COPING WITH GRIEF
Losing my husband, Jack, was one of the toughest times of my life [they were married for 30 years before his death in 2004]. I’m not sure I’ll ever truly get over not being Mrs Rosenthal. Whatever I got right and whatever I got wrong, Jack and I were what we were. He was diagnosed with myeloma, which is a weird cancer. You can live with it for years or you can just go like Jack did, two years after his diagnosis. He had a stem cell transplant, but it didn’t really work for longer than three months and it wasn’t pleasant to go through. He had a terrible time.
I found it almost impossible to grieve because my nature is to make people laugh. And then, I’d feel terrible about the fact I didn’t look like I was grieving enough. To try to make myself feel better, I bought things. I bought a car, then I worried that people would think it was odd; why would she buy a car when her husband has just died? But I now know that we all grieve in our own ways; there’s no right or wrong way.
It took me more than two years to accept that he’d gone. Truth be told, sometimes, I still have my moments 16 years later. He died on 29 May and I always get miserable around that time of year. I think, ‘Oh, this thing is getting me down – it’s because I have a pain in my
foot,’ or ‘It’s because somebody hates me.’ But then, I realise it’s coming up to that date and that’s why.
If you know someone who’s grieving,
my advice is simple: be there. Write the letter of condolence, put the casserole on the doorstep, ring every week. Look after the person who is grieving. I can’t tell you how much that helps.