I’m consumed by grief for my husband

DEAR BEL

PLEASE help. My lovely husband of almost 30 years died suddenly recently and I just cannot cope.

I know people say that their relationship was perfect but ours truly was. I’m broken and don’t want to go on without him. I have children and grandchildren, but without him I feel totally alone.

Both in unhappy marriages, we began an affair, then moved in together — and he treated my kids as his kids. Their own dad didn’t bother with them. We had a child together.

Then we discovered that he had a debilitating illness and I knew he wouldn’t live as long as other people.

During lockdown we were so careful due to his health; he didn’t die from Covid. He had a heart attack — nothing would have saved him. Our youngest and I were with him and he didn’t suffer.

Despite his disability he was the happiest man I’ve ever known. No moaning, always smiling. Now he is gone.

I don’t think people realised how much I depended on him for support. I could talk to him about anything. We told each other ‘I love you’ several times a day and had no arguments.

We were truly meant to be together and now, without him, I am physically hurting. Crying so much every day. I have lost half of me.

I don’t have friends. You see, when someone is disabled, in a wheelchair, friends fall away.

I have children but they should be able to grieve for their dad and not have to cope with me. I really don’t know what to do.

LaST Sunday, I headed to church, just in case it was open. It wasn’t. So on an impulse I wandered in the churchyard, in search of a neighbour’s son’s grave, which I have never seen. I found it, and stood there a while, hearing birdsong, thinking what it must be like to lose an 18-year-old to cancer.

as I read the sad, touching poem on the stone it was hard not to cry. Nearby, a woman (probably in her 60s) was carefully tending another resting place. a son? a husband?

I spoke, told her that the grave was beautiful, and saw her face suddenly illuminated by all the light of love inside her, as she smiled and said, ‘Thank you.’ What else can we do, but extend a hand of sympathy and (yes) love to our fellow suffering human beings?

What else can I say to you, but that I am sorry for your pain? No two griefs are the same, even though we are all subject to decline and fall, like the trees and everything in the natural world.

Walking in a graveyard can be melancholy, yet reminds you of what’s sad, true and permanent. What can be set against that sadness? Why, the love you describe: the perfect relationship you created from the shards of two broken marriages, building a glorious edifice together, even though you knew (because of his illness) that the sands beneath were shifting.

Did you ever talk about which of you would die first? It’s the most agonising conversation a couple can have — but many of us do. and it can help somebody grieving to reflect that you would not wish your beloved to suffer what you are enduring right now.

You have taken the burden of grief from him and that bestows an even deeper meaning on your love. You are the one left — carrying the flame.

I understand why you feel you cannot live without him. But your family can (and will) help you keep his memory alive and be a devoted proof that true love does not die. Grief is like a fresh tattoo — bruised, bleeding and ugly at first, but then settling to become part of the body, a permanent mark.

Many others are similarly branded — and in time you might talk to them and make new friends. Don’t rule that out. Don’t deprive your children of the chance to hold you and help you.

This terrible grief will ease. and you can live on your husband’s behalf, as he would surely wish, spending time with your family and continuing to tell him your message of love every day.