My Wife Died. My Grief Is Immense. Did I Really Know Her?

“Feel her toes and feet. When they turn cold, you’ll know. You’ll know she’s ready to go,” the hospice nurse told me. “Human bodies are predictable.” She had witnessed life’s final act hundreds of times.

This was my Sue’s 13th day in hospice.

I held her hand, still warm.

My wife of almost 45 years, my Sue, lay motionless, life draining from her body.

Her thin, gray hair fell in tufts around her head. Her eyes were closed. Her body was a wisp under the blankets. Her breathing was shallow. Her cold toes pointed toward the ceiling, and I wrapped my fingers around her heels. They felt hard, as if they were only bones, and the coldness was like a wetness that I couldn’t get off my hands, even though I kept wiping them on my pants, a towel and the bedspread.

Sue arched her back as if she were trying to touch her shoulders together and then her body fell back, relaxed, and was still.

She died at 10:22 a.m., April 18, 2018.

No pulse, no heartbeat, no finger squeeze like the day before.

Sue was 73, killed by breast cancer that had gone undiagnosed for years despite regular checkups. The radiologist had missed the malignancy hiding behind scar tissue, and it spread without mercy.

Sue gave me instructions when she knew she was dying: “Think about one thing you’ll do right after I die. Just do the one thing, and then do another and then another.”

She understood me. If I thought about the enormity of losing her, I might go nuts, or do impulsive and stupid things. I had done many impulsive and stupid things in my life, which is why my father called me Schmendrick (a Yiddish term for a stupid person or fool).

Wasn’t the fact that Sue and I were together proof of my ability to jump headfirst into situations that many people would consider foolish?

I knew Sue was smarter than me, and she was right: The first moment without her was paralyzing, so I did nothing.

I just stood there holding her hand. If I let go, the hospice staff would take her body away. She would no longer exist. She would be erased, other than in our memories. I couldn’t bear that, and I was not ready. Sue had known I wouldn’t be.

I couldn’t cry. I was silent. I looked at my daughters, my 2-month-old grandson, and then back at Sue.

I waited for her to tell me what to do, how to react, how to feel and when to leave, as she had always done. I needed her to tell the family when to gather again. I needed her…