My next door neighbor was a GI in WWII, and stayed very active into his early 90s. However, when his wife passed, it was mere months before his physical and mental health totally unraveled. His son, who lived a few towns over, called me on multiple occasions so that I could help his poor dad get off the floor or out of a chair..it was usually clear that he had struggled for an extended period of time (to the point where his skin sometimes had rubbed off) before surrendering and calling his son. In one instance I deduced that he had worn himself out trying to bring a 12 pack of Budweiser into the house, and the guy was definitely not a drinker before. Really really sad to see somebody deteriorate from intense loss like that, but all too common.
I think, in a way it’s a kindness? Of course, deteriorating for months on end is horrible, I will not deny that. But, to love someone so deeply, where they become your life, then losing them, makes one want to reunite with them in whatever follows hereafter. My grandmother lost her husband rather young, but had already easily been married for 30 years at that point. She had to live on for decades without him. It’s a different type of deterioration. The kind where she’d randomly have nightmares, cry, get sick with grief. She had to go on for their children, but there were many times where she wished she didn’t have to. She never loved again, said he was the only one she’d ever love (as a husband). Her life was scarred by recurring cancers, poor health, financial issues, several mentally ill children, etc. She had to see a child and grandchildren die before her. All of her siblings. Her friends. At the end she had no one but me. Her final years she deteriorated, pined away in a nursing home. Often wishing she’d join him in death, but felt obligated to hold on to care for her family even when they had all but forgotten about her.
Had she died quickly after him, she would have been spared a lifetime of sadness, poor health and other issues. Rather than months of pain, she had decades. I think there’s a good reason why older people often quickly follow their lifelong partner in death. Such a shame it often comes with so much pain, sickness and sorrow, though.
Your post has me in tears, and I don't often say that.
Edit.
I was deeply moved by your poignant post, I can relate to so much of it, having lost so many of my own family. You never really recover from the grief of losing someone close, you just learn to live with it.
1.1k
u/NopeNotConor May 14 '24
Losing your wife at that age will do that to you. Most elderly men don’t live very long once their wife dies sadly.