Thank you Antoinette for your kind words and to everyone, aren’t we blessed with this forum to express our emotions and thoughts. Most important for me through this online support group has been the fact that I am NOT the only one feeling and reacting the way I do and I find it much easier to express myself to previously strangers now brothers and sisters learning to live with grief. There is no right or wrong way to deal with grief - the only way is my way, your way and everyone elses. Linda used to say to me that this is MY cancer and of course she was right - and this is my grief but just as Linda needed the support of the wonderful Marie Curie nurses and doctors, I need the support of those who understand - so thank you for sharing. Please keep sharing.
To answer your question Antoinette, Linda was diagnosed terminally ill on Jan 17th this year…she passed on the 28th of July - the second regime of chemotherapy was considered too severe for her weak and failing body. She had the great news of her first grandchild on the 10th of January and 7 days later her world was turned upside down and inside out to be given 9 to 12 weeks without chemo and 12 - 15 months with chemotherapy. Boy did she fight bravely for her little granddaughter - she desperately wanted to be with her for her first Christmas and her first birthday. I can’t see the screen for the tears streaming…this is the way I am every day and many times in the day. I have moved back to N.Ireland as I couldn’t rely on my stepchildren to look after me - they performed dreadfully during the last month Linda was here and have continued since. I made my decision on who could look after me best (as I too have cancer) - my family in N.Ireland or my stepson and his wife - no competition - if he let his beautiful mum down - he has and would have let me down too! So I had my first job interview today - actual face to face and I performed dreadfully. I didn’t have that all encouraging call from Linda before going in or the call afterwards to tell her how it was. I cried when I got back into the car - anyone looking at me would have wondered what is going on there (if they had seen it). The only good thing is that I have another interview coming up for the health service but in a different trust and this was really good practice…fingers crossed. I do get out of the house walking Robbie the dog but it is not the same as going out to work and having a better structure to my day… but then we are all in the same boat with Covid at the moment! Stay safe everyone and keep using the forum - it does me the world of good. I am going to prepare dinner for everyone - my sister who I am living with is a teacher in a special needs school (her son, a beautiful boy has autism).
I’m so sorry to read that you too have cancer. And am glad to read that you are not alone. My husband lived for 34 years in NI and loved it dearly. He moved over here to care for his mum who had cancer and that’s how we met. We visited often and I will be go back as one of his wishes was that some of his ashes be scattered overlooking Ballygally.
I am so sorry your stepchildren were unsupportive. For us it was his own children who behaved appallingly both before and after he passed. His stepchildren (my children) were loving and caring towards him and supportive of me right to the end. I try to be kind and wonder if maybe they just couldn’t cope with the reality of losing their father but I just don’t know. I guess they have to live with their behaviour. Today has been nothing but tears and I’m trying to be kind to myself and accept its early days and this will happen but its so hard. Be kind to yourself also. To even go to the job interview is a huge achievement and I hope you will feel proud of yourself for doing that. Good luck with the next one, I hope you will feel it goes better. I agree the forum is a huge support just knowing you are not alone and can articulate such overwhelming feelings without judgement. Sending kindness and thoughts to everyone. Xxx
Eamon, I’m so so sorry too that you also have cancer. I always felt when John was dying of cancer that he was the one who had me there for him, and it would be much harder next time round without him. You and Tina are in a good place I think if you are crying a lot, but means you are relaxed enough to do so, however hard it is. It is so important to grieve at the right time.
I was angry with John when he was going,. because he said that he had written everything he wanted to write, and would rather go now that he had no work mapped out. I suggested I might be a reason to live. But although we were soul mates and I did understand really it was SO harde and I died inside and didn’t get a lot of things right for him because of that. When he died I could not really think of him because I would go into a panic attack, which felt more frightening than dying, so I’d have to come back quick and then if i cried it was too painful, did not help just made my feel horrible not better. Then of corse it is too late to cr on the fact he has gone for ever. I was alone as soon as John had gone, as the children (who had been wonderful that week,) had to go back to work and I had three different celebrations to organise. I feel I’ve missed a stage. and as I said no one wanted hear anything but positive going forwards. I guess Im saying it is such hard work crying but embrace it, it is good and timely.
@Eamonn1957 I don’t know what to say. I am so sorry for all that has and is happening. A big hug to you and please keep posting and letting us know how you are going day to day when you can too. The job interview experience like you say will hopefully give you more chance of the next one. You are inspiring me to appreciate my job and give it another try (I tried a couple of weeks ago but all the talk of Christmas set me back and I am now signed off until January).
I hope you had a nice walk with Robbie today, i hope you wrapped up well as it’s freezing! 
Eamonn I think many of us thought of suicide in the first weeks and months.I just wanted to be with my Ron even though I was previously terrified of dying. But death by suicide does not re unite you with a loved one because it is considered a sin. I am further along than you are. Two years now, and it has been so hard but I find I can face things a little better now and without a mountain of tears. I have got myself a voluntary job and it is the best thing I could have done because I have to keep my mind on the job. Yesterday I actually put the Christmas tree up for the first time in 3 christmases without Ron.I also moved my bed back to the position it was in before Ron died. I still get the terrible pangs of grief but not quite as intensely. I know I have moved forward but I still feel lost and lonely and I know that I will never feel truly contented again. But it does get easier and you do find ways to deal with the devastation. I never thought I would get this far. I just felt I was in a bad dream and one day I would wake up. But life has a strange way of pulling you through and everyone finds their own way through this nightmare.Thete are no rights and wrongs. Just keep signing in to this wonderful forum and keep talking.
Thanks everyone and I will keep signing in. This kind of access to therapy is one of the bonuses during this terrible Covid crisis…stay safe everyone!
Deborah1
Hi, I too lost my wife of 33 years in September and feel lost and scared. I see you are not sleeping, have you seen a Dr as I could not sleep so I am now on tablets. I know its not the answer long term but they help me for now. take care
Grief, anguished, lost, and utterly at odds, these are my daily companions. So in this current climate etc, please please accept the virtual hug, a kiss on the head, and however long I will have to keep you in comfort xxxx Colin
Colin, I really see that anguish. It is so much harder when it actually happens because it is so beyond our understanding. It sadly is beyond those of most around us so we are not met on it. I pray you do have people. How long were you together? You clearly feel you were soul mates. I send you too virtual hug Colin. x
Good morning Antoinette.
We were together from 84, in 86 we purchased a house or home together and lived in that 3 bed semi, until Feb 2019, we moved into a bungalow fairly close.
Over our years, we combined our families, Helen had Claire and Steven, i had Karl. (14 and 11 both boys). Then in 88 and 89 along came Katie and Laura.
Over the time like everyone, we swapped careers, we had periods of being in between. Helen had pneumonia 5 times, developed a spinal problem which became degenerative. Plus knee replacements, she had had a gastric band towards loosing weight. I has a chest pain due to a panic attack in 2012, (that was an experts opinion). Then 1 year later a pituitary gland tumour removed. So yes it was a journey together.
Wow that was a massive journey Colin, still is. I bet a deeper love and respect grow over that time. How are you physically now? Are some of your children there for you. They will be licking their own wounds, but it can be good to grieve together. I’m sorry I have forgotten how long ago you lost Helen? And you are already comforting others. You must feel able to say how in a way terrifyingly empty if feels. Because my father was killed in the war aged 35 and my mother never really recovered I spent a lot of my life finding ways to feel that if i lost john life would still be worth living and I could be positive. No matter how prepared one is it is never what one imagined.
Hi everyone…absolutely correct Antoinette. I lost my mum in July 2018 and I felt an awful loss then, I lost my dad in 1987 and he was my best friend then. I lost my grandad when I was just 12 but I remember being really sad and running out of the church. None of these or all of them together prepared me for the loss of my soulmate. It is on a level of grief that I couldn’t possibly have imagined. It has ripped the heart of me. Over four months since Linda passed and it seems like it happened just hours ago. Do you remember the Boomtown Rats song “I don’t Mondays”? Well, I have changed it to “I don’t like Sundays!” I have had to restart my day three times today. Sundays used to be one of my favourite days of the week. Church followed by breakfast by the sea and then a walk and we didn’t care if it was tipping it down - we loved our walks. I couldn’t even go to church today because of Covid. Tomorrow I have my first cancer reassessment since moving back to N.Ireland…fingers crossed I have good Monday as I will find out during the procedure tomorrow how my cancer has reacted to the two courses of treatments since December last year!
@Eamonn1957. I feel for you. I had stage3c ovarian cancer in 2009 - a 25% chance of surviving 5 years. Here I am 11 years later, no recurrence. But I remember the terror of the early years, the long nights lying awake wondering what would happen to my husband when I died. Of course, fate twisted it so I lost him to a particularly vicious brain tumour.
So I wish you well today. I am so terribly sorry that you lost your Linda. I will be thinking of you. Please, if you can, let us know how you get on. Christie xxx
Thank you Christie…I will
Life can be so cruel as you too have experienced. Your kind reply gives me hope this morning as I prepare to go to theatre…thank you x
Eamon, that breaks my heart. And it is Linda you need right now to be beside you with your own journey. I remember when John died, thinking I need John here to help me through this. It is six years since he, my beloved and soul mate of 48 years and 56 that I knew him. However, and it is a big one, my son had a dream early on. He was at our home which I have had to leave, looking very cheerful. Ben asked him what he was doing and he said, ‘I’m here to look after you all.’ Maybe it depends on what we believe, but when ever I’ve needed help since he went, the exact right help, or person, it has been there at exactly the moment I have needed it. I just say, ‘Thank you, constantly!!’ One more dramatic moment was on a moonless dark night on a lonely road where I live in Devon, when I eased myself into a ditch other side of the road, out of which the car would not move. There had been not a car in sight, when out of the blue appeared a van behind me. A cheerful voice came over and said, “That looks awkward.” It was a lovely young man. Well he could have said, “What on earth do you think you are doing?” He asked me where I lived and I said Hartland, (A turn off of 4 miles down the road). I asked “Where are you going?” , “Bideford”, 18 miles away. Within 10 minutes I was into his van and back at my house. I hardly noticed anything had happened - except for the state of the car. It really has been like that for six years. So I do feel he is there. I do hope you may find that.
Hi Antoinette
Apologies for the slow response.
I have none of my children to provide a support, 6 months and not even an email to ask how I am.
5 months ago, I met a fabulous woman, we began as friends, evolved into a more meaningful and mature relationship, we have had a similar experience of loss etc, and we decided to try and make a new relationship together. So far oh how can this be possible. It is and its as simple as that.
I have not placed this relationship into the spotlight before, and care not a wit, to any other person or persons opinion.
So watch this space I guess.
Kar knows that this site is a lifetime of expression, of sometimes a confirmation of normality, whether for myself, or to give back, to another person.
Happy Christmas with my wishes and deepest regards
Hi everyone. unfortunately, my cancer has returned. I will require surgery to remove the tumours which will then be tested as to what level they have returned. This will be in the next 5 weeks. Also, they are going to carry out another MRI scan to see if it has spread. My treatment will then be determined. I didn’t have Linda going in and didn’t have her there to hold my hand with the bad news. These are the times that open the grief wound and it grips like a vice. It could be worse and I must be thankful…I must now let the following two procedures happen and hope for the best. Take care of yourselves in these difficult times…eamonn
Dear Eamonn, Im so sorry to hear your news about your cancer returning, how awful. As if you didn’t have enough on your plate already. I pray that you find the strength to see this awful time through. My thoughts are with you and know you are not alone, please carry on writing on here, there are so many wonderful people that will find the words to comfort you. God bless, Margarita
Eamonn, I am also so sorry. I am moving house hopefully in January to a small village in Dumfries and Galloway, as you know it’s a short hop from Stranraer to Larne. I’d be happy to come visit you some time and we can gripe about cancer. Please let me know if there’s anything I can do.
Hugs, Christie xxx