Living After Loss
By Roger Lindly
It was 9:22 a.m. on June 28, 2006, in Room 335 at St. Francis Medical Center in Grand Island.
It was a normal day for millions of people but anything but normal for me and my two daughters.
We watched with disbelief and total sadness as our wife and mother, Jeanette, took her last breath of life. She had died from cancer at age 64. She had everything to live for, but this terrible disease had once again claimed a loved one. Our lives, we knew, would never be the same.
My mind was in limbo as it tried to make any sense of what had just taken place. The grief and sorrow completely took over for quite some time as we were told we could stay in her room with her as long as we wanted. After the necessary time with Jeanette, we asked the nurse who had been caring for her to call a specific funeral home for their services.
We stayed with our loved one until the funeral director arrived. They, like the nurses in this ward, consoled us in a way we shall never forget. They weren’t hurrying us but instead showing their deep and loving compassion as wonderful human beings. They understood our sorrow, grief and suffering after such a tremendous loss.
Time seemed to move rapidly as we planned her funeral with the funeral home employees, and it seemed to pass swiftly as we attended visitation the evening before the funeral services and then the funeral on July 1. I can’t stress enough the importance of the wonderful assistance we received from the funeral home owner and his staff. After almost three years of suffering through three surgeries and six sets of chemotherapy treatments, plus all the pain, worrying and suffering, my wife looked as radiant and beautiful as I’ve ever seen her.
My mind brought back the horrible times from the day of cancer diagnosis to the surgery at Methodist Hospital in Omaha and her eight days of great treatment there, the chemotherapy treatments in the Cancer Treatment Center in Grand Island, the trips — many times with excessive pain — to Omaha for checkups, in the hospital, ER and Skilled Care in Grand Island, and the long, uncomfortable days at home in bed.
I remember the brave and courageous woman she was who never once complained or got upset, never raised her voice in anger throughout the time from September 2003 to June 28, 2006. She was always concerned about how I was doing or how our daughters and their families were getting along. It was a great lesson for me. She wanted the grandchildren with her as much as possible wherever she was.
A few months before Jeanette died, the medical personnel and our family members knew her health was deteriorating. She started to deal with her fate, and as hospice came to our assistance, they gave my daughters and me a pamphlet that informs people of the preparation stage of a terminally ill patient.
It was a most eye-opening and interesting lesson by being able to step a little inside the spiritual world. The ill patient moves into a different mental state as they go in and out of our life to another realm of thinking. One would have to experience it to understand it, but being with her constantly and closely, I was able to read, study and observe many of these changes.
One morning after being ill for some time, she came to me in our living room and said she felt somewhat better and would like to go to the cemetery and look at lots. She never wanted to do that before in our over 43 years of marriage. We purchased two lots that morning at the end of March 2006. A few days later, we purchased a monument for our grave sites and had the inscription written out. It was as if she was meeting scheduled dates, and the first part of May 2006, the monument was installed.
On the back of the monument, she wanted to leave an important message for anyone who would visit our monument, and she chose part of 1 Corinthians 13 — “Love Never Fails.” The granite is black, shiny and beautiful, and she seemed very happy with this choice. One last request was to have her picture taken standing by the monument, and that was done. It seemed she was satisfied with all of this.
Once I came to the reality that Jeanette wouldn’t be back, I have found important things to do to bring back the fond, loving memories of our lives. I have my two daughters and three grandchildren in Grand Island, which is a great blessing. I have relatives and friends nearby. I can smell her perfume, hold her clothing. I left her voice on our answering machine so I can hear her voice if I want. I look at our photograph books and remember our trips, etc. I can see her pictures in the house, and there are reminders everywhere inside and out. And I visit her grave often and find satisfaction there.
UPDATE MARCH 1, 2009:
In a tribute to his wife, who died of cancer, Roger offered practical advice on how to cope with loss.
“I thought it was wonderful when I got to tell the … parts that I thought were important. I felt that I had quite a bit to offer to a lot of people, to give people an idea of how to keep positive and thankful for what their loved ones brought to their lives and community, helping other people in a small way. To me, death is a continuation of life. I’ve thanked the Lord a lot in what our marriage gave us. The people living have to go one until they’re called. It’s wonderful to have those memories and help the living in their hard times.”
Roger was diagnosed in December 2008 with prostate cancer. He will begin radiation treatments on March 30. The treatments are scheduled to end in June.
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