Margm

He was in a Hot Springs Hospital, St. Vincent, when he passed. We live in (I am going to go ahead and leave the "we" because I still think of him here) in Mount Ida, AR. I think we just went over 1000 population. Our home state was Louisiana though, my relatives are there and I think I will eventually go back. I have friends there that have gone through this. My neighbor did also though, and I will miss her very much. Billy and I were never "homesteaders." We preferred to RV travel and we only settled down to help raise our now 16-year-old granddaughter. I don't think I have cried today. I have come close. I went in to see my friends at St. Vincent (used to be St. Joseph's) and I had retired from there. Also retired from LSU in Shreveport, so will be gong back to around the Minden area. No snap decisions. Gonna take it easy. Our lawyer told me to wait a year before I made major decisions but I think and hope by spring I will know what to do. This was not supposed to be him. I was supposed to go first. I used to read him romantic tragedies about husbands and wives who died within hours of each other. He finally told me that he would not want to live if I went first, but he would try to carry on the best he could. Maybe he was telling me something. But, I was the one that was sick, he was only ill about seven weeks. I know I should take comfort in that, but right now I feel no comfort. I just miss him and screaming into pillows only gives you a headache. Thank God for my support system of girls I graduated high school with and my neighbor and middle aged kids. Thanks for responding.

Grief is exhausting. kayc, you helped me today. :"We'll be together soon, that everything will be okay." I just thought that this time last month Billy was worried about losing his beard to chemo. He does not have to worry about that anymore, but I wish I could just hug him.

I am well prepared for "not eating." I had our RV refrigerator stocked with all the good stuff, every flavor of the Boost Plus, the most richly endowed Ensure's. I could not get him to take any of them. I think the chemo took his taste away from him. In the end, he was throwing up his own body because we could not get anything down him. He refused/could not eat or drink. So, I have all these drinks that I can tolerate, but right now I cannot tolerate eating. Who knew that when I bought all these nourishing drinks, I was actually buying them for myself.

Thank you all so much. I have so much business to take care of, but taking care of him was my first thought and act. When I get in the truck driving anywhere I talk to him, tell him how sorry I am for not holding him, and I can hear him say "Marg, you are always blaming yourself for everything." I took an Ambien to sleep last night. I saw him sitting on the end of the bed. He did not say anything. The Ambien did not help me sleep but till 2:30 a.m. It was my first one ever. The doc told me how to take it, go to bed and stay in bed, so I was safe with it. I read somewhere that the 2nd year is worse. My grandmother wrote a "book" for her grandchildren. When my grandfather passed, she said she had lost her best friend. I was 12-years-old and I can remember her saying that to her brother the day he passed. In her "book" she said the hurting was supposed to get easier but it didn't. She outlived him about 20 years. He was 27 and she was 15 when they married. I understand her now.

I agree, it is almost like a curse. I am so selfish, I wanted to go first. My wanting to be "alone" the first day has grown into fear of being alone on the 3rd day. I have a wonderful support group.......except for the person I used to tell everything to. I have no answers.

I have so many friends who have lost their mates, so I have a wonderful support service. I just wish I could have held him and just told him to let go instead of trying so hard to fight. He told me "don't you think I see the worry in your eyes" and his insinuation was that he needed to go. He put his beautiful hands up to me palm up when I brought the urinal to him. He did not want the urinal, he was telling me he could not fight anymore. I miss him so much. I know I did not love him any more than my friends loved their husbands, but I wish I could sew up this raw wound. Thank you all for your kind words.

It has only been three days. I have taken care of the cremation. I am haunted by his hands outstretched to me in the hospital bed showing he had to give up. I am not angry at him, I am angry at me. I could have held him while he passed. I didn't, and I cannot forgive myself. He helped me through cancer. He was the rudder to my ship when my colon ruptured. I could not have made it without him and yet I feel I let him down those couple of hours he passed away. It was a terrible night in the ER, 4-5 hours wait with me going up to the desk over and over saying he needed a bed. I kept him covered up and held him then. We got to the hospital room at 4:00 or 5:00 a.m. I kept fussing because he would not keep his arm straight with the needle in it and I had to keep resetting the buzzer on the drip machine. Will I ever be able to forgive myself? I was a good caretaker and never minded one second of helping him. He went down in six weeks and thankfully there was not much pain. If there was, I gave him a pain pill, but he did not require much. It was already Stage IV liver/colon ? cancer when it was found in September. He was riding the elliptical 30 minutes at a time in August. They did the liver biopsy at a teaching hospital in Little Rock and it was all downhill after that. He slept mostly 24/7 without any sleeping pills or anything. He said "don't you think I see the worry in your eyes?" But I kept telling him I could not live without him. He just went so fast. We had been married 54 years and I never minded caring for him at all. He took care of me, that is what I was here for. He minded though. Even his walking was taken away and he hated me putting him in a wheelchair. He only had two chemo sessions.