Wife Died Two Weeks Ago

[DrLouiseJMoody]

On the 13th, I was woken up by two police officers at 12:30 am who had come to tell me that my wife of eleven years had collapsed and died whilst at her sister's. She collapsed, in the kitchen, said she couldn't breathe, and a few minutes later was dead.

The postmortem, a few days later, said "pulmonary thromboembolism", and the coroner said a clot from a dvt went to her heart.

I am 38. She was 46.

The funeral was yesterday, and she had wild flowers, and the wicker coffin she wanted, plus Star Wars theme. I put her with Coco the monkey she's had since a toddler. I collect her ashes in a few weeks.

Now I'm home, surrounded by all our stuff, with our two dogs. Friends have basically moved in because I seem to exist in a haze of sleeping or drinking to cope. I have short bursts of doing what needs to be done.

I am terrified by the unreal amount of admin (although her sister's company is dealing with probate so I don't think there's a great deal I need to do).

I have her ring. I drove our car back from her sister's this morning and cried like an idiot all the way. It was the only one we managed to agree on and had been bought just before lockdown.

I can't face walking the dogs because I'm going to have some sort of breakdown when I go on our local route and she's not there to throw Scrabble tennis balls and play with Matilda.

And I'm angry. At who or what I have no idea. She felt breathless a few days before it happened and dismissed it as a panic attack. The leg pain she believed to be a pulled muscle. There is an entire family history of DVT!

And I keep thinking, did she know in the end? Was she scared? Ogod please don't let her be thinking she knew she was going to die.

And now, I am crying again. I just want her back and really don't know what to do.

I am so sorry for you OP.
It sounds as though what went wrong with your wife would have happened whatever her life had been like. I know it doesn't help bring her back but it's a good thing that - given she had a problem which was going to shorten her life - she had a happy life with you. It is the shock that is worst - for you. You would still have married her even if you'd known she wasn't going to live as long as normal, but you would have been able to prepare yourself. Would you have done a lot different, even so? What you are going through is one of the worst things that can happen, but your wife was spared ever having the 'bad news' conversation with a doctor.
Sending a big virtual hug.

A friend lost his wife suddenly (a cancer so quick and nasty they never knew what it was, it took her in weeks) and he looked as though someone had whacked him with a two by four. He was helped a lot by WAY (and is happy now, though he still thinks of her).

DrLouise I am so sorry, it's such a shock to lose your loved one out of the blue like that. And you are in shock at the moment you poor love.

When my husband died suddenly 5 years ago, I raged and couldn't think about anything else but the what ifs. It does pass though, I promise. I'm glad your GP is providing you with some medication for sleep. Zoplicone may also be useful if they will prescribe that? The solicitors will guide you with probate, (I vaguely remember signing stuff that they told me to and not much else).

Strength to you x

I am so, so sorry.
I am almost 4 years on from the day the police came to tell me my son was dead.
The shock and pain is indescribable. Let people help you. Even small tasks are exhausting.
Don't make any major decisions for at least a year, just do the things that absolutely need to be done.
Try to eat, keep your fluids up, rest when you can even if you can't sleep.

Hi Louise, just checking in to ask how you are doing?

Hey. Appreciate the check-in!

I'm still struggling to get out of disbelief mode. She had two days of not very specific symptoms which is not a fair warning at all. In most cases, the breathlessness gradually gets worse, but hers was intermittent and she'd just walked up a hill minutes before it happened!

I've requested the post mortem report. Not because I'm looking to blame anyone, but because I just want to better understand what happened beyond "pulmonary thromboembolism" (the cause on the death certificate).

And I keep thinking: did she know? She said "Help me I can't breathe." Did she register she was about to die? It's too horrific to think about.

I've been keeping her garden as she liked it, managing small amounts of death-admin each day, but I feel shattered, both mentally and physically. How does one come back from this? I am 38. The thought I will probably live longer without her than I ever was with her is upsetting. I don't want a new life forced upon me. I just want my old one back.

@DrLouiseJMoody I am so sorry for your loss. Your wife looks like she was a very kind and happy person. I want to recommend grief counselling to you, I had it when my dad passed suddenly last year and it really helped me process what happened.

Please know, everything you're feeling and experiencing is normal. I can't even tell you how many times I found myself snot-crying in the middle of the aisle in the supermarket, over nothing. Be kind to yourself, and go well. Sending you all the internet hugs and please, look into Cruse or Bereft, just talking it out to someone really helps.

So sorry OP what a horrendous shock for you.

I think what you're feeling is normal and understandable and you should go with it and let yourself just have all the feelings for as long as you need to while you slowly start to get yourself into some kind of routine to pull you through these tough months ahead.

Try to add one tiny thing a day that is positive. A short walk, brush the dogs for 5 minutes, a cup of tea in the garden after supper, a 10 minute yoga session when you wake up. Whatever you feel like you can manage. Mindless repetition helps.

Hey Louise.

I know what you mean about craving your old life. Sometimes I will watch a programme on the TV and maybe it's a repeat, and I will think to myself "the last time I watched this, I was watching it with X." Sometimes I can remember the exact feelings I had - a smell or a time of day will suddenly jolt me into a time in my life and I will feel a pang if happiness at that memory of blissful unawareness and then plummet back into sadness that it's in the past and I am in the present.

The circumstances of her death sound desperately sad and to hear what she said is devastating, maybe in time you could have some therapy to help you digest it.

Are you still keeping in touch with your friends and family?

Can someone take over the admin stuff for you? If you ask, I know your loved ones will jump to help you.

I am so sorry for you loss . The suddenness hits you in such a awful way .
My daughter passed suddenly 6 years ago aged 26 , her husband found her . She left a daughter who was then 6.
The devastation we all felt was and is horrendous ( it will be 6 years on Thursday ) .
These early days are a blur you function ( to a degree)
My son-in-law remarried last year.
Get as much help and support as you can

So sorry to read this. Please consider joining Widowed and Young. You will be welcome there. There is a FB page too xx

I’m sorry for your loss. She looks beautiful in that picture and the way you describe her and your relationship is so warm.

Oh god, I remember this thread. How are you doing op?

@DrLouiseJMoody please accept my condolences on your terrible loss. Four days after your loss my own very dear DH died suddenly. Life can be so hard and dare I say unfair

SadMum: It is just unspeakably awful that we have to go through this, and yes, functioning is about right - I walk the dogs, keep the house tidy, and that is ... it? Friends are propping me up, so that is something, and I remain close to my wife's family.

Something that's becoming increasingly obvious is how this changes friendships: People who I never regarded as especially close are checking in on me whilst I have been appalled by the behaviour of one or two others. As is known to some of you, I have a (small!) presence in the sex and gender debate, and someone purporting to be a friend of my wife tweeted that I was an abuser, that my wife had escaped, and after that, began interacting with the trans rights activist that is suing me, and who brought nothing but stress to our door. I have no idea what she thinks is doing (other than causing hurt), but whilst my wife and I had fairly standard issues, we were speaking right up until the day she died and, it was a situation where, after everything had broken down, we still said we loved each other, wanted to talk, and there were changes to be made. To have her TRA friend weaponize that, concoct their own fantastic narrative, and begin harassing me (they are also engaging with someone my wife reported to the police!) is beyond belief.

Beyond that, one or two others obviously find it difficult to deal with grief. All I know is that my wife would be appalled at the way one or two she spoke to are now behaving, because even if they despise me, I remain the person she loved, and someone whose life has been shattered. Even a well-known TRA messaged me today to express condolences, someone who I am so very far apart from, and who is behaving better than her 'friends' - they are, of course, not friends, but utterly toxic people who have succeeded in bringing the drama to our door that was the source of much stress.

I guess changes in friendships are common, and on the other hand, I remain grateful to those taking over practical life stuff for me when I'm not really up to it.

I've already joined WAY! Going to a meetup tomorrow. I feel lost, terrified, but I have to try and do something.

And @StopGo - please do share about your husband if you feel able. I imagine that, like me, you are reeling, wondering about thinking "but he was just here a few weeks ago" and it's unreal. Absence, it turns out, can feel like a physical sensation. I go about the day, but there is a physical feeling of heaviness and I think: is this it now?

@DrLouiseJMoody you are spot on. I still feel like he's about to open the front door. The fact that Covid-19 meant I couldn't be with him when he got his terminal diagnosis is for me overwhelming. Too loose your beautiful wife so suddenly must be overwhelming. Neither of us (or many others) got to say I love you.

Wait. When was the diagnosis? This seems horrendously quick.

I look out the kitchen window and expect to see her walking up the drive after a work trip, or wake up and expect to see her working at her desk, or next to me on a Saturday morning reading some book about birds, or next to me on the sofa watching Netflix, and on it goes.

I am slowly sorting through things. Have done one run to the charity shop. Today I binned all the christmas decorations in the shed because why would I want them now? There won't BE a christmas where we'll decorate a tree together, go on a long dog walk, drink, and just be together.

What I have done though is put all our letters/cards etc in a box (turns out she'd kept nearly everything!) and I am obviously keeping small things that mean something.

I'm keeping the house (won't go into details, but I'll be fine - that said, I'd swap her pension for her back!) and that's odd now. It is a house we built together, and whilst I may eventually sell, it seems best to stay put for now.

We have been plunged, without much warning, into a timeline that we did not choose, expect, or want. And that leaves us emotionally homeless wherever we go since our partner was our home. I don't know how to deal sensibly with that.

Much love Louise I'm so sorry for your loss x

I am so very sorry lass.

I'd seen mention elsewhere of some appalling behaviour. I'm glad there's been some unexpected good behaviour to balance it a little.

Sometimes life forces us to confront the world in the bleakest way, with all the comforts we have surrounded ourselves with stripped away or rendered superficial. Gradually though, things like her garden, your home, certain friends, will once more comfort you and help you see the beauty in the world again.

I'm so sorry for such an incredibly tragic loss. That photo of her is beautiful, such a lovely face and smile - so expressive.

My breathlessness prior to having a massive PE was intermittent, and I kick myself for not realising why I felt like I'd just run a marathon doing something I found reasonably easy just hours before. It can easily be dismissed/mistaken to be something quite innocuous.

Not enough is known about them in the general public - whilst we have public information campaigns for strokes and heart attacks, we don't for PEs, even though they're a significant cause of cardiovascular death. More really needs to be done to make people aware of the symptoms.

I'm just so so sorry that your wife succumbed to this insidious condition.

I am so sorry that your wife has died Louise.

I lost my OH in February, and can identify with so many of the tings that you have said.

The paperwork with which you are deluged after a death is so depressing - I spent weeks trying to get an answer from NHS pensions as to whether I would get any help - weeks wondering how the hell I was going to make ends meet.

I too had bouts of uncontrollable crying which floored me. I have never felt so out of control of my emotions - it is a frightening place to be. I rang the Samaritans several times during these bouts and they were wonderful - they listened; they helped me to "come down" and to feel in control again.

I also start ed a diary of what I had achieved each day - tiny things like combed hair, got up ate a meal etc. It helped me to see that there was a bit of me that was starting to cope with the basics.

It is such a hard time I know. But I am 5 months down the line now and have smiled and laughed sometimes, to my amazement.

It sounds as though you created a wonderful funeral as a tribute to her - I hope this will give you some sense of achieving something important on her behalf.

I wish you well in the difficult weeks to come. Take care.

@DrLouiseJMoody thank you for finding time to care. It was three weeks from partial diagnosis to his death which was brutal. That said your lovely wife's sudden death was just as brutal. I wish you everything I wish our DC and I