Can’t help but notice how many of us lost our husbands/partners due to sudden heart attacks, out of the blue?
Do you think grieving is worse when it is sudden rather than anticipated as there was no time to say goodbye. No final words or anything
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Hello Sarlyn….
There are a lot of us unfortunately aren’t there.
Any loss is heartbreaking, but to to only have a what’s for dinner, see you later a kiss….to then an hour or so later and a knock on the door from a policeman I feel is along the lines of traumatic grief!!
Alison.
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Yes I was quite shocked to see so many us and particularly how young many of our loved one’s were. In my case there were no symptoms, no warning signs, nothing just here one minute and gone the next, totally out of the blue. Jim was slim, never smoked and very occasional drink. It haunts me we never got to say goodbye
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And me….
It’s truly heartbreaking…
My Alan had not long turned 57
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Did he have heart problems? It’s so traumatic when there are no warning signs and no time to do anything
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No nothing no signs….
He kept mentioning he was tired, but he got up at four in the morning and didn’t come home till six in the evening, he worked in construction, so he was pretty fit as well!!
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I don’t think you can compare the level of grieving really, if it’s from a terminal diagnosis your witnessing pain, despair & fear & your often in denial so goodbyes are not done.
How anybody dies is devastating along with it doesn’t matter if you were married 50 years or 5 years losing someone you love is traumatic.
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Our grief is ultimately related to the loss of that person, so don’t think there’s a scale of measurement or “easier” form of grief. Loss is loss
Having said that, I do think the pre loss, soul destroying trauma of watching a loved one deteriorate in front of your eyes and being helpless to save them, no matter what you do, is a continued stress trauma that takes its toll and is impossible to quantify
And then, when there’s no hope left and you think it can’t possibly get any worse, you arrive at the end of life process, which the brutality of, can’t be understood until you’ve been through it
Only then do you start the grief of loss journey we find ourselves on
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@AJO
My Jim was the same, I have lost someone to a terminal illness and although all loss is devastating and there is no comparison to anyone’s loss the sudden shock of my Jim waking up having a cup of tea and then dead 2 minutes later without any diagnosis, any warning was so traumatic that I couldn’t take it in, no time to process anything, never even got to hold his hand or see him for one last time
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I have actually had people say to me, well at least he didn’t suffer and it was quick, clearly diminishing my grief
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He went in the garden to water his plants when he’d been gone too long I went to see what he was doing and there he was gone no warning no goodbye just total shock for me 8 months now and I’m still finding it hard to believe.
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I’ve just lost my husband to a sudden cardiac arrest he was only 50 healthy not over weight and never smoked. He had a heart attack in August and a quadruple heart bypass at the end of November he’d only been home from hospital a day when he had his cardiac arrest. We thought the operation was going to give him a new lease of life how wrong we were. He never regained consciousness and died a month later and although I’m devastated about not being able to save him and tormenting myself with things I can’t change I do try to take comfort from the fact he didn’t suffer and he wouldn’t have known what was happening to him. All loss for us is deeply traumatic no matter how they died as we’ve lost our most precious person. Thinking of you all and sending love and strength 
xxx
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That’s quite brutal isn’t it….
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@LyndaK so similar to what happened with us. He went out to cut the grass at the back, which he had done, and when he didn’t appear at the front of the house for me to plug in the lawnmower I went out and found him gone. The paramedics tried very hard but as a nurse I knew he was gone. I don’t think I’ll ever recover from the shock, and I will never stop asking myself if it would have been different if I’d gone out sooner, and whether he called out for me, or would he still be here if I’d cut the grass. Can’t believe after all our years together that I wasn’t with him at the end, telling him how much I loved him.
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My partner was 49, died instantly from cardiac arrest, here one minute, gone the next. For him, he knew nothing about it and I’m glad. I have had cose friends die a slow agonising death, knowing the pain and torture of knowing they will leave their loved one and can do nothing about it and knowing that they will have to struggle on alone without them. Rich was saved that and I’m grateful. But yet, I still wish I had some time to say goodbye while he could see and hear me tell him one last time how much I loved him.
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@Ali29
For me personally, I agree, not being able to hold his hand and be there with him until he took his last breath and him hearing me tell him I loved him was the worse part of my grief
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I lost my husband suddenly and unexpectedly at only 53 years old.
Got a phone call from my son to say that dad had collapsed and time I got home he was gone. Not ambulance in sight, I did CPR but was too late. Paramedics worked on my husband for 45 minutes as long as they responded to the call. Really find that hard if only they came earlier. My husband died of a massive saddle pulmonary embolism and undiagnosed kidney cancer. He was fit and working as a joiner the day before. I feel guilty for noticing that he had lost weight and was so ill. I only noticed the weight loss a couple of weeks before and got him down the doctor but too late.
I wish I could have told him I loved him and appreciated everything he did for me. Held his hand as was alive for 30 minutes after he collapsed but I missed the phone call, something I can’t forgive myself for. We were just ripped apart. Life is just so cruel and unfair.
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@Memories Of Us
What a brilliant post,so much heartfelt meaning. Thankyou
Les49
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@Sarlyn mine died without warning aged 59 . He was in the gp surgery at the time because he’d fallen downstairs and hurt his back . I have never experienced a shock like this and have struggled to handle my emotions and overwhelming grief. When I received his death certificate, it was apparent that he had a few co-morbidities but he had zero symptoms ( apart from the bad back which was probably a red herring) . I fail to believe how someone fit and strong like him could be walking around in such a poor state of health but seemingly really well. This has destroyed me , because not only do I miss him like hell , I feel so guilty that I didn’t notice anything was wrong .
I have noticed how many of us have lost our men suddenly in this way . Personally, I know that Baz would have wanted time to prepare ( and possibly get treatment after the doctors?) because he would be devastated by how my life has unraveled since he died. Even my family have turned their back ( my son and his wife) which is making this so much worse to bear . So , I tend to feel sudden death is harder , purely because of the shock and the lack of time to say goodbye for instance. 
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@AJO yes the speed of a sudden death is definitely a traumatic event . It’s heartbreaking that there are so many of us here sharing the same type of experience. It changes you as a person
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