Upcoming days and weeks

[Tanzi]

Yes, I can't imagine they would be scared.

 

I doubt the argument would still be having an affect on the children because that would have been forgotten in the events that happened afterwards ... and I doubt they would link the argument to what happened either. It is most likely the ex just saying this.

[KennyK]

Likely so. He's also telling people she was moving with him and the kids to Virginia. And I know that's not true.

[KennyK]

Anyway, to update where I'm at... Things were going in a loop for a while, until I came up with that theory. After that it was a "well what next?" Feeling. I still have got to share it with their family yet. I was supposed to come over to help them get into her phone. But I haven't heard anything. Probably for the better right now. It turns out my dog is very near death. So I've been dealing with that the last couple days. It's a weird feeling, I think I'm already burnt out, but I still feel sad at the same time too.

[KennyK]

Well I'm nowhere near done. The toxicology hasn't even come back, and I'm not even sure if ill get to see it. But I have a theory I can live with. Though I guess if she broke her arms or tried to brace herself that would make the evidence stronger for my theory. Just another thing ill eventually have to ask.

 

But all that aside I don't feel like there's a whole lot left for me on these online sites. So hopefully it will help someone that just recently had a loss, but if you don't feel like reading this while thread, here are some of the things I learned.

 

You'll go through a shock/numb phase. It may not seem real and you might not even cry. That's ok, it does not reflect your feelings for the person.

 

MANY people will try to give you advice early on. This is a good time to seek opinions and answers from others, but try to filter out the nonsense.

 

People with similar losses will have similar stories about grief early on. They can help to an extent. But remember, every loss is different. After a few weeks you will be carving out your own unique path and it will be harder to relate to these people. The same person that was trying to help you may end up getting frustrated because you aren't grieving the way they think is best. This isn't anyone's fault, you just have to be aware of it.

 

Speaking of frustration, even good friends may become distant. They will offer to talk or listen early on, but it's natural for anyone to become "burnt out" over time. Don't get too upset. It's a superhuman task to help anyone through this process start to finish. Try to make an effort to get out with those friends when you need a break. And yes, it will feel strange.

 

You will become a new person whether you want to or not. You likely already are. Again, this is not a reflection on how you feel about the person you lost.

 

It's important to get counseling as soon as you can. It's freeing to be able to vent and complain without repercussions.

[Tanzi]

Who's getting frustrated with you?

[KennyK]

Not you! But other places also have forums for grief, and specific types. It starts off all well and good. But after a while people start pushing what "worked" for them.

 

For example, I had decided to post on a spirituality/after death contact forum on the same site asking why some people feel such a presence, but I felt nothing. I had the sane individual follow me over there just to write me that "most of us" don't feel any sort of presence or see signs. While it may or may not be true, I wasn't seeking his opinion.

 

Another person I had exchanged a few messages over there suddenly decided I was "obsessing" over finding out as many facts as I could about my girlfriends death. I tried to explain my situation was different, that I didn't get any closure and information is still slowly coming in. And when I came up with my latest theory, I said it felt sad because now there's nothing left.

 

I guess that really set her off as this was her response "

Like all of us on this site we have nothing left. Obsessing on this subject is not going to bring her back. We all lost someone extremely important in our lives and we all deal with it diffrently but because I care I will tell you when you are crossing the line towards unhealthy and you are getting there.How do you think I felt when my 24 year old husband died in my arms? Or how fitgals 30 year old fiance was killed in front of her own eyes? And with stories so tragic I can go on. I've talked to many even those who have lost their partners to suicide and we all agree that time trains you to deal with this and at times even understand. your obsession with trying to understand this is eventually going to kill you I don't think she wants that for you."

 

I said that many people DO have something left, kids. And that I would have much rather have been there when my girlfriend passed. Then I'd know what happened and I wouldn't be left playing detective and wishing I said I love you one more time. It's just not fair to compare situations and say you're obsessing because I didn't handle it that way.

 

Well this went off into a deeper rage for her. "You think its easy to compare the loss of my daughters father? She is 7 months old and will never meet him my son is three and goes to bed crying every day because he doesnt have his dad! I'm sorry but you are way off! The people that are here that have children suffer just as much as you do. And honestly what you are demonstrating here is selfishness and lack of humanity because we are all suffering and some of us have to carry one hell of a load having to tell our kids and raise them without their dad or mom we barely have timne to think of our own suffering! And on top of all that I haven't compared I simply told you what some of us have gone thru and what we have learned on this road. So since you want to come out with this extremely unsensitive act of comparing your loss to ours you can go ahead and talk to someone else about your feelings! We are all here to help each other and listen to each other not minimize other peoples losses! And I will most certainly not let a stranger minimize the feelings of my children nor myself."

 

Now I never said it was easy raising kids in that manner, but I don't believe they would trade the option of having those kids for not having them. I certainly wish I had one with my girlfriend.

 

Anyway, these are examples of what seems to be fairly common in grief support groups. It's helpful until you reach a point where you branch off into your own path. And you should branch of. Everyone grieving has their own issues, it's like the blind leading the blind after a while.

[Tanzi]

Nooo, I didn't think you meant me (well I was hoping anyway). I was just wondering what other help you were getting or seeking.

 

Anyway, I should imagine that tempers will flare on a site where there is so much grief but in all honesty, whatever the circumstances surrounding each loss, the loss is the same for each of you. I gather that she thought you were implying that you had suffered more of a loss because you didn't have children or that you weren't there when it happened (as it seems one of the other posters was). You weren't implying that were you?

 

So, any news on the custody front?

[KennyK]

I wasn't implying my loss is any more or less than anyone else's. what I was implying that is was silly to say there's nothing left when you still have kids. Obviously there ARE remnants of that relationship.

 

I agree the loss itself is the same, but it's the circumstances that lead to different paths. Some may choose to believe they will never see their loved one again, and that is a far different path than someone that hopes to. The initial form of grief is shared, but the journey is different. And that causes friction.

 

I can see why to an extent. I see a new thread pop up saying "I'm lost" I don't know how to go on". And in another week you'll see another one and so on. Those are the feelings that anyone that experiences a loss can relate to. They are the "easiest" to try to give comfort to because of a shared experience.

 

But a couple months into it, you suddenly can't relate your experience as much because you've started searching or trying to figure out what it important to you. And those things may seem trivial to others.

 

The custody battle looks like it will go to the father. The grandparents hired a guardian ad lidium? To keep an eye on things. They are fairly confident he will screw up. He relies on his elderly mother (who was a bad mother in her own right) to watch them a lot of the time.

 

So the least the grandparents are hoping for is visitation. They haven't talked to the kids in 6 or 7 weeks now. The most they're hoping for is the ex is overwhelmed.

 

I did come accross emails she sent to a women's shelter she stayed at mentioning documents and fear for the safety of herself and her kids. But the majority of the needed files are on her computer desktop and I can't remember the password to log on to her admin name. I was right there when she made it too.

[Tanzi]

Maybe the path that you are choosing to take is not one most people can relate to. From my point of view - and of course this is only my POV, I am not the one travelling this path, YOU are, and it therefore is your choice, but anyways - from my point of view, I think that you need to be kinder to yourself and not give yourself either this path or that path to have to take and set yourself on that one journey. You don't really need to force yourself to make any kind of decision and, anyway, the path you may set yourself on now may be a different one to the the one you want to take later on. You really don't have to set yourself on any specific path, with any specific destination. Life itself is a journey ... but with many different twists and turns and forks in the road and you need to just travel along, one day at a time to see where your own journey naturally brings you.

 

I think it is terrible that her parents haven't seen or even spoken to the grandparents in 6 weeks or so. There is absolutely no need for their father to take the grandparents away from them too.

 

Are you going to show these emails to anyone?

[KennyK]

Yes They've seen just about everything in there. I plan ahead, it's just how my mind works. The first step was to figure out how she really felt for me. Now the answer to that is she believed me to be the one for her. The next step is what to do knowing that.

[Tanzi]

But didnt you know how she really felt about you? You said she was the true love of your life, so wouldn't you have known that? Now you're saying you have to make a choice based on knowing that. I do think you are putting unnecessary burdens on yourself. You're asking yourself questions that are unanswerable or or unsolvable.

 

At this moment in time you don't have to do anything based on the knowledge that she loved you. It is something you will always know and cherish ...now you just need to focus on each day as it comes. If you want to plan ahead, plan fishing trips with your friends or doing activities. Give yourself things to focus on. You don't need to make life changing decisions such as deciding to be alone for the rest of your life based on your spiritual belief.

 

You have many, many years ahead of you and over time you will start to feel differently. Just allow yourself to grieve and to come to terms with what has happened. Then let life unravel itself. You need some time out at the moment buf Im sure there will come a time when youre ready to start embracing all aspects of your life again .... you just dont need to be focussng on that. Take it easy on yourself.

[Tanzi]

I'm not trying to suggest that getting over your loss is as easy as planning a fishing trip. What I'm trying to say is maybe it is a good idea to ease yourself back into some kind of normality and start focusing on the usual things you would have done instead of deciding which path you have to take.

 

Overall you have to do what you feel comfortable with .... but this is something you've been struggling with since the beginning and I don't think it's something you need to be facing .... but maybe that's because I don't understand it.

[KennyK]

I could wait, but time dulls everything. I don't want to make what I feel is an important decision with dulled senses.

 

I'm not saying its between finding some woman or being alone for the rest of my life either. It's about reconciling finding someone, but also doing what I can to feel l that I'm putting myself in the best position to be with her again should that be an option.

[Tanzi]

I could wait, but time dulls everything. I don't want to make what I feel is an important decision with dulled senses.

 

I'm not saying its between finding some woman or being alone for the rest of my life either. It's about reconciling finding someone, but also doing what I can to feel l that I'm putting myself in the best position to be with her again should that be an option.

 

I guess this is an area that I can't relate to. For me it is very simple - I would not see that being together again was an option but maybe that is because I am not a spiritual person and I do not believe that there is any evidence of an afterlife. Anyone who has strong views on this may have very different opinions to me but I do understand the need to have a little bit of hope. Nevertheless, I find it hard to see how you would be ready to be with someone else if your main focus was still being with your girlfriend in the afterlife. It is likely that if and when you do meet and fall in love with someone your focus will change.

 

But I guess we've been through all of this and all that said, I think it is too soon for you to be thinking about meeting someone else which is why it is a very fuzzy area.

[KennyK]

I didn't put a whole lot of stock in any afterlife either until all this. But given the choice to believe she's completely gone, and believing there is at least some hope of seeing her again, it's an easy choice.

 

My entire focus wouldn't be on seeing my girlfriend after all this. I mean if you think about it now, marriage is just a contract. "Til death do us part". Plenty of people such as yourself don't think there's anything, why would they care what if my hopes for an afterlife included them or not?

 

It is too soon, but I am meticulous. Like I've said many times, I'm going to be very careful in any decision making or actions in general as to not cost myself any options I may have.

[Tanzi]

I didn't put a whole lot of stock in any afterlife either until all this. But given the choice to believe she's completely gone, and believing there is at least some hope of seeing her again, it's an easy choice.

 

That I guess I can relate to. In the sense that I understand that hope plays an important part in a lot of losses.

[KennyK]

Without getting too deep, it's similar to trying to think of our existence "pre-birth". It's next to impossible to contemplate the idea of who it what we were before all that, but obviously something, whether it be energy, thought, whatever you want to say it is, came together and here we are. Our "entire being" wasn't just poofed into existence. It's like trying to figure out how you ended up in this body and mind instead of someone else.

 

What does it mean compared to an afterlife? I have no idea. It's just something interesting to think about.

[Tanzi]

Without getting too deep, it's similar to trying to think of our existence "pre-birth". It's next to impossible to contemplate the idea of who it what we were before all that, but obviously something, whether it be energy, thought, whatever you want to say it is, came together and here we are. Our "entire being" wasn't just poofed into existence. It's like trying to figure out how you ended up in this body and mind instead of someone else.

 

What does it mean compared to an afterlife? I have no idea. It's just something interesting to think about.

 

It's odd that you say that. Many times I have wondered if I would exist in another body in the future - as in would my mind exist in another body.

 

But these thoughts, like wondering how space could never end, usually end up freaking me out so I have to stop thinking about them!

[KennyK]

If I am who Ivan purely as a result of genetic material, think of the odds. Everything that would have to happen from the beginning of the universe until the right combination of genetic material gets together just for me to exist the exact way I am. Pretty infinitesimal.

[Tanzi]

If I am who Ivan purely as a result of genetic material, think of the odds. Everything that would have to happen from the beginning of the universe until the right combination of genetic material gets together just for me to exist the exact way I am. Pretty infinitesimal.

 

That makes the chances of any one of us even to exist very slim!

[KennyK]

So either we should be wayyyyy more appreciative of life, or there is some kind of order or manipulation to things. Either way has positives and negatives.

 

But back on point, if there is an afterlife, and it has love in it, it ought to have romantic love as well. That's one of the best kinds. Now, I also hope there isn't a whole legion of spurned lovers in limbo because their spouse remarried... But perhaps when you get there, you want everyone to be as happy as possible, even if that romance isn't with you.

[Tanzi]

Now, I also hope there isn't a whole legion of spurned lovers in limbo because their spouse remarried... But perhaps when you get there, you want everyone to be as happy as possible, even if that romance isn't with you.

 

That would be the grey area for me, as I said before, this actually came up some time after my Grandad's second wife died (after my grandad). The daughter of his second wife said to my mum "my mum and your dad can be together again no". My mum told me this and said "but I want my mum and my dad to be together again". I didn't really have an answer. If there is an afterlife, it would have to be one that balanced itself out somehow and everyone was happy ... as to how that would work I really couldn't say!

[KennyK]

It depends if it would be a paradise or just another "life". Part of me thinks this life isn't fair, why would another one suddenly be that way?