Real life: ‘He’s in my heart in all I do’
Cathy Jones, 55, was devastated when her husband died but there was something else she hadn’t expected
Standing on her hotel balcony in Rhodes with a glass of wine, Cathy Jones should have been looking forward to celebrating her 54th birthday. But there was someone very special missing.
Six years before, Cathy’s husband Hywel, 53, had passed away after being diagnosed with cancer. ‘Nobody expects to become a widow at 49,’ says Cathy. ‘But here I was. It’s not like divorce. When the love of your life dies, they take a part of you with them – and the future you’d been so sure of.’
Cathy was 32 and Hywel
37 when they first met on a night out in Cardiff, where they both lived. Cathy had a son, Adam, from a previous relationship, while Hywel had children Luke and Carly. They were also both avid travellers.
They married in the Seychelles in 1997, and a couple of years later their son Elliott was born. But then in the summer of 2006, Hywel felt a pain in his neck.
The GP told them it was swollen glands. But when the pain continued, and Hywel started to feel exhausted, he was referred for a biopsy at the local hospital, which revealed he had multiple secondary tumours in his neck.
‘They had no idea where the cancer originated, it had spread so much by that point,’ says Cathy. ‘We were devastated, and angry that it hadn’t been picked up sooner. But we realised we couldn’t waste time questioning it.’
Hywel had surgery to remove as many of the tumours as possible and after six weeks of radiotherapy, he was in remission. ‘It felt like we’d been given a second chance,’ says Cathy. But in June 2010 a routine scan found tumours in Hywel’s lungs. ‘The oncologist told us it was terminal, and they couldn’t know for sure how long he’d have left. It could be six months or two years.’
Any other couple might have crumbled, but not Hywel and Cathy. ‘We took the children to Center Parcs, and booked holidays to Cape Town and Majorca,’ says Cathy. ‘We tried our best to
‘When the love of your life dies, they take part of you with them’
tick off all the things we’d ever wanted to, but Hywel’s diagnosis loomed over us.’
The couple turned to cancer support services for help dealing with Hywel’s diagnosis. Being keen singers, they were recommended to a choir run by a charity called Tenovus Cancer Care.
It was the perfect way for Hywel to meet other people who understood his condition. ‘They became our lifeline,’ says Cathy. ‘Soon we started volunteering for the charity.’
But by January 2012, Hywel became so poorly he found it difficult to speak, let alone sing. Six months later he passed away at a hospice.
‘The next year passed in a fog,’ says Cathy. ‘They say grief comes in stages but not for me. Sometimes I wondered if I’d ever not feel in pain again.’
The simplest things triggered memories. ‘When I couldn’t work the computer I felt angry at Hywel for not teaching me. When I heard one of Hywel’s favourite songs on the radio, I felt frustrated he wasn’t here to hum along to it,’ she says. ‘He made me promise to take the children on holiday after he passed away. But it was too difficult. There was a Hywelshaped hole in our lives.’
Few things gave Cathy more comfort than the choir, so she threw herself into volunteering for Tenovus Cancer Care. ‘I realised I had to learn how to be a widow,’ she says. ‘It was a case of adjust or sink, and with the children depending on me the latter wasn’t an option.’
As time passed, Cathy realised she missed travelling. So in 2017 she booked her first solo trip to Rhodes with a company called Friendship Travel to coincide with her 54th birthday. ‘It was a mix of widows and divorcees,’ says Cathy. ‘On my birthday eve, we all went to a rooftop restaurant. It was nice to be with other people, but when I got back to my room I did have a little cry for Hywel. I still missed my wingman.’
Five years later, Cathy says the grief never leaves her but she’s learnt to accept it and allow herself to enjoy new experiences. ‘I owe it to Hywel to make the most of a life he never got to live,’ she says. ‘It isn’t about forgetting him, it’s about taking him in my heart in all that I do.’
For more information on Tenovus Cancer Care, visit tenovuscancercare.org.uk.
‘I realised I had to learn how to be a widow, to adjust or sink’