Oh Chris, I'm so sorry. What a horrible time you have both had. When my mum fell ill, it was gradual following an injury to her knee. The doctors prescribed ordinary painkillers and rest for that, but it turned out that the painkillers didn't go well with her blood thinning medication and the stroke happened very suddenly. She survived for about another six weeks and I never managed to get her home again before she passed away, not in the end from the stroke, from which she was recovering slowly, but from the heart condition they were no longer treating with blood thinners, because they were afraid this would cause her to have another stroke. She was 96, so you might say she had a good innings, but I don't think it makes any difference how old the person was when they passed away, it is always something we dread and wish they could have still been here with us.
I tell you the story of what happened to my mum for two reasons. It strikes me, reading the story of what happened to your wife, that however hard the medics may try to solve one problem, sometimes the person is just too weak and too ill and too worn out to recover and other problems develop and cause further problems that in the end just prove too much for them. It sounds like this may have been the case with your wife, just as it was with my mother. Secondly, when she did pass away, although I was terribly upset, I was also relieved and surprised to feel relief, but I felt it because I knew that after struggling with worsening health for some years and having had a horrible time in the hospital over that six weeks, she wasn't suffering anymore and if there were anything good to come as a result of this, it was that. It sounds to me as if that may have been the case for your poor wife too. Perhaps that is something you can take some comfort in knowing.
But that doesn't help us who are left behind much. Losing someone you love, no matter how long they have been ill for or how badly they have been ill, is always a huge shock and while they live, we strive to hold on to them and keep them with us right up to the last and when the war is finally lost, we are devastated. What you describe is what I felt and is, I think, what we all do. The last illness of the person we have lost is always painful and upsetting and oddly, I think the more painful the memory, the sharper it is in our mind, obscuring the good memories and making them hard to recall. Inevitably, we all play the blame game - 'if only' this or that had happened or 'if only' I had done this or that, she might still have been here for a bit longer or might not be gone. It isn't just you. We all do it, but in the end, the real answer is that life is just not like that. We all do the best we can for our loved one while they are here and in the moment we believe the things we do are best. Then looking back, we question that and think of things we could have done better or differently and we analyse for hours, all that happened during those last months and can always think of things that could have been better or made a difference to what happened in the end. I nearly drove myself mad doing that, so you are not alone there.
In the end, I wrote about it all; everything that happened and how I felt about it; everything I thought might have been done better; all the pain, disappointment, frustration and how I felt about all that looking back. It helped just to put the words down on the page and helped me get it out of my system, so that might be one thing you could try to get past this. Some people say they write it in the form of a letter to the person they have lost. I didn't, but if you did, you could also say all the things you maybe couldn't say to her in a way she could have understood after your wife became ill. It's worth a try if it helps you.
It is hard to dispel the memory of those last months from your mind for all of us who lose loved ones and this is something that seems common to most of us, especially during the first year or more of having lost them. I don't think it eases at all until we reach acceptance that things just happened the way they did and understand that this horrible time, in reality, only made up a short period of their life and try to train ourselves to focus on the better times they had and that we had with them. I did that by putting together a photo album of my favorite pictures of my mum and by revisiting places we went to together. It helped me remember the happier times we had together and made me smile, even if it also brought a tear to my eye. Perhaps that is something you could do. Others make memory books that they write down what they can recall of times past or just things they loved about the person they have lost. Some write those things on scraps of paper instead, that they can put in a jar, so that they can pull one out at random, when they are missing the person, to relive a happy memory of them. Others make a place in the garden to go and sit in to think about them and plant it with their lost loved one's favorite plants as a tribute to them. Others have a bench placed in a favorite place to go to to remember them. All of these things are things you can do in tribute to and in memory of a lost loved one and the act does bring some relief and does help bring back the good memories.
None of us are experts here, nor are we trained counselors, but we have experience of having been where you are now and so can share what helped us. I hope you can find something that helps you. Perhaps asking the doctor for a referral for grief counselling might actually be something you might want to consider if things don't improve for you, but two months in is still only a very short time in terms of recovering from a loss, so I am not surprised you are still reliving all those horrible memories of your wife's last months. It takes both time and effort to move forward from such a terrible time, in my experience. I find it is something you have to work at and doesn't just happen on it's own. You have to make a conscious effort to find things that help you do it.
Getting out of the house was key to that for me. I joined a class that gave me a new interest. It helped that it was something my mother had enjoyed too, so that i felt I was doing it for both of us. It forced me to get out of the house, gave me something to look forward to and forced me to think about something else for a few hours and to engage with life and with people again. Some of the people I met there, understood better what I was going through and still help me more than people who knew my mum and who I had thought of as friends prior to this. But sadly, these are often the people who let us down. Some because they don't understand what it is to lose a loved one if they have not already been through it themselves, others because the loss was not so personal to them, so they go back to their own lives and think we are doing the same, others because they don't know how to help us so just say nothing.
I know it's harder in the present crisis to think of joining a class or taking up a new interest, but there are on-line things you might try, if you think it might help. The flowers helped at home too and the walks in the park. And writing it all down. But the point is, I had to put in the effort to find out what helped me feel better, even if only for a short time. Grief is exhausting and it drags you down if you don't combat it in some way. I thought it was going to overwhelm me in that first eighteen months and there were lots of ups and downs. Many here describe it as a rollercoaster ride. You have times when you feel much better, and think you are starting to get over it, only to suddenly have something happen that brings it all back again and you discover you are not as far along the road to recovery as you had thought. So you go back to the things that have helped you and try to climb back out of the pit of despair again and so it goes on for some time, I''m afraid, but this, sadly, is normal for most of us who are grieving, Chris.
Try to find things that help bring back the good memories. Try to step back and ask yourself if you would really have wanted your wife to carry on as her she was. Write down how you feel about everything and how you feel now. Look for the little things that help you feel better, even if it is just hearing a bird sing or seeing the sun shine. Anything that helps. One day at a time. One hour or minute at a time, if necessary and remember, she is no longer suffering and that horrible time only made up a short period of her life and ask yourself if that is not out-weighed by the time she had when she was well. Use deep breathing to calm yourself and if you have anyone you can talk to. make use of their shoulder to cry on. If not, use us here for that and we will help as best we can. I guess in these troubled times, virtual hugs are all any of us can offer at the moment, whether we are physically there or not!
Thank you for writing back. I hope my response helps. I know it helped me in those early days, just to know someone understood what I was going through. I hope it helps you too. My loss was of a different kind, but the pain and the loneliness and sense of loss and the ache of missing someone are common to all of us who grieve.
Sending strength and empathy.
