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I love my wife. My wife is dead (1946)

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Re: I love my wife. My wife is dead (1946)

#101

Post by swyx »

strenholme wrote: post #10

My wife died 10 years ago, so I understand that pain. Dealing with death is never easy. The thing I miss most about my wife is the depth of emotional connection; she knew everything about me being very deeply in love with me and everything I did really mattered to her. It has taken me nearly 10 years to build a network of friends who can give me comparable levels of socialization and attention; I have about two dozen…

> It has taken me nearly 10 years to build a network of friends who can give me comparable levels of socialization and attention;

building close friends as an adult is a known Hard Problem when everyone has their own lives. any big insights or breakthroughs you can share for the rest of us?

Re: I love my wife. My wife is dead (1946)

#102

Post by swyx »

dang wrote: post #54
patcon wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

REPOSTED from deleted top level comment. @dang I'm seeing that it was posted 7 months ago: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37914958 I appreciate the rules, but am very disappointed. There are some incredibly moving comments in here. I rarely feel as connected to the hacker news community as when reading these comments. The fact that it was erased off the front page for some rigid application of the rules, that l…

Ok, I've turned off the dupe marker on this one.

thank you dang. this is a special topic and deserved the exception

Re: I love my wife. My wife is dead (1946)

#103

Post by kelnos »

jb1991 wrote: post #6

I did not know Feynman was responsible for finding the cause of the Challenger explosion. That's remarkable on top of everything else he did.

To add to what others said, I believe his biggest contribution to the Challenger investigation (beyond his insight and damning conclusions) was that he refused to censor himself and his report for political or public-relations reasons. IIRC he said if he weren't allowed to publish his part of the report in the way he wanted, the commission was to remove his name from the report entirely, because he didn't want to be associated with a report that pulled punches.

Re: I love my wife. My wife is dead (1946)

#104

Post by andrewjf »

swyx wrote: post #100
nequo wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s difficult when you want to live three lives in one human lifetime, and academia is one of those careers where that might happen to you.

> academia is one of those careers where that might happen to you why? i dont follow. is academia so special there?

I imagine it's because of the lure of pure-research and self-actualization and pursuing an area of study with almost no limitations. No idea if this is true or not, but this is how I idealize academia.

Opposed to "industry" -- where you're under constant pressure to figure out why some random docker container pull fails or mutating web hook won't let your pod be deleted. It's just not fun or meaningful. It's a slog and the needless complexity is doing nothing but increasing.

Re: I love my wife. My wife is dead (1946)

#105

Post by [deleted] »

swyx wrote: post #100
nequo wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s difficult when you want to live three lives in one human lifetime, and academia is one of those careers where that might happen to you.

> academia is one of those careers where that might happen to you why? i dont follow. is academia so special there?

[deleted]

Re: I love my wife. My wife is dead (1946)

#106

Post by [deleted] »

andrewjf wrote: post #104
swyx wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> academia is one of those careers where that might happen to you why? i dont follow. is academia so special there?

I imagine it's because of the lure of pure-research and self-actualization and pursuing an area of study with almost no limitations. No idea if this is true or not, but this is how I idealize academia. Opposed to "industry" -- where you're under constant pressure to figure out why some random docker container pull fails or mutating web hook won't let your pod be deleted. It's just not fun or meaningful. It's a slog a…

[deleted]

Re: I love my wife. My wife is dead (1946)

#107

Post by Aeolun »

jhbadger wrote: post #66
tasuki wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I always felt a sense of betrayal when someone sought a new partner after their spouse dies. Why?

right? I mean even the traditional marriage vows (which given the possibility of divorce aren't really to be taken literally) include the phrase "until death do us part", implying that you are free to find somebody else once your partner has died.

I think remaining unmarried after a death is mostly a function of the amount of effort it takes to build that connection again. For some it may seem preferable to keep true to a memory.

Re: I love my wife. My wife is dead (1946)

#108

Post by f1refly »

redblacktree wrote: post #71
_yb2s wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s incredible that they are so out of touch they see healthy introspection, and love as mental illness. This reminds me of when I had an actual bacterial infection, couldn’t get my Dr to prescribe antibiotics for it, so I got some on my own and they worked. When I pulled my medical records I saw in my chart something like “inappropriate off label use of prescription medications.”

How did you pull your medical records?

I think you can just ask your doctor for them? Why would someone deny you your own medical records?

Re: I love my wife. My wife is dead (1946)

#109

Post by jhbadger »

Aeolun wrote: post #107
jhbadger wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

right? I mean even the traditional marriage vows (which given the possibility of divorce aren't really to be taken literally) include the phrase "until death do us part", implying that you are free to find somebody else once your partner has died.

I think remaining unmarried after a death is mostly a function of the amount of effort it takes to build that connection again. For some it may seem preferable to keep true to a memory.

Oh, absolutely. I've never been married, but after my SO died, it was over a decade before I started dating again because I absolutely hate that part of starting a relationship.

Re: I love my wife. My wife is dead (1946)

#110

Post by marttt »

sharadov wrote: post #72
strenholme wrote: post #10

My wife died 10 years ago, so I understand that pain. Dealing with death is never easy. The thing I miss most about my wife is the depth of emotional connection; she knew everything about me being very deeply in love with me and everything I did really mattered to her. It has taken me nearly 10 years to build a network of friends who can give me comparable levels of socialization and attention; I have about two dozen…

I am so happy that you were able to build that emotional connection. My dad is terminally ill and often I think about what I will miss most when he is no more. And I realized it would be the depth of emotional connection - a person who knows you in and out and unconditionally loves you. I try to steel myself about the coming eventuality, but all I know is it's going to be a deep abyss and it will take everything to c…

I lost my dad 14 years ago. I hope you get to have as much of the remaining time together as possible.

What's odd is that I still don't feel the need to look at photos of him. Like, no need whatsoever. I don't have a photo of my late dad on the wall, even though we had a truly excellent father-son relationship with a lot of warmth. The true memory of him resides in my head; and what's more, I notice myself replicating his exact body language at times. Explicitly realizing this always feels funny, almost like I want to express gratitude to him for "inheriting" those movements to me :). I think the bonds still hold strong, and they forever will, but, oddly, there's no need whatsoever to visualize it with a photo. It's simply much deeper than that.

On another side, I often miss the ability to ask my dad "factual", practical questions. E.g. -- because he was a construction engineer -- how to do some specific thing in grandpa's house renovations; how to position a beam, etc. During the first months after his death, this was a common recurring thought: I'm stuck while building something, but "hey, I'll just ask dad tomorrow how to do it right; yeah, I'll just call him" -- following by "oh, I forgot I can't". After this, there was always an interesting feeling of emptiness or standstill -- not sadness, just a really deep understanding that, no matter what, life moves on. And I still get to live mine. I actually came to enjoy those moments of emptiness.

Thanks for sharing your story, it is very moving. Grief will have different stages; to me, it has mostly been really deep introspection. Take it easy, mate.

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