Widows & Widowers Support Group

This community is dedicated to those who have lost a husband, wife, or partner. Anything is open for discussion here, with the hope that we can focus on grief, bereavement, life after loss, and continuing on after a great loss.

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dlacosta 08/29/2017

3:04 p.m.

John- I'm just getting off freeway. Be home in 30.

Me - O.k. be safe I love you.

3:10 p.m.

my phone rings. A stranger on the phone.

Your husband has been in an accident. He wants you to come to him.

3:15 p.m.

stranger calls back and tell me to go to San Joaquin Hospital.

Waited 2 hours at the hospital. Then told to go to "quiet room".

2 doctors and social worker comes in...

im sorry. Your husband didn't make it. He's dead.

That was almost 5 months ago. I still play it over in my mind everyday. Sometimes almost every minute. It is not possible. Yet it is. So much pain.

vwidow 08/29/2017

No words really can be said over this. Sorrow has invaded us.. Death a never- welcomed guest. I do know it says though that better is the day of a man's death than of his birth. ( in Ecclesiastes?) There are reasons for that. Yet for those left behind it doesn't feel better. My fellow widow thoughts go over to you. Keep on... You know your husband would want that.

Cavewifelost 08/29/2017

Wow! They actually said, "He's dead"? How horribly callous! I found that some doctors, especially young ones, seriously need a course in bedside manner. They said some horrible things to me and my husband during the course of his illness. I understand what you're going through. I think that all of us probably have key moments in our memories that stick with us and play over and over again. When my husband was diagnosed with bladder cancer and was told he had to have his bladder removed we had two options. One was that he could wear the external bag outside his body or the other choice was to have a neobladder fashioned out of a piece of small bowel. He was lucky to be a candidate for a neobladder and we happily took option B. Without going into all the details, his cancer continued to come back and spread. Shortly before he died, not from cancer, but from a series of strokes , he said to me one day, "Maybe I should have gotten the bag." Throughout the course of his illness, he was always 100% upbeat. He never once cried and never felt sorry for himself. He was always determined to beat the cancer, so when he quietly said that small thing it broke my heart. rainseattle called it a tape running in your head and I think that's a perfect way to put it. We all have certain loops that torment us. I'm so sorry for your loss. My heart goes out to you. <3 Anita

babochka 08/30/2017

Wow, what a tragic story...My heart goes to you, dlacosta.
My husband died after a 6 week illness in a hospital, yet it was so unexpected, I am still in shock. Two weeks after his death, I am still processing the fact that he is no more. I am wandering an empty house, a room after a room as if looking for something lost.
Be brave, be courageous, one breath at a time.

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