No Goodbye
I lost my husband so suddenly with no time for a goodbye the morning of June 8, 2010. He was here and then gone the next minute! This is what haunts me so much. Although I am glad he left without going through weeks and months of pain as so many do. I think it makes it harder to accept, maybe not.
Replies
Lindanne,
It is all hard to accept, no matter the circumstances. My husband died suddenly too. Here one minute, the next gone. Please don\'t live in guilt. I\'m sure he knew how much you loved him and I know if given the choice they would not have left us.
Blessings,
Linda
We\'ve definitely discussed that topic on this board. The consensus seems to be that it\'s hard either way - there\'s still a strong element of shock. If they\'re sick for a long time, you\'re partly in denial that they will ever actually die (they\'ve always recovered from things before!) and partly so locked into each moment, what with their care and everything, that you don\'t even really have a chance to look ahead. But it\'s true that you can do preliminary grieving during the period that they\'re dying and you don\'t have that opportunity if they die suddenly and unexpectedly but have to deal with it all then.
All of that being said, it\'s a terrible thing to have them gone and no chance to say anything, make it all right, have a last conversation that means something, etc. There are people here whose last interaction was a fight. People who waved them off to work and they never came home again. I would think that getting over that shock, and ALL the regrets you have, does make it harder in the beginning.
Marriage is give and take, two people who love each other very much but have differing styles and ideas on some things and are constantly having to negotiate. The belief is that there will always be time ahead of you to set things right - apologize, explain, express your love again - and the big jolt is when that turns out not to be true and you are left with loose ends that eat away at you.
If you look back at your entire relationship and not just the last few days that you might have want to rerun, you should see a pattern of love, trust, caring, and being teammates. That\'s what he takes away with him, not the last thing you happened to say or not get to say.
All that is just to rationalize your certain knowledge that you weren\'t able to say a final good-bye and \"I love you\" to him. That reality, heartbreakingly, cannot be changed, so you might want to start thinking of it in these other ways that people are suggesting to you here.
Hugs to you. This is a horrible, horrible thing, and there\'s no minimizing it.
Gail