Seven years ago today, just 45 minutes past midnight, my father passed away. His death certificate said "lung cancer," which had only been diagnosed two days before. I believe to this day he died from a broken heart. His health had been good until after my mother passed away 5 years before. They’d been married 47 years, went everywhere together, and never had a cross word to say to each other. They never raised their voices. (The closest they ever argued was when they went to the peach orchard and Mom would accuse him of picking bruised peaches. It remains one of my fonder memories because it was so funny.) If I hadn’t moved back in to take care of him, he probably would have died within 6 months. I worked part-time so I could take care of him, take him to the doctor and to physical therapy for his arthritic knees. About the only times he really enjoyed anything was when I took him to his annual army reunions (338th Engineers, WWII). The irony about his death was that it came 45 minutes after my mother’s birthday. (She would have been 85 yesterday.) I  miss them both but I rejoice in the wonderful life they had together.

Our emotions, already tangled usually in the years or months before, peak with heartbreak.  While the shock of sudden death often does not show itself immediately - at least full blown — longer term with the realization that the person is "alone" and often with no close support system, I have often seen them crumbling. 

But more often, I have grown more used to seeing the long-term results of terminal sickness striking a marriage.  Often, one partner is/was completely well in the beginning, still wanting to live life.  Making the most of it.  But it was not to be.  The care of the partner begins to suck up, consume the other person who is not prepared to be a nurse providing 24-hour care. 

As months go by, years often, I see my wonderful friend looking older, feeling not well, and in three cases so far, dying before the terminally ill person from what looks like constant caregiving and no rainbow in sight. Heart problems, heart arrythmmias crop up, and then —  My point is that heartbreak can often happen before the death or break-up as all of us in our right minds can see this coming.  We feel inadequate.  We see an empty future.  The closer a couple has been, the sooner the death of the one left behind in the later years.  Or so it seems. 

Is there an answer?  Life happens … and it is extremely hard to watch.

I’m not surprised that the Dr. has indicated you can indeed die from a broken heart. As Joan (so eloquently as usual) pointed out, our emotions are tied directly to our physical being.

Once hurt by love, so many of us run from it. We avoid relationships like the plague offering up one excuse after another. When in the final analysis we avoid love because we don’t want to feel the hurt of a broken heart again. We remember that pain and it is a pain that stays with you. 

The WoW website promotes it, just as countless other women’s websites do… the need to take care of ourselves emotionally and physically. However,  how many of us truly heed those warnings and adopt the recommendations?

Hard to believe one can die of a broken heart, because surely I would have, when my beloved sister - brave, funny, strong - went undaunted to surgery for heart bypass, and came out blind.  She lived three years after the surgery.  Still brave, but, of course, never the same.  How could she have been?…never again to see the blue sky, or raindrops, or the faces of your children.

Hearts

 My heart hurts still, when I think of her.  Every day.

One thing that really bugs me is when someone leaves a marriage after the partner gets sick. Do they go into the marriage and will only stay if the spouse is healthy? That is when their spouse needs them the most. I am not married and it makes me sick when I read about such stories.

One example is John McCain and his first wife who was in a car accident after she waited for him while he was a POW. He went on to marry the woman he had the affair with and probably only stays with her since she has the money.

Not surprising to me. Last year I tragically lost someone in a very (eeriely) similar fashion to a teenaged traumatic loss. Never could have foreseen going through it yet again. Doubt I was in danger of a heart attack; my grief had me fearing a nervous breakdown. Thank God that didn’t happen.