A husband’s grief: The heartbreaking love story you have to read
jonathan margolis has found a unique way to keep his childhood sweetheart’s memory alive
Every day, I scroll through text messages between me and my wife Sue. There are playful emojis, thousands of kisses, countless ‘I love yous’. Even the more mundane shopping lists and reminders to buy milk make me smile.
I could spend hours looking through this seemingly endless stream of words, reading the private jokes only we’d laugh at. Only, our messages stop promptly in November 2017. One last, garbled text marks the end of Sue’s life, aged 62. We found it on her phone and have never quite understood it.
Sue and I had met at a youth group in Ilford, London. I was a shy, pubescent teen, whereas Sue was bright, funny and outspoken – way out of my league! It took until I was 16 to muster the courage to ask her out, but in August 1972, on the school bus, I found my voice. ‘Hi,’ I mumbled with a trembling bottom lip. The following week, we had our first date.
We both went on to study at Nottingham University and it was there I realised Sue was the love of my life. In August 1976, in our second year of uni, we married. Sue went on to train as a teacher as I started my job in journalism as a reporter on The Yorkshire
Post. It wasn’t long before Sue took on the biggest job of her life – motherhood. Ruth was born in May 1979, followed by David two years later, then Ellie in 1989. When we weren’t having fun at home, the five of us went on brilliant holidays, twice touring the US in a Winnebago.
Empty-nesters
When all the children had flown the nest, Sue and I enjoyed time together. We’d walk in the park or lounge on the sofa with a good film and we could sit for hours in a comfortable silence. Our walks kept Sue fit and despite a few glasses of wine over dinner, we’d both always led a healthy lifestyle. But at the beginning of 2016 she developed a persistent cough. ‘It’s driving me mad,’ she messaged me one day, with an exasperated face emoji. A doctor said it was caused by the acid reflux she’d suffered with for years. Medication helped the cough, so we weren’t worried.
But as 2017 crept in, Sue’s cough reappeared. This time she went to see a different GP. ‘I’ve been referred for an X-ray,’ she told me when she got home. But she had to wait a month for an appointment, so we decided to go private. ‘Just to be safe,’ she said. But, not worried, Sue told me she’d go to the X-ray on her own.
Sitting in the barbers on the day of the X-ray, my phone started to ring. It was Sue. ‘I think there’s a problem, J,’ she said, an uncharacteristic tremble in her voice. The doctor had rung her minutes after she’d left to say she needed to come back as soon as possible. I tried not to worry – maybe it was some kind of
‘I spent hours reading the private jokes we’d shared’
mistake. That afternoon, I went with her to find out the results. ‘There’s a shadow showing on your right lung,’ the doctor said. Sue and I looked at each other. ‘Don’t worry, whatever it is we will deal with this together,’ I reassured her.
The following day, after more tests, we met with a team of doctors. ‘I’m sorry but you have lung cancer,’ one said. ‘Stage four.’
My grip tightened on Sue’s hand. How could this be happening? Sue had never smoked and was physically and mentally strong, seemingly unbreakable.
‘Is there any coming back from that?’ Sue asked. I’d never seen her look so sad, but she kept her composure, which was typical of Sue. I, though, wanted to crumble. Sue was told she’d live for 12-18 months if she had chemotherapy and radiotherapy. We went home in a new, uncomfortable silence. ‘I won’t see any grandchildren grow up,’ she mumbled when we walked through the front door. Inside I was a broken man. I couldn’t fathom life without my wonderful wife. Telling the children was equally awful. Ruth, then 38, David, 36, and Ellie, 28, were inconsolable.
Sue stopped working to concentrate on her health. She was offered a place on an immunotherapy trial instead of chemotherapy. After six weeks and two treatments, we were back with the doctor to find out the results of a scan. ‘The tumour’s shrunk considerably,’ one of the trial doctors said. Our ears pricked up. It gave us a glimmer of hope. David brought his wedding to Melanie forward to July and, on that day, we forgot all about cancer, enjoying ourselves for the first time in months. But a month later, Sue started to feel unwell. I drove her to hospital, where she was diagnosed with an infection caused by a build up of fluid on the lungs. Deteriorating, the infection turned to sepsis and, after a long exploratory operation, she was put into a coma. The kids and I remained by her bedside for a month, willing her to get better. ‘You need to prepare yourself,’ a doctor warned me.
By September, Sue was out of the coma but she was so weak. When I took her home, life was very different. It would take two hours to get her in the shower, out and dressed again. The children helped out but I gave up work to care for her. As she lay there suffering, she wasn’t the vivacious, intelligent Sue anymore.
In October, we took Sue to a hospice and on 1 November 2017, she died peacefully in her sleep, aged 62. I was heartbroken, but also relieved she was no longer in pain. Going home that night was surreal. I half expected Sue to appear and moan at me for not doing the washing up. But she wasn’t there and it dawned on me she would never be there again.
Heartbroken
As the weeks went on, I threw myself back into work to keep busy and travelled abroad continually. I found comfort looking through family photos, and I soon started to scroll through the messages we’d shared. Hundreds of them, many telling the story of her decline. The morning of that fateful X-ray – ‘All done, results tomorrow!’ Some depicting her sadness and frustration – ‘Oh J, when will this end?’ And others that brought a tearful smile to my face – ‘A beef and horseradish sarnie would be fab.’ Seven months on, I’m still reading those messages. The one that takes me by the throat is actually from me. On New Year’s Eve 2017, I texted her now de-activated phone. ‘I miss you so much,’ I wrote. There was a few seconds’ delay. Then ‘Not delivered,’ reported my phone.
‘Sue kept her composure, which was typical of her’