After sudden death of a husband, finding meaning in life: Responses to a Recent Post

Here are some comments posted in response to a recent Ask Dr. Neimeyer post about the sudden death of a husband [some details were changed for anonymity}.

I lost my husband this December. So it has been over a month. I cannot sleep or eat. I have to lay on the couch and cannot stand being in my room at all, I cannot lay down on our bed. Everyone here understands but it doesn’t help
Sometimes I feel numb other times I just want to scream. We have several children in our home so I feel I have to be strong for them but each day I don’t want to go on. I have no interest in anything. There are no words to describe the despair I feel. I don’t want to be around people. I can barely tolerate being around our kids because I have to perpetuate I am ok when in actuality I just want to die. I want to be with him and don’t want anything else. There is a nothingness about me. We enjoyed so many things together that now those things have no place in my life anymore because they were things we enjoyed TOGETHER. I don’t even want to go back to work. I just don’t want to do anything. I understand everything everyone said and are going through because u all are going through the same feelings and loss. Children, family members and friends have lost their father, brother, uncle, friend etc., BUT they did not lose their spouse, soul mate, best friend, lover. They did not lay down with them every night and wake up to them every morning. The late night pillow talks, planning our next adventure, the joking, the fights with the make ups, and just a pure true love . He’s the last person I see before going to bed and the first person I see waking up. There is no life after this, just existence.

I just lost my husband of 12 years in January. He was over 45 and died from a heart attack right in front of me and my son. We have 3 kids ages 2x ( daughter with our 1st grand baby on the way), 2x (son) and 1x (daughter). I feel all of what you are feeling. I don’t know how my life is supposed to go on. I know our kids need me. It’s just so hard. All I do is cry and sleep and zone out. And do it all over.

I lost my husband of 50 years this past Fall, soon after our 50th wedding anniversary and a few days after my 70th birthday. We took our dogs for a walk in the woods, I did a slightly longer walk and my husband took our older dog a slightly shorter walk, then we would meet and walk back to the car together. On this afternoon my husband did not meet half way, I assumed the older dog was being slow. As walked up the path I saw the dog and wondered where my husband was, then I saw his legs sticking out from the brambles. As soon as I reached him I knew he was dead by his colour, he also had a bad bump on his head where he fell, he had a cardiac arrest, it was at that moment my life ended. I loved him so much, to the exception of having friends, we had each other. Every night I see his lifeless body with the dog sitting by him, we didn’t say goodbye. I can’t sleep, or eat, and I feel so sad that he is missing his life which he enjoyed, a kind gentle man with loads of love in his heart. I miss him so very much, I am alive, but not living. I do not want to carry on. Like you I wish I had gone first.

Sandra, totally understand, I lost my beloved husband too, I’m dead in my heart but alive.

I lost my husband in January 22nd. He was mid-50s and he also was a functioning alcoholic. Don’t know if he died of a heart attack or what me and my son found him dead on the living room floor. We were downstairs with a friend playing darts and we came back upstairs 2 hours later and he was dead on the floor. Not sure if he died of a heart attack or not he didn’t have any illnesses that we knew of. But heart disease ran in his family. I’m so lost without him so angry at the same time. My son is still in high school so I feel really bad for him and my 21 year old daughter

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1 thought on “After sudden death of a husband, finding meaning in life: Responses to a Recent Post”

  1. I feel deeply with all of you. Last December was the seventh anniversary of my partner of 30 years passing. He went to the ER the day before Thanksgiving and couldn’t come through a sepsis condition. It was sudden and very unexpected. The period of time from Thanksgiving through the December holidays, his birthday in January, and up to Valentine’s Day are a dark night of the soul for me. I know that life is suffering for everyone, but I’m experiencing this suffering in this mind/body/spirit. I read many personal accounts of people who have lost their partners, books that try to provide spiritual solace and meaning, books on death itself; I’ve consulted very loving teachers who have told me that we will definitely see each other again; I try to do yoga and meditation. All these practices can help in temporary ways, but the hard edge of reality always waits on the other side. I think that the only positive change I have found is that I care deeply about everyone who faces this kind of loss. I am so moved by each person’s unique individual sorrow, and when I can help or offer comfort even in very small ways I do. We can flood the world with the love we have for one another.

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