Healing and Heartbreak: Watching a Fellow Cancer Warrior’s Spouse Move On

I have mentioned in the past about a dear friend who was diagnosed with breast cancer just a mere four days after my lung cancer diagnosis. At the time, she said if I could get lung cancer at 36 and not have any symptoms, she certainly better make an appointment to get an issue she was having checked out. She did and it was not good news.

A bond of strength and loss

I selfishly felt relief that I wasn’t alone in this new normal and that she and I would deal with our new norms together. I named her my “warrior sister”.

We had two very different journeys, but we both were dealing with a cancer diagnosis, which was daunting, and we now had one another to help navigate this unknown together. I remember thinking that she had the easier and curable diagnosis. I even wondered why I couldn’t have that one too.

I know that’s awful to think, but I had read the statistics and seen the pink-out ballgames and felt a little left out. Unfortunately, she had to leave us in 2020, and I am still here.

Moving forward

It's incredibly hard when a life ends too soon. Her husband had to pick up the pieces and figure out life by himself without her.

She was a lawyer and the go-getter of the family. Their house was three stories tall, and I know it must have felt like he was alone in a whole city.

She left him in good hands, and all of us ladies were calling to check on him for sure. I have always said that she left us all some great friends that we didn’t before.

One day he called me and asked me if I cared if he went on a date. This really took me back that he respected me enough as her friend to ask me such a personal question about his life. I encouraged him to live his life.

He’s a wonderful person and has a lot to give the world, especially a companion. I told him just that, too. I made sure that he knew that he didn’t have to present such questions and that he deserved to be happy and not lonely in that big house.

They have a waterfront condo down in Gulf Shores, AL, and he deserves to enjoy that with someone. He deserved to have a friend, if nothing else, to share a meal.

A beautiful new beginning

Time went on and I never really asked a lot of questions. In our discussion, he did tell me that if he ever got married again that it would have to be someone who had also lost a spouse because they are the only ones that would truly understand moving on and grieving a spouse at the same time. He did just that.

He met a wonderful lady at church who lost her husband at only 48 years old in 2015. They hit it off right off the bat.

This past weekend, in a very small, intimate ceremony, they got married. It was quite the emotional rollercoaster that I didn’t expect to experience.

My friend’s family was there: her father, friends, and boys who looked just like her. I am not sure how that room held all those emotions at once. It was the grief of what wasn’t anymore and happiness that these two people who suffered great loss could rebuild and find love again.

Both of them have two grown boys with spouses, and they were at the wedding party. Neither side could hardly hold it together. The room was about to bust with so many different emotions for so many different reasons.

Finding redemption

I am so happy that they found each other, but I must say that my focus was on my friend and the great loss of her life on this earth. None of us would have been there if both spouses were still with us.

This life is hard, and we don’t understand how or why things happen the way they do, but I have learned to appreciate the redemption of those hard things. Somehow flowers can grow in what seems like the most deserted places.