I have met a few here, just wondered how many there might be.

And I have a question....why does someone think losing a pet or a
grandparent etc equate to "know how you feel" ?????

I know pain is pain but.....it is NOT the same thing.

i know huh. thats kinda messed up.

Double widower, here...

Wow bibby I'm sorry to know about that. I have met several in an online
chat I used to go to that were widowed twice. for ya

Same here.. I've lost my fiance',
and my ex husband... my Children's Dad...

People have said the most insensitive (off the wall) things to me..You
wouldn't believe it...It seems that some people think they have to tell
you a story, too...yo compare to it, or something...when some love and
compassion will suffice...

I'm not a widow, but I learned that the pain when losing a spouse is far
different from losing anyone else, I learned from watching my Dad after
my Momma passed on. It is not easy to comfort someone who has lost a
spouse if you haven't lost one yourself...

(((((Rapunzel)))) I'm so sorry. In the widowed community we refer to
them as DGI's..(don't get it)

I want to say please don't misunderstand me. Some people are raised by
their grandparents therefore they look at theirs as parents. Just by
saying "I lost my grandparent" does not infer how close they were to
that person. They might have been extremely close.

I lost a dog we had when my husband was living. She in fact, out lived
him. It was soooo hard to lose her, as she was "his" originally and felt
like I was losing more of him. But....again, not the same thing.

Since my husband died 8 yrs ago next month, I have lost both parents.
Losing my mother on Valentines day ( my late husband's birthday ) was
almost more than I could stand. We were very close. Yet....HE was my
life partner. I guess it boils down to a different kind of love????

I am at almost 8 yrs now, and I don't pine away for my husband like I
did in the early years. I do hate so much what happened and that he had
to go so early in his life, and that this world didn't get to have him
longer. Time does good things for the soul I guess.

Thank you for your input ((((CCP)))) and I'm sorry for the loss of your
mom.

I am so sorry for your losses, too...Auburn girl...

I am still fortunate to have both of my parents...
I know it is inevitable, but one day,
I'm going to have to deal with losing each one of them
and hopefully not my only sibling, too soon, he has Hep C...

There is not a whole lot we can do to prepare for the loss
of our loved ones...except to value the people in our lives, realizing
that life here on earth is temporary...

So we let them know we love them while we have them,
and not have any regrets after they are gone....

And we better live each moment like it could be our very last...cause no
one knows when that day will arrive..
And it could be today...

It hurts watching my children go through life without an Earthly Dad...
I've lost a lot of family members
and good friends lately to death...

"They" say what doesn't kill us makes us stronger...
Who is they???
"They" also say "It is better to have loved,
than to never have loved at all..."
At first...none of those sayings were cutting it for me...

But, after quite a few years now,
I can look back and be thankful for what I had,
knowing that some people never ever get to experience
true love in their lives.

If it were not for my faith in God & in eternal life,
I would most likely be a forever basket case, I have no doubt.

I realize even more that we really cannot determine how deep some one
else grieves over the loss of someone or something..
Pain is pain...
So, we need to be sensitive and as open hearted as possible to be able
to understand and comfort one another...
Thanks for your time... Blessings

I agree with you!!!

Nope you can't prepare...even when someone has cancer and you know it's
coming....you have what is called anticipatory grief. Sorry, that is not
the same thing as when they are actually gone...when you can't lay eyes
on them any more. You are right. Each day is to be cherished.

Hi Auburn Girl,

I was trying to leave you a personal message,
but your filter keeps me out, I am over your age 50 limit...

I just wanted to say that my heart goes out to you...
Being 35 and losing your dear husband of 12 years, at only 37, the man
you had been with and married to since you were 23, or 22... must be so
crazy and so difficult...
And lung cancer, too...what a way to go,...Oh, you poor baby... That's
so devastating...
It just takes the very wind from your sail...doesn't it?
How can anybody ever be the same???

I was 43 when my fiance' Richie fell from the top of the load of lumber
several pallets up, on the back of a flatbed semi truck as he was taking
the tarps off his load of lumber...
in Oregon, a week before Christmas 1996.

He took the whole fall with his head and suffered such brain damage and
they had to put him on life support..

He was a bull of a man, put others half his years to shame with his
strength and endurance...
It was something that you never would think would or could happen
...especially to this brave, (non stop go)...energizer
batteried....fearless man...

He progressed well, though, to the neurologists amazement,
and then a freak blood clot burst in his ankle and took him almost
immediately....on January 3rd, 1997...
just as we had gotten news that he was going to be transferred to Kaiser
hospital in Sacramento...

I suffered a lot of grief and sorrow for so long...
I became a shell of the woman I once was....
I couldn't shake the pain...People would tell me I needed to move on,
when the ground hadn't even settled on his gravesite..
Or, "I know what you are going through, I lost my dog"...

So, then, that's when you retreat into your own little world
and realize that you had a personal relationship with this person and
that no one can really understand
and no one else was privy to the bond of love...So, you learn to guard
your feelings and internalize a lot of stuff.

Then four years after Richie died, my children's Dad, the husband of my
youth, who had suffered from diabetes from age 24, suffered a massive
stroke... again during Christmas...
This time on Christmas day 2000...
he passed away on January 10, 2001..

I am a widow for the last 8 years!!
and still love him!!

I'm so sorry for you too, Morena...

With love,

I lost my other half in '93 and it was ruff...

He will allways be in my heart!

Sometimes people want to comfort you and they just don't know

how... I believe the hardest deaths I have had to servive

through were My Mom, my other half, and a unborn child.

At one point in everyone's live's they will loose someone.

Some consider thier pet's to be family too and it does- hit

them very hard to loose thier beloved pet.

I know that losing a pet is very difficult..

I don't mean to come across as being insensitive...

I had a cat who died in a house fire
when I was about 11, and it was so hard to take.

I just can't imagine relating that
to the loss of a person, though.

But, if a pet is all you have...well, then, I guess so.

I am sorry about all of your losses..

I think losing a child has got to be the worst, though..And I'm not
looking forward to the time
when the Good Lord calls my folks or my Brother home...

God bless you all, and may the pain you experience today, somehow,
someday be replaced with peace & happiness...

Lost my wife May 3 2005 to death. It was sure different than divorce to
me. I was divorced twice to the same person before that. She divorced me
first then I divorced her. The first divorce wasn't successful but
fortunately the second divorce was.