Hi Ruth 

Thank you for your lovely reply and I am so sorry to hear you lost your husband. Everything you say I feel and experience too. We had a very exhausting 5 months and a very traumatic last 5 weeks. To see this wonderful once healthy strong man deteriorate so quickly before my eyes was heartbreaking. But he was pain free and that was a blessing. What you say about crying is so true... I hadn’t thought of it like that before, and I’m not ready to move on yet either. Thank you again for your kind words it’s so good to hear from others that are going through the same as you. 

Take care

Gillian x

Hello....so sorry u have lost your husband too. I lost mine to cancer (he was given all clear 4 years ago when they removed it and kidney)  I lost him on 17th July 1917! after 50 years of marriage. I am 2 this year.. I wish I had gone instead of him.  It is worse now than ever. I miss him more and more every day. I cry for hours.i lost my son 4 years ago. I have 2 daughters. The eldest in Australia. So far away.. Youngest has 2 boys and lives 60 miles away. I live in an extremely rural area and am so very lonely. I visit my daughter but she has her own life. My 11 year old grandson stays at weekends which is nice but doesn't stop the misery and lonliness that I feel nor the hours of crying bitterly. I have tried going to some social activities but it's not the sort of things I like. I have a dog who I adore and we are out every day for walks. I live in a beautiful area but now my darling husband has gone- it means boing any more. I try to pull myself together and think how lucky I am to be here .  I have bad arthritis among other problems so I struggle with many things....including a garden far too big. The house I am in was ours but we had difficulty at one point so it's owned by housing association. I have tried moving but need to wait till something available. If ever! I also lost one of my best friends in car crash last year. I have another dear friend but her life goes on with husband etc and she lives 14 miles away. I have lots of people who say hello but that's it. I am totally lost and have become so miserable. I used to love gardening (now it's a chore and far too big for me to manage) I used to make cards...cannot be bothered. I am sinking so low into depression and struggle to climb out. Am I the only one who feels like this. I used to be so active & always doing something. When am I going to get normal again? I feel so guilty feeling like this when people in the world are starving or in war torn areas. Help! 

Hi Ali

I just keep reading your post over and over again, from time to time as it resonates so much with what I am going through.

It has been 5 months since the death of my husband and like yourself, there have been so many 'firsts'.  What I can't get my head round and what I keep asking myself is how could it have happened from diagnosis to death in less than 3 weeks.  I still reel from the shock and suddeness of the whole sorry saga and keep playing over in my head asking if the clues were there but not picked up.

Like you, I shed a tear each day.   The door closes behind me and I am alone with memories for company and the thought of going through the rest of my life never to hear his voice or his laugh is just so painful.   Sadness has become a normal emotion as I have forgotten what it feels like to look forward to something whether it be a simple run in the car with a picnic or just enjoying a weekend together.

I really hope you, me and everybody else on this forum finds some sort of closure so that we can at the very least pick up our lives again and find some sort of normality.   It really is like living in a parallel universe where the sights and sounds are so familiar but with one huge difference; the love of our lives has gone forever.   

Take care Ali.   My thoughts are with you and with everybody else who is suffering.

Best wishes

Debi

Hello Debi

I have been reading your post and feel exactly the same as yourself

I still cry at the loss of my darling Ian.  Ian kept a diary and wrote it in every day until near the end and it was only the other day that I realised that this time last year was the period of time when he started to go downhill, the hormone treatment no longer keeping the Cancer at a slow rate.

It has all started to flood back, the start of the lovely weather and poor Ian stuck in Hospital, him then getting home and appearing to have picked up again, only to have ended back in hospital and only getting home for a few days and passing away. It just seems like yesterday

It is only recently that I have found out from our closest friend that Ian had confided in him that he felt different and within himself probably realied that things were changing for the worse and had asked him to make sure I would be okay when he was gone.  He had deliberately done things I found strange at the time like buying a smaller car and registering in my name, showing me what to do if the electrics in the fuse box flipped off if a light bulb blew, and other things which now make sense, even when he was going through everything his thoughts were all for me and looking out for me after he had gone.  What a truly wonderful man he was and I still miss him each and every day.

Next first is his birthday on 18th July, then his first anniversary on 28th July.

I know it sounds mad but I still talk to Ian, especially when I feel I need guidance about something and truly believe he does guide me still and helps me which does give me comfort of a kind.

Like you it is my sincere hope and heartfelt wish that everyone going through the loss of someone close to them gets some sort of relief and comfort from realising we are not alone and what we are going through is normal.  I know the pain I still feel at times will always be there and will never completely go away, but as someone said to me a couple of months ago when I was probably feeling sorry for myself, Ian will be watching and saying, "Ali get your butt in gear, pick yourself up and get on with it, you can't change what has happened," and do you know that is exactly what he would have said so I am trying so hard to do what he would have wanted some days one step forward and two steps back, but other days it can be one step forward

Sending you much love Debi

Hello,

Like you,I lost my darling husband on 27th Dec 2018 and time simply stands still. We were together for 35 years and at the age of only 53, he was cruelly snatched away.

I would love to offer you some words of help but only those who have lost the love of their life can understand that nothing eases the pain. For friends and family around us, time inevitably moves on and it simply leaves us more isolated.

I have thrown myself into trying to live some sort of life but time passes so slowly and cannot be filled. The unending emptiness ahead is an unfillable void. When I return home having forced a million things into my day, I slump behind my front door relieved that it is over for another day. The sun sets , the sun rises and round and round I go. 

Like you, my husband was my past, present and future. It is so rare to experience such love and I know I should be grateful. Of course that’s not the case as both Joe and I were cheated out of getting old together. He was cheated out of continuing to be a devoted father and grandfather.

I never speak with anyone who is in my position and I do think it could be beneficial as the people around me can’t begin to understand. Life is meaningless now and I have no desire to plan a future without my beautiful, charismatic husband. 

Reading your message somehow offered a tiny connection to someone out there who feels the pain I do. Perhaps it may offer a little comfort to be with others grieving their partner. 

All I can offer you is my heartfelt sympathy , please know that you do not suffer alone x 

Hi Debbie,

It is for the first time tonight that I read any posts and we all seem to have a tragic, cruel and hard tale at the hands of cancer.

It is not quite 6 months since my darling husband died in horrid circumstances and I too feel numb and living in someone else’s desperate life. Every day I mechanically do what I think I should but without joy, purpose or pleasure. I can even laugh at people’s stories without being aware I do it. I’m completely anesthetised to life.

I don’t believe there is any answer and the pain must be endured no matter how great it is. 

I wait and wait and then wait some more. For what I do not know. Do I have times when I think he may come home? The answer is yes no matter how ridiculous a notion I know it is. 

Please accept my sympathies my dear x

Lost my husband this weekend everything as been so rapid im still spinning.

Just by reading these post i know ive got a tough time ahead.

But i wasnt expecting anything less xxx 

Lost my darling husband of 25 years, 14 weeks ago. Went through the numbness and pain of the shock in his passing. Missing him so much, just a feeling of  emptiness. He fought so hard and for short time we thought he was clear,  for him to pass from the side effects of his treatment came as unexpected. 

Reading through all posts,  found comfort in not being alone and comfort in understanding that the way I feel is ok as others feel similar. Learning to take each day as it comes

like you, I have times where I just think he will come home 

Xxx

 Hello everyone, it’s been awhile since I posted on this forum but it’s very hard to ignore such an emotional thread.  Like many of you I am recently widowed to oesophageal cancer.  My beloved Stephen died 31 weeks ago tomorrow Night/Sunday morning.  There are times when I cannot believe that I have come so far without him – we were together for 33 years.  Not a day has gone by since we discovered he was terminal on the 11th of September last year when I haven’t cried at some point.  To say “it is not easy“ would be the understatement of the millennium – There have been times when it has been truly unbearable but the one thing that I hold close to me is how loved I was  by Steve and how much I loved, still love and will always love him. Cancer will never take that away from me.  Oesophageal cancer has a very low survival rate when you get it at the point that Steve did so from August 2017, when he was first diagnosed, we were preparing ourselves for the worst but hoping for the best.  I think on some level I have been mourning him since then and so I feel I am perhaps coping better than some because I am mentally further along, I don’t know if that makes any sense. .  I have never given myself any rules about how to grieve I let the emotions come and go as they will. Tears are often my friend because they keep me close to Steve. I try and get out into the fresh air every day, I meet friends regularly and went back to work three months after Steve died.  If anyone would like to private message me I would love to support you but in the meantime please be kind to yourself. Try not to bottle anything up – it won’t do you any good - and celebrate your beloveds life.  To do otherwise would be to let cancer truly win 

 Take care my friends, I wish you well and much love on your onward journey. 

Xxx