Any REAL signs from your loved one after they passed?
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I think that's lovely. This is a rough time to be sure, but it seems you are doing as best as one can under the circumstances.
Thank you.
I feel like I have a choice - live in agony and active grief every day and waste my life, or face it and push through it. I find when I do the latter, I am able to find joy and gratitude in every single day.
If I feel like burying my face in his clothes in the closet, I do it. If I feel like talking to him, I do it. If I feel like going through mementos of our life together, I do it. If I feel like crying after I get in the bed, I do it. What I have personally found is that now instead of any of those activities lasting for hours and putting me in a depressed mode all day or all evening, those things last for a few minutes, maybe 30 minutes tops. Usually just 5 to 15 minutes though. Then I feel like I got it out of my system. Now, I might do ALL those things in one day - but it's off and on throughout the day if that makes sense, so it's manageable.
And in between, I am finding the joy and peace. And I am so, so grateful that we had a life together, that sweet relationship, that happiness and appreciation with each other. Some people never have that and we had it for fifteen delightful years. He was a joy - every minute of every day - and I am not sure he even realized it. But I did. I was blessed.
I will also be the first to admit that having my eldest granddaughter around has helped tremendously. She's my main reason for decorating for the holidays and listening to Christmas music, for trying to keep myself healthy every day, and for the daily strength to keep on moving forward - to focus on someone else's needs and not just my own. It would be a lot more difficult if I was here by myself day in and day out. Not saying I couldn't do it, but it's easier with someone else around.
I feel like I have a choice - live in agony and active grief every day and waste my life, or face it and push through it. I find when I do the latter, I am able to find joy and gratitude in every single day.
If I feel like burying my face in his clothes in the closet, I do it. If I feel like talking to him, I do it. If I feel like going through mementos of our life together, I do it. If I feel like crying after I get in the bed, I do it. What I have personally found is that now instead of any of those activities lasting for hours and putting me in a depressed mode all day or all evening, those things last for a few minutes, maybe 30 minutes tops. Usually just 5 to 15 minutes though. Then I feel like I got it out of my system. Now, I might do ALL those things in one day - but it's off and on throughout the day if that makes sense, so it's manageable.
And in between, I am finding the joy and peace. And I am so, so grateful that we had a life together, that sweet relationship, that happiness and appreciation with each other. Some people never have that and we had it for fifteen delightful years. He was a joy - every minute of every day - and I am not sure he even realized it. But I did. I was blessed.
I will also be the first to admit that having my eldest granddaughter around has helped tremendously. She's my main reason for decorating for the holidays and listening to Christmas music, for trying to keep myself healthy every day, and for the daily strength to keep on moving forward - to focus on someone else's needs and not just my own. It would be a lot more difficult if I was here by myself day in and day out. Not saying I couldn't do it, but it's easier with someone else around.
I admire you, Kathryn. I wish I had had the internal strength you show in your posts. Even though my agonizingly loooong grief is over, you make me feel better every time I read you.
I admire you, Kathryn. I wish I had had the internal strength you show in your posts. Even though my agonizingly loooong grief is over, you make me feel better every time I read you.
Oh please don't admire me! I'm just a pragmatic sort of person. I was born this way, so I can't take any credit for it.
Plus, I ugly cry sometimes.
But I am glad that you feel better when you read what I write. I think I may just be putting to words what many people are feeling.
I feel like I have a choice - live in agony and active grief every day and waste my life, or face it and push through it. I find when I do the latter, I am able to find joy and gratitude in every single day.
If I feel like burying my face in his clothes in the closet, I do it. If I feel like talking to him, I do it. If I feel like going through mementos of our life together, I do it. If I feel like crying after I get in the bed, I do it. What I have personally found is that now instead of any of those activities lasting for hours and putting me in a depressed mode all day or all evening, those things last for a few minutes, maybe 30 minutes tops. Usually just 5 to 15 minutes though. Then I feel like I got it out of my system. Now, I might do ALL those things in one day - but it's off and on throughout the day if that makes sense, so it's manageable.
And in between, I am finding the joy and peace. And I am so, so grateful that we had a life together, that sweet relationship, that happiness and appreciation with each other. Some people never have that and we had it for fifteen delightful years. He was a joy - every minute of every day - and I am not sure he even realized it. But I did. I was blessed.
I will also be the first to admit that having my eldest granddaughter around has helped tremendously. She's my main reason for decorating for the holidays and listening to Christmas music, for trying to keep myself healthy every day, and for the daily strength to keep on moving forward - to focus on someone else's needs and not just my own. It would be a lot more difficult if I was here by myself day in and day out. Not saying I couldn't do it, but it's easier with someone else around.
As always, Kathryn, you are an inspiration. I can't imagine anything more wholesome, more healing than the way you are handling your dear husband's death, the way you have handled your other losses as well.
And I hope and pray your elbow is healing well and sooner or later you'll have full use of your arm again.
As always, Kathryn, you are an inspiration. I can't imagine anything more wholesome, more healing than the way you are handling your dear husband's death, the way you have handled your other losses as well.
And I hope and pray your elbow is healing well and sooner or later you'll have full use of your arm again.
Thank you!
And yes, my elbow is healing very well. I have about 90 percent ROM and about 50 percent strength in it. I think that's great 7 weeks after I tore it up, and so does my doctor! In fact, he said "I wish everyone healed as well as you have, and you should write a book on how you did it!"
Well, my news for him is, as a trauma surgeon, he probably doesn't consider himself part of a team per se, but he is a part of my team, which also includes therapeutic massage, grief counseling, OT and PT exercises, rest/ice/elevation (not as much ice and elevation now but I still do it sometimes), and supplements from my general practitioner, based on my blood tests.
Here's the really crazy thing - and it can't be a coincidence, since we're talking about the supernatural here: My right arm injury and healing is following the exact same trajectory as my grief journey. Even down to my arm hurting more when it's cold and rainy and gray outside - I hurt more emotionally on days like that too. But even in the pain, I can see steady improvement on both fronts.
Not sure if I shared this but this is what happened to me about three days after I got home from the hospital. I was laying in the bed very early in the morning, around 5 am, and OMG I was hurting so much. My arm, my heart, everything was in such pain. I was in that dream state that we are often in just before waking up, and in that state, I had the most clear dream of my husband. It may sound crazy but I dreamed that all different nationalities of men were poking their heads into my bedroom, and though they were all different looking, they all had my husband's beautiful smile! Actually, I somehow knew that all of them were him, if that makes sense. Anyway, all they were doing was sticking their head in the doorway, grinning his grin, and giving me the thumbs' up gesture. I KNEW KNEW KNEW it was him, and he was telling me "You got this - you're going to be OK, and I know you are. I knew this was going to happen to you and I know you will be OK."
And then here is the other awesome thing: I woke up, and I felt something, someone with massive wings, come over to left side of my bed and wrap those wings around me. I could feel the feathers, I could SEE the feathers - they looked like huge eagle feathers. This entity didn't say anything, but that embrace was amazing, beautiful, and very comforting. My granddaughter was in the bed beside me, on my right side, and I whispered, "Hey, Honey, did you come over to my side of the bed and hug me or touch me?" I knew she hadn't, but I wanted to make sure, because it was SO INCREDIBLY REAL to me. She murmured, "No - I've been asleep."
I didn't feel like that was my husband - I felt like it was my guardian angel, and I'd only been aware of his presence once before, when I was passed out on the floor via accidental carbon monoxide poisoning (long story but it happened) and something, SOMEONE, said in the most terrible, urgent voice I've ever heard "WAKE UP. WAKE UP." The doctors told me afterward that once a person passes out from carbon monoxide poisoning, they simply don't wake back up, but I did. I didn't want to, but I couldn't ignore that voice. Anyway, I felt then that the voice was my guardian angel, and then I felt those wings and I believe that was also my guardian angel.
I had one of those dreams last night, where I felt like I was awake. Maybe I was. I "woke up" to the feeling of two hands tucking in the covers around my torso, and then felt someone in bed behind me. Turned around, no one there.
For about 5-10 years before my DH passed, it was very common for me to feel someone touching my legs while I was in bed. Like I was under the covers and the "toucher" was outside the covers. It did not feel scary at all. But when something similar happens in my dream, I'm very scared. Not sure why. I also would often feel someone beside me in the bed, but my DH had already gotten up. Since he passed, I rarely get those feelings any more.
When my dad died, we were not religious. Kind of thought eternal life was that they live on in your memory.
I had numerous things happen after my dad died that proved we do go on.My dad was a Delta 757 Capt, and we were very close. I was the youngest of 4 kids and the only girl. I was with my dad when he died of cancer.
About 3 mo after he died, I was driving my mom from hl to nh to help my mom move my GM into a home she bought for the 2 of them in nh.
While in a hotel the 2nd night on the rd, i had a really vivid dream of my dad standing on a driveway that curved to right, going up a hill where there was a cabin. Dad looked about 30 yrs old, and kept telling me he was OK. I kept saying 'but you're dead!" And he kept telling me "I'm ok!" He finally got mad at me insisting he was dead and not ok, and pointed his finger at me for emphasis, and said " verify the information...ask about the cabin and Sunny Villa".
And then he was gone, and i woke up. My mom got up and went to the bathroom, (it was about 5 am), and as she was going back to bed, i asked her, " mom. Does the cabin and sunny villa mean anything to you?" She was half asleep and said " I don't know, Linda...the only thing I can think of is that your dad and i used to vacation at some cabins called sunny villa cabins in nh when we were young, but that was before you were born"
I said ok, went to sleep and when she woke up, she asked what that was about. I told her i had a dream that dad was telling me he was ok, and asked if she remembered what the cabins looked like. She did, so i asked her to sit at one end of the room and draw out what she remembered, and i would draw out what i saw. When done, we compared them and they were exact mirror images. Same curved uphill driveway, same side entry porch steps, same window and door placement. But mirror images.
Then after i flew back to nm, my mom was moving my GM desk, and just emptying drawers into boxes, not going thru them due to time. She said she got an unbearable urge to go thru one drawer, and tried to talk herself out of it. She gave it, and there were a bunch of photos, and ONE postcard, from my grandmother's sister to my GM, of the Sunny Villa Cabin restaurant. Said on back, " had lunch here. Cute place, see you in a couple days." Postmarked 30 yrs to the day my mom found it. Only postcard in there, and not even a pretty one that people would save. To me it was like my dad was saying "see!" Confirming it was him in dream.
Had numerous other things that were similar, including flying to nh to be with my mom after my oldest brother died in aug 2 yrs after my dad, and i found out my mom would be alone on thanksgiving. My oldest brother used to be with her for that holiday, and i assumed my other brother who lived in nh with his wife would be with her but found out 2 days before that he was going out of town with wife. So i bought a plane ticket, paid cash and flew home thansgiving eve and spent tgiving with her, and flew back home the next day really early so i could be at work before noon.
When i got on plane they closed doors, but before pushback, a steward came to my seat and said Linda "x"( married name)?" I said yes, and he said, " your seats been changed" and handed me a new boarding pass, with my name on it, and handwritten on side, my current seat # circled. And new seat was for 1st class. I assumed mom got me an upgrade to say thanks for being there for her, and slept most of the flight. When i landed, i called mon and thanked her for upgrade, and she knew nothing about it. She thought maybe the delta staff recognized name, but i was using married name, not maiden name. Then she asked about credit card points, frequent flyer miles, etc, but i had paid cash. So she thought that was weird, and calked the chief pilot's secretary that was close friends of my parents, and told her, and she asked same questions, then said she would just check computer, because whenever a new boarding pass is issued they have to put why. She called my mom back shocked, and said there is no record of another boarding pass being issued...yet i have it. I started looking at it, and the handwritten seat # for my original seat looks just like my dad's writing. Plus, i never saw the steward, the entire flight.
Wow. Not just to your post but to several others. And I'm just on page 1. This is really good stuff.
I haven't gotten a visit, I would love to, but all happens in God's time, not ours. I'll pick up this thread tomorrow.
I lost my estranged husband the day after Thanksgiving, to Covid. He wanted, and was ready, to "go". As a Christian married to a "believer in a higher power", I would minister to him when we communicated, quoting scripture meant for him and sending devotionals that "fit" him. I had one dream of him a couple years ago, I was on a cliff top looking down into a quarry. He pulled up in a pick-up to a gas pump and I hollered out to him. He looked up, I don't remember if he waved or not, got back in the truck and drove away, becoming smaller and smaller in the distance. I then woke up from that dream with it in my mind to this day.
The other night I dreamt I was standing below a loft looking up at my husband's profile while he was sitting in a chair, throne? He was wearing the exact same shirt he was wearing the last time I saw him. (I saw the colors and the pattern). He turned his head and looked down at me, I said "why didn't you tell me you had covid"? and he turned back and dropped his chin to his chest. He looked up again and I woke up from this dream.
I fully believe he has gone to be with the Lord and that I will meet him again in a place without pain or sorrow. He is finally at peace in his life.
My wife's Christmas cactus is blooming like I've never seen it bloom before. Is that a sign?
As for coins. I never heard that one but this is a new world for me. I came across two dimes on the counter a week or so ago, after reading here about a coin appearing as a sign. That I don't know, the cactus I DO know is alive and thriving.
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