Cynthia, thank you so much for your kind and inspiring words.  I do beat myself up a lot over things I think I "should" have done for my mom, etc.  I am so sorry to read about the passing of your husband.  My mom originally had lymphoma about 6 years ago and the doctors removed her spleen, believing it was where the cancer originated.  They were confident they got it all and after 3 rounds of chemo and 4.5 years later they told her she was in remission from it.  We were so overwhelmed with joy - she was getting a second chance!  Unfortunately, a week after this good news she found out that she now had a rare form of cancer called MDS, which is in the blood in the marrow.  She found that out just this past October.  Because of her age and progression of this cancer alread, she was eligible to participate in a study at the hospital for a new type of chemo.  She tried it once but then in January developed a very high fever while shopping with my father.  He rushed her to the hospital and we were told she had an infection of some sort.  They did all kinds of cat scans and MRIs and other things and said they found a small "pocket" of fluid near her sinuses.  So we think it's probably a sinus infection and as I'm sure you know, people with cancer just cannot fight off infection like a healthy person can.  After being on all kinds of antibiotics, they release her from the hospital but things were going downhill.  She was slurring her words, staring into space, forgetting things, etc.  Her fever kept spiking and she was back and forth to the hospital and all they kept saying was that she has an "infection" but they couldn't really pinpoint it.  I went to see her in March for a week (I live in Indy, my parents are in NY) and her "infection" was gone (so they said) and ordered her back on chemo.  I took her all week and she was extremely tired to the point where she didn't want to leave the house.  This just kept going on and on and on and unfortunately, what I beat myself up about is the fact that the beginning of the end actually started in January when the doctors thought she had the infection.  It was actually the MDS turning into acute leukemia, VERY quickly.  My father was still taking her back and forth to the doctor for bloodwork and transfusions (platelets and red blood) at least 3 - 4x a week.  We were still thinking it's an infection and when they finally get it cleared up she will be able to resume normal chemo and we will have her around for a bit longer.  Well one Friday my dad calls and says your mom took a turn for the worse, I need you to come. I get to NY that day and when I got in the hospital room, I just knew it.  To see your parent (or your husband) in that state of semi-consciousness when they were once so vibrant and beautiful is heart-wrenching.  She would just stare at the walls and flail her arms for no reason.  This was all the process.  She was on oxygen and when I told her how much I loved her and how amazing she was, she blew me 3 kisses through her oxygen mask.  That was the last real communication she had with anyone.  By Tuesday morning she was gone.  I don't know how to feel.  She KNEW she was dying way back in January because when I think back, she was already distancing herself from everyone and making her plans.  I wish I would haven been in tune with that whole process because I just would have understood more.  I'm sorry for this long opus message but it's so nice to be able to just put it all into words and have people read it and know exactly how I am feeling.  Thanks for listening.  My heart goes out to you and your family for your loss.

Dear Donna -

Hang in there.  It's hard - sometimes I just want to lay down and die - but with time, it really does get easier.  Some people have told me it doesn't; and I'll never get use to not having my husband around, but it does get easier.  I have more good days than bad now.  I just put off decisions if they are too hard for me to make; I tell myself I'll know when the time is right and I'll know then.  Just take care of yourself and let the feelings out when they do come. 

Good luck

I just miss my brother...I don't want my new reality, I want my old life back

hello everyone....i havent been on in awhile...im still thinking of her, my mom, but trying not too think too much...the pain is too much....its been 7 months, seems like yesterday....my dad's birthday is Monday, he also died of cancer....i miss him too, its so hard to lose your parents....I am going to begin counseling soon, I need it, but afraid to "face" this....I dont want to make things any worse, make sense?  I thought of her smile yesterday when I would visit her....gosh I miss her....I always will....how does anyone cope????

Dear Rachel -

I want to tell you, and this is only my opinion and experience, but therapy helps.  It might make it feel worse in the beginning, but it also gives you a place where you can openly feel your grief and let it out, and that is part of healing from this terrible experience of losing someone you love.  I tried a support group about a month after my husband died and maybe I wasn't ready, but it just wasn't for me.  The group was made up of only people who'd lost a spouse, not a sibling, or another relationship like a parent, and I thought it would help to be around other people who'd had the same type of loss and maybe I would learn to cope better from them.  But for me, it didn't work like that.  They were very nice people and I might try again, but i'm not ready for that.  However, being in weekly individual therapy has been a tremendous help, because my therapist doesn't tell me how to feel or not; she just supports me.  She helps me when I feel stuck and helps me find my own answers to issues that come up.

I'm glad you are going to give it a try.  Good luck with it.  

I'm so sorry Jan for your loss....it sure isnt easy

The tears do come when they want to.  I have found the best thing at least for me, is to just let them come and not try to fight it.  It is hard when they want to come and I'm somewhere in public where I don't want to be sobbing away; those times, I do try to hold them in until I'm in private.  But whenever I talk about him to anyone I get teary and people understand.  

All I can say, especially to Jan, is that it doesn't help anyone to have those regrets.  It may be part of the process, and we each have to do whatever it is we need to do.  I am thankful that my husband and I were in the habit of saying "I love you" frequently, and that we did communicate about our feelings as much as we did. I've started to more aware of how I am with others whom I love, and being sure to tell them or thank them for something.  

This is probably the hardest thing we will ever do.  But I do have some positive news to share: Friday morning at 12:28 a.m., my daughter gave birth to her second son, and this time I was able to be there with her, and as her husband is squeamish and wasn't by her side when she got down to the moment of pushing, I counted for her when she pushed, and saw him born.  I cut the cord!  My first grandson was born when we were in Hawaii, 3 1/2 years ago, and was premature so he was whisked off to the NICU and she didn't even get to hold him right away.  This baby was full term, placed on her stomach immediately and the nurse then cleaned him up and gave him back to her.  He was very mellow - he let out those first few loud cries to get the oxygen into his lungs, and then he just opened his eyes and was looking around; when the nurse gave him to my daughter, he was just gazing up at her.  I visited yesterday and just held him for a few hours.  They gave him my husband's name for his middle name.  So that's my positive note to end on.  Thank you.

Dear Mary Elizabeth -

Thank you!

Barbara -

I'm sure you know that anger is part of this process that I wish no one would  have to go through ever.  Last Sunday was 7 months since my husband died, and Father's Day is going to be hard not only for my daughters, but also for me.  He was such a great dad.  I think it's okay to acknowledge that your brother's house is now your house; that doesn't mean you miss him any less or your are not thinking of him every day.  And if all you can do is cry with us, so be it.  You are where you are meant to be; this is a journey and I think if I take it just one step at a time, one after the other, eventually I'll get to where I want to be.  Hang in there.  

Dear Mercy -

Thank you for sharing your thoughts.  We all wonder if we should have done something different, or ignored something, or whatever.  My husband had been in the hospital in November and they did all kinds of scans and more than a few scopes and they still didn't see "anything" abnormal.  When he was still anemic in January, his dr. did another scope to see why and where he was bleeding from, and piece of tissue came out with the scope; he didn't take any biopsies.  But he did send that "accidental" piece of tissue to pathology and that was when he was diagnosed.  I still get angry that they missed it in November, and wonder all the time if it would have made a difference.  Probably not. 

In any case, this is a long road, and a bumpy one at that.  

Its so hard not to be angry at the doctors. I remember my doctor telling me one time "we are only human". I just pray that we find peace through this journey.

Take care.

Dear Barbara, Mercy and Chrissy -

First of all, Barbara, thank you for your wonderful compliment!   It warms my heart and lately my heart has been hurting a lot.  I'm missing my husband, I had to relinquish my dog and earlier this week my mom had an episode that sounded a lot like early dementia.  She seems fine now, but one never knows how these things are going to show up I guess.  Mercy and Chrissy, you are so right about grief and the feelings; and I can relate to what you are both saying about your experiences.  My husband died at home; the dr. asked him if he wanted to go home and have hospice, or go back into the hospital as a terminal patient for palliative care only.  I asked him what he wanted, and he said "whatever is easier for you" because that's the kind of man he was - whatever was easier for me, and here he was so weak he couldn't walk, and still putting my needs ahead of his own.  There will never be anyone like him.  Anyway, he came home, hospice was disappointing in that their idea of palliative care was to make us wait for what we needed, like morphine; they promised whatever we needed, they would supply within 2 hours of a phone call.... but it didn't work that way.  Anyway, we finally got him morphine, and it didn't help, so I called my brother who is a dr, and he told me how much and how often I could give it to him to get him pain back under control.  He was in his last few hours of life, but I didn't know that then.  However, it became clear to me that he was going to leave us very soon.  I gave him a dose of morphine every 1/2 hours and kept track of his breathing, and kept telling him it was okay to go... and what I can related to is Chrissy's comment about the nurse changing her mom's gown; for some reason, his caregiver we had gotten from an agency our dr. recommended wanted to change my husband's tee shirt during all this... I told him if he had to do it, to just use scissors and cut it off; then he wanted something to put on him; I told him to get a clean shirt and just cut it up the back and we just put it over his arms - I wasn't going to bother him making him sit up and deal with a shirt over his head and all that - he didn't have any i.v.'s in, because his liver and kidneys had failed and the excess fluid would just fill his lungs as he couldn't excrete it.  When he died, the caregiver cried; that made me angry because he knew (the caregiver was male) my husband was dying; what did he expect?  I had enough to deal with without our caregiver falling apart, too.  So there is a lot I still question - was I selfish to want him home?  Would he have gotten better pain management in the hospital?  Maybe; but would he have been able to be surrounded by friends and family at the moment of his death?  I don't know, and I'll never know.  The hospital he had been in probably once a month for a year had private rooms, but you just never know.  It was a teaching hospital, and the last thing i wanted to have to deal with were residents and interns.  But the nurses there were truly wonderful.  I still believe, after all of his hospitalizations over the years for his Crohn's Disease, that it's really the nurses who save lives and it's the nurses who get to know the family and do the "dirty work."  They don't get enough kudos.  And it's the nurses who let you know by what they say between the lines if you have a good doctor or not! 

I'm sorry to go on and on so much; for the past few months I was doing better; I don't know what happened to me yesterday - I just sort of fell apart, and it was a lousy day.  But my daughter was spending the day with my mom and dad and she said everything seemed normal, so that was encouraging.  But when my mom gets exhausted, and she does because she's taking care of my dad, she seems to kind of lose her footing in reality and panics at little things.  But she is 86, so I guess she's allowed.  Anyway, thank you again for your compliments and I'd be happy to "friend" each of you on this site.  Or if you're on Facebook... (is that okay to say here?).  Take good care of yourselves.

hi mercy. just wanted to let you know that everything you're saying is totally normal, i have shared the same thoughts and feelings. i know we all experience our losses differently, but i believe there are certain aspects of grief that are universal.

it may be too soon for you, but i visited my brother's grave this past weekend. the first time i visited was back in november, only about a month and a half after he passed. i felt totally numb being there at the time. but this time i went with my sister, she hadn't been yet, and we both just felt a sort of peacefulness. like, our brother is ok. he suffered unbeleivably in the three short months he was sick. and this is someone who was relatively young and extremely healthy before he was struck with lymphoma. so perhaps visiting her grave will help you. or simply talking out loud to her. there's a very different feeling i get when i talk to my brother out loud as opposed to just in my head or in my journal. it's more honest, more like a real conversation.

sorry to ramble on. just wanted to let you know i know how you feel. some days i wonder how will i go on with the rest of my life, which will likely be another 30 or 40 years without my big brother? it seems impossible. but we will be stronger for having gone through these terrible experiences and more prepared for whatever life brings us.

Thanks Melissa. Just having a listening ear helps a lot. I know my family is tired of me crying and going on and on about her. I find this a safe place to vent. I know right now I can barely offer any consolation to anyone as I'm in deep grief; with time I'll do my best to support all of you.

Arielle thanks for your support.. I too lost my brother suddenly in June of last year, he was only 42. I was numb and in denial until moms cancer came back. I finally acknowledged my brothers death but haven't had the chance to mourn him yet. Now mom is gone, my rock, my comfort. I'll try visiting the gravesite and see if it will bring me any sense of peace. Its just surreal; I've lost so many people and I'm not even forty. The gravesite stretches so far with my three brothers, mom and dad. Its so, so painful, I don't even know how I find the strength to go on one more day. Thanks everyone for your support.

Dear Mercy -

It is so normal that after losing your brother, and not really having time to mourn him, your mom's death reawakened a lot of feelings.  I'm so glad you found this site - it is a great place to get stuff off your chest so to speak, and you don't have to give anything back!  Just know that everyone who is here is here for everyone else, and we each give what we can when we can, and if we can't, that's okay too - at least with me.  

Visit the gravesite only when YOU feel that's what you want to do.  There are so many phases to this process we call grief, and none of them are nice and neat, and they don't make a nice, neat progression, either.  They come and go, they  overlap, and just when you're (at least, for me) sure you've passed out of one, it comes back and hits you (me!) like a tsunami!  My husband died in November from rectal cancer that spread to his bone marrow and liver very quickly.  This morning in the shower I found myself suddenly thinking about the last morning with him - how he looked, what he was trying to say, I'll never know that as his speech was not clear, how when I gave him what turned out to be the last does of morphine, and I kept telling him it was okay to go, to let the medication just carry him away, he actually said, "Well, I guess."  And then he took his last breaths, I listened to his last heartbeats and he was gone.  But I keep replaying it in my mind suddenly, again, and I can't afford to let myself go today!  Too much to do, and as I teach at a university and it's our last class tonight, I have to be there and I can't be falling apart.  The irony in this is I teach in a graduate psychology program, and if I came to class a mess, my students would all take care of me, but well, I guess I don't want the class to end on that note!  So now I have until September to fall apart whenever I want.  

I'm sorry; I got off track.  Just know that grief happens on it's own, in it's own time and when it wants to.  Know that we are here for you, and please don't ever feel like you have to give back.  You will when you are able. 

Take care.  

Dear Arielle -

I just read your reply to Mercy and one thing you said hit a chord with me; you said:  "there's a very different feeling i get when i talk to my brother out loud as opposed to just in my head or in my journal. it's more honest, more like a real conversation". And I just wanted to tell you I feel the same about my husband.  I talk to him aloud more now, and I never before was really sure what my belief was about is there something more after this life, and I feel that there is.  Mostly because the last couple of days, he kept reaching towards something in front of him that no one else could see and while he didn't verbalize much (he really lost that ability those last few days, but every now and then, he'd make sense), I know he was seeing something there.  Maybe his mom who died in 2001 or someone or something else.  

So that's all.  Just wanted to comment.  Thank you.

Dear Melissa -

I'm so sorry for your loss of your dad.  My daughters can relate to that more than I can because I haven't yet lost a parent.  But I can understand your feelings that you weren't there at the end.  I don't know about you, but I really do believe that there's a purpose in all things, and there are no accidents.  There was a reason you weren't supposed to be there when he passed.  I don't know if you're religious or what your beliefs are, and this may not be any help at all, but I believe your dad can still hear you, wherever he is. In Orthodox Judaism, we believe that the soul stays connected to his/her loved ones after their body dies.  The body dies, the soul moves to another plane or reality - it might be above us or below us or parallel with us.  We don't believe in hell,  or in heaven as a distant, far away place.  I believe my husband in near me and even when he isn't, I believe he can still hear me.  Talk to your dad; build an alter or a shrine to him if it helps.  We have the picture of my husband that was up at the service over the mantle, and his ashes in a box below it; I have a picture of him on my dresser, next to a picture of the two of us, with a candle next to it.  I also have an incense holder there, because I burn incense more than I burn the candle; sometimes I go into our room and I just feel that it is so full of his presence, there isn't room for anything else.  And it's a good feeling.  Sometimes I wake in the night and wonder why he isn't in bed because I know he was just there... I don't have the ability to see "spirits" or whatever you want to call them; I don't hear them, either.  But I do sense things and feel things, and mostly, I feel my husband.  So talk to your father; see how it feels. Hang in there.

Thanks, Mercy.  I am lucky (in a sense) to be in my mid-forties and have this be my first signicant loss - grief is unlike any other feeling I've experienced. I am a writer and feel that I will evenutally write about - but I can't yet.

I've been having a few difficult days.  My daughter was visiting for 2 weeks from NYC (I'm in California) and it was so nice to have her around.  She was here to take care of last minute stuff for her wedding in Sept, which will also be here, thankfully!  But even tho my husband died 7 months ago, I find my brain keeps on rethinking the last hours of his life and I keep seeing him that day.  I replay the times in the hospital the last year, and everything else negative.  He was such a wonderful man, he was my soul mate and I know he'll always be in my heart.  I can't see myself with anyone else, ever.  But I'm sooooo very lonely.  It's so quiet here.  I had to give up my dog last month and it broke my heart, but I know it was the right thing to do; I couldn't take care of him anymore as he, too, was sick.  So I surrendered him to the vet; I didn't have him euthanized, because it wasn't that bad.  I just wanted him to find a good home and I couldn't find him one.  But my issue right now is the quiet in the house, and just feeling so very alone, and missing my Don so much.  I forget what it's like to be kissed on the lips, and held at night in bed, and touched in that special, loving way that partners touch.  It's like I'll never forget, but then I feel that I am.... so confusing.  

Thanks for listening.