Me too, I knew what the outcome was and had to be strong for everyone. X
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Thank you for your reply
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I always said the same thing to him before I went to sleep and after 10 months say it to his photo every night before I go to sleep.x
@Deb5
The anger i was left to deal with on top of the grief of losing my Wife was as a result of Anna’s Parents & 2 brothers taking the decision not to visit her in Hospital when she needed them the most. I spent 14 hours of every single day for the 5 weeks she was there, the look of disappointment on her face every time she heard footsteps coming down the ward hoping it was them coming to see her only to be let down every time will be etched in my memory forever. On the day she was first diagnosed she spared a thought for them by telling me she had made the decision that she wanted our Children and her parents to know first yet they spared little thought for her in her hour of need. I have not seen or heard from any of her family since her funeral at the end of November last year & they live no more than 80 yards away from our house. I was so enraged by their behaviour toward her & she knew that, in fact she made me promise her that i wouldn’t go to their home & kick off at them about it, which although hugely difficult i agreed to. My Son on the other hand raging also & he unlike me hadn’t made the same promise. He went to see them the day before she was allowed home for her final few weeks & told them all exactly what he thought of them & that they had let his Mom down badly, not surprisingly they had little comment to make. Reluctantly i allowed them to visit her at our home on a couple of occasions, an 80 yard walk doesn’t take much effort does it.
My Wife has been taken from me way too early & I’m finding it difficult to process her loss but one thing is for certain, i will never speak to any of her family again due to the way they treated my Anna, she didn’t deserve that from them, my Children are also now keeping them at arms length, the worst part is that they don’t even feel any guilt as a result of their actions, i can’t honestly fathom what goes through the minds of some people, if that was my Daughter, wild horses couldn’t drag me away from her side in Hospital but as the saying goes " you can choose your friends but you can’t choose your family ". I am as i mentioned receiving some counselling to help with my anger & it has helped a bit.
I support Ason Villa as you have probably already guessed, born & bred Brummie & a season ticket holder also.
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Just read this and its really awful ! Why ? How hard is it to go visit your own daughter 
and your poor wife hoping they would come and it wouldve taken the pressure off you too doing all the caring as well ;(
I dont blame you not talking to them. I wouldnt either !!
My family were ok ish until after the funeral and then they just decided … thats it dont have to do anything else ! Buts thats the time you need people the most !! It makes you feel very isolated doesnt it ? But thank god for bereavment counselling and sites like this hey ? Yeh aston villa … know a bit about them. Funnily enough i knew someone who played for them … through charity work - brendan ormanby … do you know him ? Lovely man xx
My Mum, who I love to bits, actually said that now the funeral is over things will feel better for me! WTF. This is just the beginning of the second part of this nightmare.
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@Deb5
Yes you are right, it is a downright disgrace how any parent can treat their own child in such a cruel & heartless way, my beloved Wife Anna departed this life for the next knowing that her own Parents & Brothers couldn’t spare the time to visit her & try to comfort her when she was at her lowest ebb.
I’ve not spoken to either her Mom or Dad as i can’t trust myself to not say what i, my Children & my Anna really thought of them for their callous behaviour. One of her Brothers contacted me a few weeks back & during our brief conversation he was told in no uncertain terms about my feelings towards him, his brother & his parents, i have absolutely no doubt that he will have informed them of how irate i am & i seriously don’t think they are likely to show their faces anytime soon for fear of getting the same reaction.
My Son is away travelling around the USA this past two weeks & is getting married in Las Vegas on Good Friday, he will be having a Wedding reception back at home in a couple of weeks time & has let it be known that none of them will be welcome to attend, my Daughter is none too keen on visiting them much either being honest so they’ve managed to alienate their Grandchildren / Nephew / Niece as well as abandon their Daughter / Sister but it was their choice to do what they did, they have to live with that but as mentioned previously Guilt doesn’t affect the evil, i hope karma decides to visit them someday soon, i know that sounds bad but i can’t help feeling that way.
Brendan Ormsby is a Villa player from my youth, he played for them back in the late 70s / early 80s, saw him play many a game back then & he was always well respected by most fans xx
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Yeh he is a lovely man. Im glad you knew him as a player. Me and my husband became good friends with him and his wife, but hes not in good health now unfortunately and dont see his wife so much these days … although we have kept in touch until recently. She came to my husbands funeral so that was nice : )
Yeh families hey …as they say you can chose your friends but not your family … try not be too angry as it will hurt you more… Let it go and their conscience will prick them one day… hopefully. I would just ignore them and not give them time of day … i had so many problems with my family too ! People just bury their head in the sands. We are so bad at dealing with dying in this country …its pathetic really because as a nurse friend of mine said - its gonna happen to everybody one day - so its very stupid that people act as if its never gonna happen to them - cos it is !! Its inevitable for everyone eventually … i feel your anger i hope counselling helps ? X
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We are all with you.
Because we all know what you’re feeling and going through at the moment.
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@Deb5
At first my anger towards my Anna’s family was all consuming, it was all i had in my mind for the bulk of each day, as time has passed it occupies my mind less & less, it will always be there & I’ll never forgive what they did or speak to them again but i know she wouldn’t want it to eat away at me & take over my life. As you said hopefully their conscience will prick them one day.
Sad to hear you have also faced similar problems with your own family, it makes the grieving process so much harder when you don’t have the support of others but a strength of character within yourself will help you through this difficult period without them, you can always be proud of that going forward.
I try to focus my time & attention on other things, i have spent quite a while on a portrait painting of my Anna which i started before Christmas & eventually completed last weekend, in total i think it took me around forty to fifty hours doing an hour here & there when i felt like it, i found it really therapeutic as it occupied my mind during times when i couldn’t concentrate on stuff like watching TV or reading. I’ll attach some pictures of my efforts, i think it came out quite well tbh. I’ve been out for a good long walk earlier today with my Daughter and her Boyfriend as they live right next to a huge National Trust forest in the Midlands, we ended up covering 6 miles which will stand me in good stead for my trek up Snowdonia in a few weeks time, ten of us from my workplace are trekking up there to raise some money for the local Hospice that helped care for my Wife in her final weeks.
I know my Anna would be happy that I’m finding things to take up my time instead of sitting at home alone wallowing in grief, I’m trying my utmost to avoid doing that. Hope you like my painting xx Take care of yourself xx
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Thats a really good likeness ! Well done ! And a lovely thing to do ! I had my husbands bradford city t-shirt framed … all the players signed it for him 
Enjoy snowdonia and its a good cause
Our very last holiday was in snowdonia … in a caravan site at foot of the hills. Such a beautiful place ! I look back at pictures of him and it seems inconceivable that 5 short months later i wouldnt have him with me … he looked so well in them so very sad for us isnt it ? xx
@Deb5
Thank you for your kind comments on my painting, I’m very proud of it & it has pride of place in my lounge above where i keep my Anna’s ashes.
I agree it is so very sad for us & our lives will never be the same now our life partners have left us. My Anna battled Cancer for 16 months & it was heartbreaking to watch what she endured in that time period, she is without doubt the strongest & bravest woman I have ever known, she took everything Cancer threw at her & never once complained or said " why me, life’s not fair " she just got on with things & put up the best fight she could & for that I’ll be forever proud of her.
It was the guys i work with who suggested climbing Snowdonia as a way to give back to the Hospice which is very good of them, they & my employer were hugely supportive during Anna’s final weeks & for that I’ll be forever grateful. I’ve never been to Snowdonia so I’m quite looking forward to doing it, thought I’d put a few miles in the old legs today which i enjoyed immensely & the weather was decent too which was a bonus xx
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No worries snowdonia is beautiful … you will enjoy it - in fact i think wales is lovely tbh. I never went much until the last 4 years and we had a couple of holidays there and it was great x
I can imagine how angry you are, someone you love so deeply being treated badly by her own family is pretty inexcusable. I hope as time passes you forget this anger and just concentrate on the joy you had together, tbh her family don’t sound like they are worth a second thought from you. Take care x
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@Estweyn
We were happily married for 31 years with 2 amazing Children & 2 beautiful Granddaughters.
I always got on reasonably well with her Dad over the years but have to say that from the moment i first met her mother i never was that keen on her. She always came across as a very cold & uncaring person. Anna told me many times over the years how her mother never really conveyed any Love toward her & her brothers when they were little.
When i was making the Funeral arrangements, Anna had left strict instruction that she wanted a celebrant service & when the lady doing the service arranged a meeting to go through memories of Anna’s life i ended up asking her parents to attend to give a backdrop of her life when she was a child as obviously i wasn’t there for that, shockingly both of them sat in the meeting with myself, my Son & my Daughter for an hour & a half & offered absolutely nothing in the way of information regarding Anna’s childhood, we were all stunned & when pushed to come up with something they just sat looking at each other in silence. I was so embarrassed & had to apologise to the celebrant later that day. My Son went absolutely mad at them when he spoke to them that evening but not surprisingly they had nothing to say. So you can see the type of people I’ve been dealing with & little wonder that I’ve been so angry.
Little by little i am moving past the anger but I’m holding onto the hope that karma actually exists & they will receive some kind of payback for the callous way they treated my beloved Anna. That thought is helping me to let my anger dissipate somewhat.
Take care of yourself also xx
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Just read your story about your late wifes parents ! How weird to just sit there not talking ? Its them with the problem… not you mind you i remember when my mum came to visit my husband after his terminal diagnosis and she just sat there not talking … maybe they were in shock or denial ? My mum has come around a lot now tbh but i suppose as shes my mum i have to let her off ? Im not sure how good the older generation are at dealing with dying … probably worse than our generation ? x
There really are some strange people about, just be glad that they aren’t your blood and soon hopefully you won’t need to have very much to do with them at all. Please don’t try to figure them out, be thankful that you don’t have that mindset to do so.
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@Deb5
I’m not prepared to accept on any level that they were in shock or denial about Anna’s condition, they had 16 months to take all that on board, right from her first day of diagnosis, neither myself nor our children had the luxury of being able to distance ourselves from what was happening to her, nor would we have wanted to, it was our duty to be there for her, we did our absolute 100% best to ensure that she knew she was so Loved & cared for right up to the very end. We never discussed it much because i knew how much it upset and disappointed her how they were behaving but i can’t even begin to imagine how that must have felt for her, that her own blood had turned their backs on her when she needed them the most. It’s cruel & beyond unforgivable, but the silence during the meeting with the celebrant lady was something else entirely, had i have not been calmed down by my Daughter that evening i daren’t think what i would have said to them, even though she had made me promise not to & to cap it all off Anna’s Dad spoke to my Daughter a couple of weeks after the Funeral, he never bothered to contact me directly but asked my Daughter to put it to me that would it be possible for him to have some of Anna’s ashes so he could get an item of jewellery made for her Mom, i couldn’t believe it, how dare he even think i would consider agreeing to that after the way they treated her, needless to say i told my Daughter to let him know that was never going to happen in no uncertain terms although i doubt she would have conveyed it to him in the way i asked her to. Both my Son & Daughter separately have pressed them for an explanation as to their behaviour but they are unwilling to enter into any dialogue on the subject. I’ve not seen or heard a word from them since the day of the Funeral & I’m fine with that, long may it continue. They are dead to me, both her parents and her brothers but i doubt it will bother them, if they could treat their own flesh & blood that way they’ll hardly be bothered about me will they. As i said i can only hope that Karma will play a part somewhere in the future. As regards your own situation with your Mom only you can assess & judge how to proceed in your relationship with her, I’m not sure how I’d be in those circumstances, unfortunately both of my own parents passed away many years ago.
Take care of yourself xx
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@SadGirlfriend
I haven’t seen or heard anything from any of her Family since the Funeral back at the end of November last year which I’m absolutely fine with, i don’t need them anywhere near me polluting my air, i will never speak a word to any of them again until i take my last breath but i doubt very much whether that will bother them at all being honest xx
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@Deb5
I’m not prepared to accept on any level that they were in shock or denial about Anna’s condition, they had 16 months to take all that on board, right from her first day of diagnosis, neither myself nor our children had the luxury of being able to distance ourselves from what was happening to her, nor would we have wanted to, it was our duty to be there for her, we did our absolute 100% best to ensure that she knew she was so Loved & cared for right up to the very end. We never discussed it much because i knew how much it upset and disappointed her how they were behaving but i can’t even begin to imagine how that must have felt for her, that her own blood had turned their backs on her when she needed them the most. It’s cruel & beyond unforgivable, but the silence during the meeting with the celebrant lady was something else entirely, had i not been calmed down by my Daughter that evening i daren’t think what i would have said to them, even though she had made me promise not to & to cap it all off Anna’s Dad spoke to my Daughter a couple of weeks after the Funeral, he never bothered to contact me directly but asked my Daughter to put it to me that would it be possible for him to have some of Anna’s ashes so he could get an item of jewellery made for her Mom, i couldn’t believe it, how dare he even think i would consider agreeing to that after the way they treated her, needless to say i told my Daughter to let him know that was never going to happen in no uncertain terms although i doubt she would have conveyed it to him in the way i asked her to. Both my Son & Daughter separately have pressed them for an explanation as to their behaviour but they are unwilling to enter into any dialogue on the subject. I’ve not seen or heard a word from them since the day of the Funeral & I’m fine with that, long may it continue. They are dead to me, both her parents and her brothers but i doubt it will bother them, if they could treat their own flesh & blood that way they’ll hardly be bothered about me will they. As i said i can only hope that Karma will play a part somewhere in the future. As regards your own situation with your Mom only you can assess & judge how to proceed in your relationship with her, I’m not sure how I’d be in those circumstances, unfortunately both of my own parents passed away many years ago.
Take care of yourself xxx
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