What I’ve Learned From my Husband’s Sudden Death
April 20, 2020
Hi everyone
My name is Ludemia (aka – Mia) and welcome to my channel: Heart-Mind Equation.
In this podcast series, I’m gonna tell you how I’m learning, every day, to improve my self-love, after my husband passed away, little more than a year ago. This first part of the series only explains the mental and emotional state I was in, before and after my husband’s sudden death.
So, my husband and I were married for 18 years, before he died. After he passed, it became obvious to me how much I was lacking love for myself.
It even seemed, during my marriage life, that I had given him the assignment of convincing me every day that he loved me.
At the beginning of our marriage, it wasn’t so clear to me how much he actually did love me. So, I was always thirsty for more appreciation, affection, and words of encouragement. Basically, I was ‘’needy’’. We all know how being ‘’needy’’ is a turn off for many people. Indeed, it brought all kinds of relationship problems into our marriage, from isolation to depression.
Around the last 5 years of our life together, my husband had started to change his behaviors towards me, trying desperately to make up to me, the few mistakes he had made in the past.
From then on, as the years went by, it did not seem like he was buying my forgiveness anymore. He genuinely started to act in a very loving way,… not so distant or carefree towards me, as he used to be before. And I, myself also started to change: was no longer ‘’needy’’ and was more appreciative, more affectionate towards him.
We both admitted to each other, that sharing our life together changed us for the better. Was it because we both felt we had to save love? Or, where we both waiting to be convinced that we are loved, before feeling that we are ‘’worthy of love’’? The answer is YES to both questions as we both were lacking self-love.
In the end, we were so demonstrative of our love for each other, that it seemed like we never had conjugal problems at the beginning of our marriage, at all. We were the happiest we have ever been in our whole marital life. He used to call me ‘’ My Queen’’.
I’ll always cherish the few words he told me in the last few days of his life. It’s as if, he felt like it was the last time he will ever have to tell me: ‘’ I am a better person because of you…’’ and also: ‘’… I never knew someone could love me as much as you do…’’ and the phrase that made me cry is: ‘’ … I will rather be in hell with you than in paradise without you…’’ He told me that 10 days before the tragedy.
One Sunday morning, 2 days before he died, we went to encourage a friend that had just started his ministry, as a preacher. At the end of that Sunday morning service, my husband had accepted the invitation to give his life to Christ. He had requested prayer as he had found out about his Dx of cardiac arrhythmia, 3 months before.
His life was cut short, as he had a cardiac arrest while shoveling the snow in the driveway of our house. I was on my way home from work, when I received the call from the paramedics, telling me to go to the hospital right away, but they didn’t tell me, of course, that it was already too late for them to save him. Called my daughter, who was on her way home from school, and told her to go to her friend’s house and wait for me there. By the end of the evening, had someone bring my daughter to the hospital, where she was told about the tragic death of her father. She explained later how that day was the worst day of her life and that she doubts the existence of God, now.
For someone who had devoted his life only to his family, he didn’t deserve to have died alone. As I was his queen, he was my king. And no king dies alone. It hurts a lot to know that we ( my daughter and I ) couldn’t have said goodbye.
At least, that last morning, I told him that I love him. Grateful that he knew that truth, until the end of his life.
Now, I have a lot of regrets about all the years I have wasted selfishly, instead of celebrating, everyday, the gift of having a loving and so devoted man by my side.
There is something about adversity and crisis. When it arrives in your life, it makes you rethink your fundamental values and therefore, you discover a little more about yourself.
In my case, my husband’s death showed me an aspect of myself, I did not know I had. This is when I found out how strong I really was. For many years I was hiding behind him, refusing to address a problematic situation. After he passed, I found the strength to address the situation, as he was no longer there to protect me anymore.
We can say that we are not always a product of our circumstances. Our circumstances introduce us to ourselves. When there is adversity, it’s not enough to go through it, we need to grow through it.
Indeed, I went through all the 5 stages of grief: Denial, Anger, Bargaining, Depression, and Acceptance.
A few months after he passed, I remember crying in the bathroom and spoke to him in my heart. I asked him, why didn’t you come into my dreams to say goodbye? I heard a little voice in my heart that whispered: ‘’ I’ll come to say goodbye when you will be ok to move on without me ‘’. All of a sudden, I did not want him to come and say goodbye anymore.
A couple of months after that, I have started to sabotage any possibility for me to feel better. It’s as if I wanted to stay in the depression stage, still refusing to accept that he was really gone. It’s like my heart got amputated.
Few more months had passed. I was talking with my daughter. She shared with me how the death of her father had made her grow in one shot. She says how she can feel him around sometimes and that she talks to him in her heart, sometimes.
Then I shared with her the private dialogue I had with her father in my heart too. I’ve explained to her how I did not want him to say goodbye anymore. Told her that I still can’t accept that he’s gone. Her response was the key point from where my acceptance stage began.
She said to me: ‘’ Mother ( BTW that’s how she calls me – she calls me mom only she is calling me from afar ). She said: ‘’ Mother, what part of RIP (Rest In Peace) don’t you understand? She said: If you love him as much as you say you do, can’t you give his soul that peace of not having to worry about you? That question made me rethink everything. Especially the essence of love, as being so selfless and compassionate, that we have to be at peace with our loved one, going to express his soul in another realm.
So I wanted to share with you that episode of my life, to put in context what I have learned from my husband’s death.
I have learned to never take anyone we love for granted. Of course, it is a common statement, almost cliché, but we really understand the meaning of it when we lose a loved one. If only I knew I was gonna lose my husband so soon, I would have made every minute count by building good memories.
I also learned that love can only be selfless after we have selfishly learned to love ourselves. What I mean by that, is when you have love for yourself, you’re more focused on sharing it with someone than being busy chasing it.
CONCLUSION
Want to leave you with a song that reflects all the things my husband was saying to me towards the end of his life: It’s called: This is why I love you, by a singer named Major.
If my podcast resonates with you, don’t forget to give me a thumbs up, leave a comment below share with someone.
Stay tuned and get notifications for Part 2 of my ‘’Learning Self Love’’ podcast series or simply follow me on Facebook.
This is Mia and thank you for tuning in to my channel :
Heart-Mind Equation: To UNLOCK hidden potentials !!!