The Death of a Soul Mate

People grow old, they sometimes get sick and die. It is the great plan of our Creator that dying is what will happen to all living things including human beings. We all know the Creator’s plan and learn to accept it over time, especially as we get along in years and see the breakdown of the body take its toll on us.


The worst part of the aging process to people who have been happily married for many years is losing the loved one who has been with them through thick and thin. For me, getting old and seeing my body lose some of its youthful abilities was perfectly acceptable. What was not so acceptable was seeing my wife suffer the ravages of age, becoming incapacitated and eventually become ill and die of an unexpected brain tumor.


I will never forget returning to my home that first night after she died, knowing as I put my head on my pillow that first night, my wife and soul mate would never again share my bed with me. During the seventy-two days she was lying ill in the hospital and then later at the nursing home, even when she was under terminal hospice care, I held out hope some miracle would allow her to return home to me. But when she eventually drew her last breath and her body was removed to a funeral home for final plans to be made, I knew at that moment all hope was gone. It dawned on me that very night my beautiful wife would never be with me again. Decent nights of sleep never came to me...not for months.


I lost a young wife to death when I was younger. We had been married for just nine years. We had three beautiful children together. Her death was absolutely staggering to me. Then years later I lost a beautiful and very talented older daughter to breast cancer. Her death nearly brought me to my knees once again. But I was somehow able to eventually come to grips with these two devastating personal losses. I think it may have been because I was younger and I knew I had to handle my responsibilities. In the case of losing my young wife, I had the raising of our three young daughters to carry me through, and then later when my daughter passed, I was buoyed by the fact I had a loving but ill wife who desperately needed me.


When my loving wife passed away when I was eighty-one years old, I knew in my heart there would never be another love in my life like her. Yes, of course, I deeply loved my surviving children, but they were all living far away and most of them have spouses, significant others or grown children watching after them. My role as a caretaker was over. I realized I was just counting the days until my time here on earth was coming to an end.  It doesn’t mean that I was feeling sorry for myself. As I told one of my visiting daughters recently, my job here is essentially over. When something happens to me now, I will have no great regret. I lived my life the only way I knew how and I think I did a pretty good job with the responsibilities I was given. When my time does finally come, I will be ready. I no longer have life goals ahead of me to achieve.