Life 9 months after losing my spouse

You do what feels right for you, when the time feels right.

I've had lots of pictures printed, to put in a big picture frame...... not done it.

You're not obsessing, your grieving.

Take time for you xx

Dear Shebelieves,

I am so sorry for your loss and thanks for sharing this writing which has been a comfort to me - having lost my 53 year dancer husband almost the same length of time - eight months ago. We had been married almost thirty years.

Like you we spent those tough months together, almost just the two of us. I understand those feelings of doubt—wondering if I could have done more, or done things differently. But I remind myself, as I hope you can too, that we were there. We lived through those precious, fleeting moments together, however imperfect, with our beloveds and love at the centre of it all.

You have created a lot of foundations for yourself now even if it has meant you did not get time to slow down. It was your way of processing this and you will slow down when you need to too, just articulating this need is lovely.

I’ve found some solace in recent weeks about thinking about painting my husband, though I haven’t painted since school. So scrapbooking sounds a lovely way of thinking about and honoring the love you shared. I think anything tactile with our hands and taking us out of our heads is good. And these creative projects are definitely slow and frustrating. 

It is a nice time of year now with its Autumn colours and long dark evenings for films so hoping you get lots of rest, sleep and time for you.

Florence xx

Dear shebelieves,

I can totally relate to your post. I also lost my husband to GMB 13 months ago. He survived 16 months post diagnosis. His diagnosis came as a total shock. My husband fought to stay but changed before my eyes. We made memories in that time but it was a tough time and like you I will always question did I do enough for him. 

I too have struggled to grieve. I've kept busy with work and life. However it's finally caught up with me and I've fallen apart these past few weeks. The recent anniversary of his funeral was one of my darkest days since he passed. 

I've been very angry about the unfairness of life and other people's lives moving on and I'm stuck in this awful place. I have recently started counselling where I feel i can offload but no amount of talking can bring back our loved ones.

I have a good support network but it's just not enough. I miss my husband everyday and the future just looks so empty. 

This is a good place to share and we realise all our feelings are normal. 

Take care.

My beautiful kind darling wanted to make videos for me. 
He wanted to do everyday things that he knew I might forget. 
Like how to change the time on our chiming clock. How to change the batteries in the tado radiators. 
We filmed him mowing the lawn and raking the leaves.

Such a lovely idea.

That is until I watched them back and all I see is my vibrant happy husband getting slower and weaker in each one. 
His voice getting hoarser and breathing harder. 
His face getting puffier. 
His life being drained.

It’s bloody unbearable. 
I want to delete them. 
But no way am I going to loose those last moments of him alive.

We got 4 weeks after being told his cancer was aggressively back and spread with speed. 
We thought we had 3 to 6 months.

The last video is from our Blink doorbell of us leaving to go for what was supposed to be his 1st chemo to extend his life. 
It shows him barely able to walk without staggering. Face and neck bloated. Terrible breathing.

Looking back, should I have made him stay home? 
But then would he have died at home? 
Probably. 
It’s clear to me know that he was in his final hours, just wasn’t at the time.

Ive found some memory cards from an old camera and it has some holiday pictures from our 2005 trip to Thailand. 
I’ve printed out all the pictures of him and us. 
I’ve started a photo album. Not just on computer, but a proper album. 
I think this will help me.

Sorry, long post again going off topic.

Warm hugs to all xx

Dear Shebelieves, thank you so much for your heartfelt, eloquent post that puts into words so much that I’m feeling too. My husband died on the 17th of June almost a year on from his terminal diagnosis that came out of the blue.
All I can say is that, having always kept a diary/journal, it was something that I continued all through his illness and, alongside this forum, it helped keep me sane. In the first month after he died I was completely numb; unable to write a word, (and I am still unable to read back all that I wrote during that time.)  I have recently started writing again and also collating images of him, us and others he felt close to at various points in his life.

If you think it would help you or give you pleasure, I absolutely would continue with your scrapbooking; it may make you cry whilst your doing it, but speaking for myself, it brought me comfort and helped make sense of what has happened.

Sending you a big hug xxx

Sometimes changes in life are life-changing.  When I became a parent, there was a steep learning curve - how to look after baby, lack of sleep, feeding, make a routine, etc.  The beginning of my children's lives were an exciting challenge, filled with joy, humor and so much to look forward to.  Cancer was another one of life's steep learning curves but unfortunately we knew from day one that the cancer was terminal.  It heralded the end of my husband's life.  Again, lack of sleep, a new routine of appointments, medication and treatment, etc.  It is very hard to let go of your life partner/soul mate - to accept you're really losing them.  I always saw strength in him, even though I couldn't deny he was getting weaker.   

When I take a minute to evaluate life, I still feel that much of what happened since the cancer diagnosis has been surreal.  How did we even do it?  We had NO CHOICE - we had to just get on with it.  I am still trying to make sense of what happened, and how everything fits together.  Now, I am a rainbow of emotions - grateful for my husband and the time we shared together - heartbroken that he can't be with me now - angry about the unfairness of the disease but also about how complicated everything becomes.  Annoyed that anyone else ever had a similar experience to ours - it is so unfair.  Cautious when thinking about the future. 

I will give scrap-booking a try and remind myself that where I am is where I should be.  I will support campaigns for better care for terminally ill people and their families and for brain tumor research. 

Thanks everyone for your encouragement and understanding.

Hello. I really do understand what you say about the unbearable pain of seeing your husband decline in your videos. My husband told virtually no one in his wider acquaintance that he was dying. He had an Instagram account and regularly posted happy or silly pictures of him/us. He was insistent that no one should be able to see his stick, nor the wheelchair in the photos.

For me now, at a distance, I can’t believe how he diminished in front of me and how it should have been glaringly obvious to me that, on the morning of the day he died, it was going to happen. But I could not see it. And I did not know. And I could not believe it when it happened.

Sending another big hug xx

Hi Shebelieves. 

I have just read your post and most of it mirrors what I have gone through and still going through. I lost my husband to bowel cancer last June (2023) he fought it for almost two years at one time going into remission in January 2022 when he got his tumour cut out and was told they got it all. Five months later however, after a follow-up appointment with his surgeon he had bloods taken and it showed his cancer markers had risen and a further CT scan confirmed the cancer had come back. He was put back on chemotherapy but it made him very ill to the extent that it caused him kidney damage and then had to be withdrawn completely. He further went on to contract 4 bouts of sepsis and it was on the 4th one along with his advancing cancer which took him. I like yourself could not cry for him after he passed but done a fair share of it when he was going through his treatments. It's just in the last couple of months it has began to hit and I have little outbursts of crying but after it always feel that bit better and its as though it is something I have been waiting for to happen and it's like a relief and a release that its finally happening. When he was in his final days I became a little bit desperate in that I didn't want to be here. It was like well if he isn't going to be here then neither do I but luckily that's as far as it got only thinking about it. I had the incentive to reach out to different sources including coming here to MacMillan and I was made to see that I do have things worth being here for. I have my son and his partner and my little granddaughter and I have an older sister who has learning and mental health issues who relies on me for a lot of things. She lives not far from me in sheltered acommodation and is within walking distance from where I am. She lives independently but to an extent where there are some things she may not be able to do on her own. She also has just come through a cancer operation. After my husband passed two months later she got news that she had bowel cancer too but her tumour was very small and they were able to take her in and cut it out without the need for post chemo or radiotherapy. My future daughter-in-law (my son's partner) lost her mother to cancer also this year back in April. They are getting married in February next year so they both will have a parent who won't be present at their wedding. My little granddaughter starts school next year also this was something my husband wanted to be here to see but sadly not to be. 

It is the emptiness I feel. You could try to fill your day with things to do but you still just feel empty. Then sometimes you feel invisible. Everyone is just carrying on with their lives and I have found you realise you don't know what or who you are anymore where you were once part of a couple you no longer are so you just class yourself as a `singleton` and suddenly realise you're a widow. 

I feel I have moved on be it very slightly and slowly but still feel I have a way to go. Some days I still can't comprehend he is gone and it still feels so surreal at times. I've no one to laugh with and share things with now and if something happens I know he would have an opinion on or laugh at he's not here to do it. You're not alone with this and we all get what you will be going through. Please when you need to just keep coming on here when you feel you need a good old rant about something. My best wishes to you moving forward. Take Care. 

Vicky x

Hello Vicky,

Very sorry for your loss of your husband. I lost my husband in February this year after a 4 month illness but in July 2023 I also lost my best friend who died suddenly from a heartattack. He was 60 and we had been out together for drinks the night before untril midnight. He died suddenly and unexpectedly the next day in his hotel bathroom. Neither him or my husband had any relatives in the UK. I had probably spoken to my best friend every day for about thirty years so he was a huge rock in my life. I was still grieving for him - my best friend .. I had organised his funeral and was dealing with his estate when my husband suddenly took ill in October.

My husband would have died suddenly too from the pneumonia caused by his cancer but collapsed in a tube station - in a very public place opposite a top hospital - with first aid staff around and an ambulance was called and after several times unconscious he was brought back to life. It was one blessing to at least have four months with him but he had arrived in hospital straight from performing so this was a very young at heart, agile and physically fit person - almost 6 years younger than me.

I'm glad to hear you feel you are moving a little forward. You have your son and granddaughter and sister and soon to be daughter-in-law. I have a son and a daughter in their 20s living close by me too.

Off course our world's feel so empty losing these beautiful men who loved us so much and whose souls ebbed and flowed with our own. Love transcends all the deadness of the world and these times are so depressing anyway at the moment. Also I just never even knew how so very deeply I loved my husband but that is the nature of us and life. Life itself requires a lot of work and busyiness - my husband and I were talking and joking too about all sorts of little things up to hours before he died. I left him in the hospital at midnight after being there with most of the day and he died at 6am. It goes through my mind why I left him but I had things to do for our children - walk the dog etc (and now they only had me) and when I left him he was stable - all stats were normal - but I wish I had been more sensitive and just stayed.

Those are my thoughts in this week coming up to Feast Days such as All Saint's and All Soul's.

Thinking and sending love to all in this group dealing with this pain.

Love Florence

Florence,

you have put into words exactly how I feel - I to did not ever realise how deep, binding and fierce my love for my beautiful husband is.

I would have it no other way, but boy, does it make it a horror now.