Exactly the same thing happened with my husband. We had spent the afternoon with our children and grandchildren , him playing in the garden. We went to our 6 year olds house for his party had dinner at home and watched the football. Our daughter and her family were staying with us . It was our wedding anniversary 2 days later and we were having a family get together to celebrate 49 years together. I went upstairs passed my husband on the landing and said see you soon. Ten minutes later when he hadnt come upstairs I went down and found him collapsed. The ambulance and paramedics were round in 5 minutes and tried for 45 minutes to bring him round but they couldnt. My daughter was there all the time and within 10 minutes my other 2 children were round to see the ambulances and everyone working on their dad. No child or wife should have to go through this. This was 5 months ago. I cant process it. No chance to say goodbye and so many good future years gone in an instant.
Im devestated. Trying to put on a brave face to the outside world but overcome with sadness at home alone. My children and grandchildren have been amazing but we are all hurting so badly. I started some online counselling this week with Sue Ryder but the technology is letting me down . I know its not me as Zoom works for all else. Im trying to come through this for my children . To read on here that others and i am so sorry have suffered a double trauma is a little comforting to me. I thought I was on my own. Love to you all
Heartsand x
Heartsand. No you’re not alone by any stretch of the imagination. There are just so many in similar situations. It’s 10 weeks ago today that I lost my wife, and it still all seems surreal. I often can’t believe it’s happened. I heard a noise tonight - I might have knocked something - but I have difficulty identifying which direction a sound has come from when I’m not wearing my aids and I thought it was from the hall and instinctively turned to say hello to my wife. Then realised it couldn’t be her.
Mary was in hospital and we were called at 3.15 am. She had asked me to run an errand at around 11.30, and I left to do that around 10.30 as I needed to get some things ready for someone to collect. She decided that while I was away from her side was the exact time she was going to slip away, with our four children holding her hands. I wasn’t there, but like to think she saved me that trauma, by getting the timing so perfect.
I’m just so very sorry you and your family had to endure that situation. I can only imagine what that must have been like.
All my love to you and your family. Nigel xxx
Thank you Nigel
I am so so sorry this is happening to us. Everything changed in an instant. The deep love I had for my husband has been replaced by the most painful grief. I feel its so painful because of that love. I grieve for lost opportunities and in spite of having the most loving family around me, I feel so lonely. I want to turn back time as the song goes and have our perfect family back and I cant. Just have to go on.
So I too wish you and your family all the very best . Heartsand
Someone else said “ the greater the love, the greater the pain of grief”. I think that’s true. Nigel xxx
I would like my step nan and grandad back
So very true
The harder we greive the more love we have
Oh I know that horrible loneliness. Nowhere to go, nothing to do, no-one to just ‘be’ with. I do have 3 adult children but they all live 3-4 hours away so I can’t just pop round when I feel lonely. I also ‘don’t know what I’m meant to do anymore.’ We’ve lost who we were and have to build new lives, bit by bit, somehow.
Its so hard to see my friends still as couples and people 25 years older than my Martin still able to get around.
I feel so cheated.
Btw I dont wish anything on anyone , I want them to be happy but although i was upbeat yesterday Im feeling it badly again today.
Time for distractions
Heartsand
Lydia, With regards to family, I feel like the luckiest man alive - I’ve four children and their spouses and 11 grandchildren, some of whom live next door and the rest are within 3 miles, but I still get lonely - it’s hard to ask them to be with me, or me with them when they have their own grief to handle and lives to lead. But I do get calls and visits from them everyday. But it’s not the same is it? We really have lost our ‘other half’!
But we will get there, in time.
Much love. Nigel xxx
Sounds like we are both lucky with our lovely children and grandchildren who are so loving and supportive. 2 of mine and 7 grandchildren live nearby. Im off to my daughters now for a coffee. I couldnt do this without them but its lonely , such a void and I do feel both sad and sorry for myself today for all the lost opportunities that I thought lay ahead.
Have a good afternoon . Sandra x
I’m also feeling very sad and sorry for myself today. But also feeling very sorry for my husband and all that he is missing out on with his children and grand children. I will try and distract myself out of it soon. But unfortunately it always makes its way back.
Big hugs to all of you in this same position. 
Now going into my third year and have hit a wall . Made progress in the first year expected to make more in second year but now found myself stuck .I’ve now got myself into counselling for grief and depression and new medication hoping this is going to help me be able to move forward
Really sorry. Im just sad not depressed and i a. trying very hard not to sink down but this is a hard journey forward
Reading your message I could have written exactly the same thing… The first year passed by in a haze, struggling with the loss, how it all happened and then trying to cope with moving and illness. I, too, hoped I’d move on in the second year but found myself still unable to deal with the loss and changes in the third year. I’m in the process of getting counselling as well, having finally realised I can’t go it alone.
The fact is that even our closest family and friends can’t understand what we’re going through and it’s natural that they are moving on now. I was alone when my husband of 39 years had a coronary thrombosis. We lived in the countryside so I found myself doing CPR in the middle of the night until the paramedics arrived. I then watched them working on my husband for an hour before the decision was taken to stop. My adult son and daughter, who both lived a couple of hours away, arrived after it was all over and after my husband had been ‘tidied up’ and moved from our sitting room floor and placed in a bedroom. There are terrible images burnt on my brain that I keep returning to and I am so thankful that my children were spared that, but also isolated from them because they didn’t suffer that experience.
Talking here does help me feel less alone and my thoughts and prayers go out to everyone here struggling with a loss. I hope that we will all manage eventually to find a way to move on, though I’m sure there will always be loss in our hearts, for our partners robbed of many years of life, for us losing them and for all the changes forced on us as well.
Life can be so cruel.
Your story is almost exactly the same as mine . And my dear grown up children , family and close friends are all doing all that they can . But I feel such a burden to them . I’ve seen my councillor twice now so it’s early days but people who have had experience with councillors have reported good things . So with that and medication I’m tentatively hopeful. All I want is to have peace of mind to live along side my grief . I hope you find that too x
Yes life is cruel. I have the same images etched im my brain and my daughter and her husband were staying with me the night it happened so she has this dreadful scene as did my other daughter and son who arrived within 10 minutes as the paramedics were working on Martin. A horror scene and a double trauma for us all. I am trying so hard to be at peace but i dont think i can ever be. I have .my brave face and my home alone one
So many lost years.
Heartsand
I am sure he wouldnt want you to dwell on that. I know my husband would want me to be strong and carry on and have a good life.
I dashed off to work early, before saying bye properly to my husband. He went to work soon after and collapsed there. After I got home after witnessing CPR etc, his empty breakfast bowl and toast crust were still on the kitchen table. It was a Tuesday morning - and before that 2024 had been mostly a very good year - I focus on that when I can - but it is very difficult.
I still cant accept losing my wife after a month. Its heartbreaking. Im consumed with guilt and longing. Thinking of the day she passed and all the things i should have done before. Listened more not getting angry with her. I am struggling with anxiety and cant see a future for me. I have two wonderfull daughter’s and there partners but i feel so alone in my head. I am going to try counselling but i dont know if that will help. Life is so sad now.
Six. Firstly, how was the funeral? That was the first question my GP asked me after letting me talk away for 10 minutes. It had been perfect as planned and I felt myself brighten as I answered his question!
Being a carer is just SO hard. I take my hat off to you for doing that for your wife. To a great extent, my wife cared for her father and often got cross and angry with him. She felt remorse for that all the rest of her years. I always told her that we didn’t know he had dementia, and it had been that which was causing him to be ‘difficult’. We just put it down to ‘old age’ - he was 80! He’d ask when he was going to get his dinner when he’d eaten int not 30 minutes previously, or she’d make his dinner and take it in to him, and he’d say - what’s that? I’ve already had dinner! She’d already just done a long day at work and that was difficult. He’d also ask how to change channels on the TV so many times a day that she got cross after the umpteenth time of telling him how to do it. For some reason he got into the habit of going to the toilet without turning on the light or shutting the door. She’d get so angry, but we still didn’t put this down to anything like dementia.
She would literally throw things at me when she asked me how to do something and I’d say ‘It’s easy darling’.
We don’t think he really realised that we were getting so cross with him though.
So now is not the time to feel guilty - that’s in the past and can’t be changed - now is the time to look forward, as a different person with a different life. One we all have to accept. I too have a wonderful family round me, but still get lonely at times. I find keeping busy helps, maybe a hobby you enjoyed once, or meeting with friends outside the house?
Do try counselling, even if just to find out whether it can help you. Yes, life is sad for all of us going through this awful situation, but it does get a bit easier as time goes on.
Stay on here and you’ll get support when you’re down and when you’re up you can share that to support others.
All the best my friend. Nigel