedly. There is always a lingering bit of memory, the scent of rain, and coffee and newsprint. But now and again, unbidden, a particularly poignant memory is evoked; a dream, the scent of his aftershave, a half-finished letter that falls from a dusty volume. A remembered joke he used to tell about aubergine had me weeping in the supermarket aisle, much to the disconcertation of store clerk.

[Bertha Venation]

26. Yes. My mother died 12/10/74

by her own hand. I was eleven. She should never have had children -- but I'm glad she did.

But now and then I feel a brief, debilitating sadness, and a sense of void. I often wonder what might have been if she'd been a different woman, or if she'd lived on.

Here's a :hug: for you, with warm thoughts. Be well.