I Met A New Man Just 11 Weeks After My Husband’s Death. Here’s What I Wish People Understood.

“I wasn’t only grieving my husband. I was grieving the life we had built together while trying to figure out who I was without him.”

After my first HuffPost essay was published, I noticed that many other widows wrote some version of the same comment: “I spent years taking care of my husband. I loved him, and I’d do it all over again. But I don’t ever want to have to take care of another man.”

As I read those comments, I understood exactly what they meant.

I spent the last two years of my husband Al’s life caring for him as he battled terminal lung cancer. Caregiving is one of the greatest acts of love you’ll ever perform, but let’s be honest – it’s also exhausting. You become a nurse, advocate, chauffeur, medication manager, cheerleader and, at times, the only person holding everything together while your own heart quietly falls apart.

A proud man, Al struggled the day he first needed a cane. Then came the wheelchair. He rarely wanted to go out because he didn’t want friends to see how much cancer had changed him. Instead, he sat for hours on our porch soaking up the Florida sunshine while I watched him quietly process the fact that he was dying. He was smart enough to know exactly what was happening, but too sick to stop it.

He relied on me to keep him alive. Every time I handed him medication, helped him stand or cared for him in any way, he’d thank me. Those simple words somehow broke my heart more than the cancer itself.

One afternoon, I told Al that life was like a long game of musical chairs. Eventually there isn’t a chair left for you. He squeezed my hand and quietly said, “I don’t want to leave you.”

“I don’t want you to leave either,” I told him. “But I think we’re getting close.”

Then I told him, “Sweetheart, there are only two ways you can go. You can face death with God, love and peace in your heart and a smile on your face... or you can........

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