“We had already chosen our wedding date. We had booked our venue, sent out save-the-dates. The doctors encouraged us to move it up, fearing the worst. But we decided no matter what, we weren’t changing it. 3 weeks before, she lost her hair again. ‘I fell in love with you when you were bald,’ I told her. She was absolutely stunning walking down the aisle. I felt like the luckiest person in the world. Right before her 30th birthday, we decided to give up all treatment and enjoy the time we had left.”
‘Are we still getting married?,’ she looked at me in tears. She wanted to protect me.’: Man loses wife to stage 4 cancer months after wedding, ‘I have a huge hole in my heart’
‘I can’t believe this is happening again.’ He held our daughter, tears down his cheeks. I knew deep in my soul.’: Wife says ‘It was the honor of my life to be married to him’ after husband dies of cancer
“Nick wasn’t ready to let go. His body was a 93-pound shell. Our daughter’s 6th birthday came. I pleaded with him to please try for her. To give her that day. He played games, he sang happy birthday, despite all his suffering. Less than a week later, I came home to find him nearly unconscious on the couch. I told him it was okay to let go. I asked if he was scared. He said, ‘no.’”
‘You need to go home to your wife, not be in here with me tonight,’ mom told her newlywed doctor. She was their favorite patient. They loved her determination to fight.’: Daughter feels ’emptiness’ after her mom’s 15-year battle with cancer
“She was my best friend, my go to for everything. Our dream was to go to the beach and have a cabana boy for the day. On her 60th birthday, I made our dream come true. Unfortunately, she couldn’t put her toes in the sand as she was in a wheelchair, but we had the perfect day, cabana boy and all.”
‘It is never enough. You can see the loneliness in his eyes when he hugs us goodbye.’: Daughter’s ‘gut wrenching’ nightmare makes her realize just how lonely her elderly father is after wife’s death to dementia
“I had a nightmare. I was being taken to a home I didn’t recognize and into a room I had never been in before. I was in a wheelchair. My mom is telling me it will be OK. She is holding my hand, and I am crying. I tell her I want to go home, but she is telling me I am home. My heart aches for dad on the other side of the door, knowing he will lie there, waiting, for the next visit.”
‘I’m so sorry. He fell into the swimming pool.’ He was found with a blanket he would put over his head, and his little bicycle.’: Mom’s heartbreaking plea to use pool nets because ‘freak accidents happen’
“My car keys had been stolen, and while waiting for assistance, my mom was watching my 2-year-old son at our home. As we loaded our luggage into our car, my phone rang. It was my mom, weeping. My heart sank – I immediately knew Kaeden was harmed.”
‘My mom told me my dad was ‘gone.’ I fell to my knees. A nurse asked me to be ‘quiet.’: Daughter sells everything, lives nomadic life in search of ‘peace’ after father’s death to terminal cancer
“I woke up to a call from my brother. ‘Dad is really sick. He has cancer.’ Time stood still. ‘What am I supposed to do?’ In less than 2 months, he passed. My lifestyle has brought concern to others. ‘What do you mean you’re selling everything?’ ‘How are you going to live?’ ‘What about your careers?’ I was in the midst of a breakdown.”
‘You don’t see what goes on behind closed doors. We love your family members as our own.’ Aged care worker explains she is not ‘incompetent,’ but ‘pressed for time’
“They don’t see us hold the hands of a man with Parkinson’s to ease his shakes. They don’t see us sing their favorite song quietly as we feed them breakfast. They don’t see us cry as we comb the hair of a resident who has just passed so they look presentable for their family. They don’t see us go home as a broken, shattered human who has seen more in one day than most people will ever see.”
‘They found something. I don’t want to ruin your Christmas Eve.’ I sat with my head against the closet, ruined.’: Woman loses husband to Stage 4 Stomach Cancer after multiple misdiagnoses, claims his death ‘saved 3 family members, daughters’
“For 8 months, I watched him deteriorate. Why was this happening? I had everything I ever wanted. Two beautiful, healthy girls and a husband that loved us. I’d go out to eat and look at the family next to me eating dinner and start to cry because I knew we would never be able to go out to dinner as a family again. The hands-on dad that took his girls everywhere could no longer even take the noise of the girls being home.”
‘When we got the news death was coming soon, I was driving us home. I started crying, and couldn’t stop. He held me on the side of the interstate. Then HE took over driving.’
“Every time the hospice people asked if they could do anything for him, he would answer that he was only worried about me, his wife. I tried not to cry, because he wanted his last days to be happy and without tears. Then, I opened his work bag and found it.”
‘I have something I need to tell you.’ He was rubbing his hands together nervously. I looked him in the eyes, and said, ‘You can tell me anything.’ My brain couldn’t process it.’
“I sat back in my seat and thought I must have misheard him. I said, ‘Oh, but you’re fine, right?’ As if you are ever fine after this diagnosis. ‘No.’ He drew back and smiled the biggest, most beautiful smile. He knew. We both knew.”
