Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by Elynn m on September 18, 2016 at 6:24pm

Barbara,  I can relate to you.  My husband of 41 years passed away last September.    We took him to the hospital (for shortness of breath), and he did not come home with me that night.    I was numb (and still am).   All I know is that God promises me that He us my husband (Isaiah 54:5+6).    It doesn't take the pain away, but at least it's comforting.    And speaking of guilt,  I feel guilty a lot.    Why didn't I take him to the hospital earlier?  Why didn't the doctor admit him?  Why didn't I recognize how sick he was before it was too late?

   I get lonely in the evening when we talked the most.   The one thing I now tell couples is to love each other, let each other know how much they are loved; listen and learn from each other.    I used to tell Joe that I love him, but have to admit that he said it more than me.   I always did love him very much, but didn't express that love with words (talk about guilt !!!)

     

Permalink Reply by Oleta Cato on September 18, 2016 at 7:48pm

Barbara,  You are not alone.  I would give anything to have told my husband all the things I wanted too.  BUT...he would have known.   I knew he would die and I didn't want him to know. I wanted to tell him he was the best thing that ever happened to me etc.  He would have known.  He had dear friends who wanted to visit from out of state.  I told them not to come, John would have known he was dying if they came.  I couldn't even tell him they wanted to visit him, he would have known.  We were in shock,  all of us.  There is never a right thing.  I only know it's difficult to live without him.  I don't even know if I want to live without him.

Permalink Reply by 0vmytxwpqk0r5 on September 18, 2016 at 11:00pm

Barbara, yes - so closely your story is mine.  Even walking in the halls of ICU I felt sorry for others because their loved was were so ill - but I never thought my husband would not pull through.  I think the different staff, the confusing tests and the vague explanations did not help.  We were together 37 years and there was no real plan B if something should happen to him.  I am angry that I cannot clearly remember the last words I said to him - so much of the last days seems I was on auto pilot. He also died from heart failure.  One minute they are talking to me about home health and discharge.  Then he passed and I was handed a card with the phone number of pastoral care so I can call them them who will be picking up the body.  I too wondered was he scared, did he try to call me, did he know . . .  The funeral I was numb, I sat with him for hours - but him being dead and this being final did not sink in.  

I can't redo the last days but I never missed a chance to tell him how much I loved him, how proud I was of him.  I have two messages on the phone recorder, a cherished bit of his voice.  It has been 9 months and I still don't believe he is not coming home.  I have gone to the hospital several times just to check. I sit outside 3rd floor ICU and wonder if they did everything they could.  I never would have gone home on Sunday if I knew it was our last time . . . I was at home watching the "Goodwife" when he passed.  Makes me feel even worse, I was carrying on like normal when actually my world was coming to an end.

Permalink Reply by Maxey on September 22, 2016 at 1:01pm

Mary, as I read your comment, I felt as if we both went through the same kind of experience at the hospital. I, too, was arranging for home care, and I was preparing for how we would arrange the house so that my husband could get around. I was making plans and acting normally, but now I know that I was in shock. I have been told the the mind protects us from feeling things that will put us "over the edge". I now think I am at the edge. Nothing seems to interest me. I want friends, but yet I don't. I only want my husband's company, and girl friends just do not interest me. I go to meetings, clubs, etc., but I come home and cry. All I can say is that I am ready to join my husband, and I pray for God's mercy, and hope he releases me from this purgatory of a life.
Life if precious everyone says, but it isn't when you are sad and lonely all the time, even in the presence of others. My life was so content and happy, now it is a empty shell.
I hope in the next year, year two, if God makes me stay here, I will find some way to ease this pain. Some days I wake and just lay in bed dreading the day ahead.
I wish you the best - I hope you find some things that can help you move ahead. If you do, let me know.

Permalink Reply by 0vmytxwpqk0r5 on September 25, 2016 at 11:45pm

Barbara, I read other comments here were people were told their loved was dying.  I seems the situation is no win either way - you can't stop it - like getting on a roller coaster and as it chugs up the hill you realize, like it or not, you are strapped in until the ride is over. I think shock and denial blur our memories and responses.  It is not a scripted movie were everything is perfect - nothing left unsaid - all the right decisions made. My husband was such a darling, so sweet - a gentle soul  I feel because of our age difference, 16 years, people made jokes.  He acted like he didn't mind - but he was tender hearted.  I feel I brought that pain on him.  I wanted to protect him from the world so badly.  Even when he passed the doctor asked me were his wife was?  I said I am his wife.  The doctor said "Oh, I though you were his daughter".  It didn't stop even with him dead. I do wonder sometimes if I had known that the pain and sorrow would be this great at his passing - would I have married him?

I had been married before, my parents both died, my g/f died at age 40 of breast cancer - but nothing comes even close to what I am going through.  I feel I have to pay with 3 times the tears for every kiss I got.  It is all too much sometimes.  I do go to church, I see mothers sitting in the vestibule with their handicap children.  I know everyone has a burden but I just don't see any meaningful life without him.  He worked with the disabled for 17 years so I have been trying to distract myself by trying to think of a way to honor his memory that way.

Tuesday was my birthday.  He always surprised me with something special - one time it was a large cookie delivered to the house by the local girls choir .  There were like 8 teenagers all dressed the same singing, it was wonderful.  This year, dinner by myself and not even a card. If this is life without him, I think I am in purgatory with you.

Permalink Reply by morgan on September 19, 2016 at 12:13am

To each of you my heart goes out.  

For me, this journey of losing the man who was my world has been unimaginably horrible.  35 years of marriage having known him for 55 years I knew every part of him.  And now I miss him beyond belief.  I have been trying to endure this for three years and eight months.  The longest, most interminable time of my life.  And I am still having the roughest of times.  I can go some hours at a time when I function but the missing of him seems to be getting worse so the breakdowns are intensifying accordingly.

My husband was diagnosed with stage 4 cancer on the day after Xmas 2012 and died 27 days later.  We were told he might have 6 to 9 months and no details are necessary as to how the 27 days were but during that time we were so busy fighting for his life I think we both ignored what parting would mean.  So many things were not said.  I also did not want to have him dwell on dying so the talking was kept to how we were going to fight for his life.  Then I found him on the bathroom floor when I went to take a shower on the day we were supposed to try and get him to the surgeons office to being learning the protocol for chemo/radiation.  He never made it. And my world blew up in my face.

I never missed an opportunity during our years together to tell him how much I loved him.  I adored this man.  No children, no faith, just him and I, together as one.   I would be all over him even before he got sick telling him how much I loved him.  But what I do regret is not being more attuned to how much more I should have said it while he was laying there dying.  All I could do was follow his lead.  I wanted him to believe he had more time so talking like we were at deaths door was not part of our conversation.  

And now, well, now I am a shambles.  I am operating halfway reasonably given the time that has passed and functioning the best I can and most people would say I have come a long way.  I guess that is true but deep down inside I want out.  I feel I have made little headway in coping with his death. My insides are just ripping apart every time I end up breaking down which has never really quit.  Like today I have had two very bad crying breakdowns.   I just want out of this miserable position and this world with all the suffering and killing and chaos that seems to be increasing.  I can only hope that the stress of this grief is going to take me.  

I don't believe there is some sky ride to a fantasy world but I do think my husbands energy is still so full in me I cant let go and he must be waiting with open arms for us to be together again.  It is tearing me apart piece by piece and I cannot seem to make my brain think of anything else but my need to be with him.  Yes, I am functioning but all of the time all I want is him.  

Lately its gotten pretty intense and I look back on all that I wish I would have said but I cannot change that, just like now.  I cannot change my life to accept that I am supposed to live without him.  I cannot.  I have tried.  Its not happening.  So I reach out to different people who have tried to stick with me during my grief and I try not to burden any one of them too often so when it gets bad and i don't reach out because  don't want to wear out a friends ear, I end up sitting in my house wailing out loud to the universe in the hopes something will happen that will encourage my early demise.  There just aren't enough people I can call or talk to about how badly this hurts all the time so I come here or I just try to withstand the pain alone.  I keep thinking this can't go on like this or its got to get better but it doesn't.  I just cannot see myself enduring this pain of missing him for another three years.  Somethings got to give.

Permalink Reply by Angela renteria on September 19, 2016 at 1:26am

Hi Barbara, yes I understand because I did the same things. Up in till three days before my husband passed I truly believe God would save him. I thought no way would God allow him to die so early when he had began turning his life around and knowing we had four small children. The doctors kept telling me he was dying and everything was beginning to shut down. I began to to so desperate that I would monitor his urine output. I would tell his nurse he was making urine again and they would reply not enough and the blood test showed he kidneys had failed. Even when he stopped responding or waking up I was in denial , I hoped it was just the pain meds in till it had been the 5th day he did not open his eyes or respond. I finally ask the icu physician why he wasn't waking up, it's almost like he is slipping into a coma and the doctor replied he already has. I wanted to die when he said that. After that I still talked to my husband hoping he could somehow hear that I loved him. I really hope he heard me.

Permalink Reply by Robin Quinn on September 25, 2016 at 6:22pm

I felt the same way when my husband was dying.  I was angry when the doctors said he wouldn't be leaving the hospital.  I was able to talk with my husband, he said he was ready, but I know he was scared and i still feel the guilt that I couldn't save him.  I could see the fear in his eyes, but he tried to smile right up to the end, he went to sleep and never woke up.  He's been gone 8 months now and I still expect to see him.  My heart won't let go.  Sorry for your loss....