Did she know of her fate?

[Minny9]

I never had been a believer of predestiny or fatalism in general.  Or to think that there is a course already marked out for each of us that we are unwittingly intended to follow.  Really?  Honestly?  Well, okay, perhaps - on some level.  Maybe those things that happen to me, but not because of me.  Maybe...

 

Considering all I've experienced in the time since my wife's cancer diagnosis in April, 2016. and her death just 8 months later, maybe I'm starting to come around.  Maybe this was all meant to be after all...

 

In the final six weeks of Rhonda's life, despite knowing in my head she was dying (though unable to fully comprehend what that really meant), I didn't cry all that much.  Of course I did, and I suppose as the realization began to hit me, I did even more.  But one time in particular really stands out.  I was with family and a few close friends in a small room on the palliative ward separate from my wife's room.  The palliative staff were awaiting Rhonda's decision whether she wanted to visit our home one last time.  If so, they needed to make arrangements for transportation and staffing, and were concerned that waiting too long she wouldn't be physically well enough to go through with it.  Although the decision was hers, I was terrified.  At every turn in the course of her treatments and hospitalization, nothing went as hoped for or as planned.  Procedures underwent failed again and again - if they were undertaken at all.  On more than one occasion, she was wheeled down to a "holding area" only to be told that a procedure was too risky and had to be cancelled.  It was my greatest fear that this goodwill offer to bring her home would instead end up in tragedy, or, at the very least, be so emotional for both of us that the scarring would outweigh any possible enjoyment that might be derived.

 

When word was finally passed along to us that she had chosen not to return home, I lost it.  I bawled inconsolably for several minutes.  I'm certain it was the release of weeks of emotional stress and frustration, of being unable to help her - of having no control over what was happening to her, and to us.  Which takes me back to my original notion that maybe there is something to all this predestination business...

 

About 8 months after she died, I found the courage to dig out that box in the back of her closet that contained her journals.  Among them was an entry I've attached here from way back in 1995.  It really hit me hard when I first read it, and haven't forgotten it since.  As you'll read, she recounts a dream where she observes a shadowy figure in her room and "...there were huge areas of red in it.  The red moved all the way through the shadow like blood flowing through a body but the red was cancer cells..." 

 

Did she know of her fate all those years ago?  She had lost her Mom to cancer in 1992 when Rhonda was only 25, so I could understand her deep-seated fear of the same thing happening to her.

 

I may never be able to completely understand how this has all came to pass - but if I can at least accept it by considering the possibility that it was predestined, I might be able to let go of the anger and frustration that I continue to carry with me.

 

Thoughts?

 

Steve

 

(NOTE - the pages below are out of order.  The first page is actually page 3) 

 

 

Edited July 3, 2018 by Minny9

[Portside]

I don't normally put a lot of stock into predestination. Here's why - even if a person has a dream/feeling of something that absolutely does come to pass, what about the hundreds or thousands of other dreams that have come and gone without validation in reality? Chance? Good/bad luck? I lean towards the idea we take whatever experiences we have and try to make them make sense within the context of our lives. 

 

If God has everything worked out for us in the big calendar in the sky, how would we ever know anyway? For me, and this is only for me, it's chance - some folks die young, most die old. Some get sick, some do not. Etc. It's just the way it is.

 

But what the hell do I know?

 

Best wishes - Mike

[Eddienhp]

I know two weeks before my husband died, he just had to get something done. It was unusual behavior for him. I was always curious as to what made him behave in that way. Was it premonition? Was it a nudge from above? I do find it intriguing because had he not completed the task, our lives would be very different today. I know he didn't want to die and fought hard to live so I am not sure I believe he knew he was dying. 

 

I have found over the years there are specific times where I just felt I had to do something. It was like I could not rest until it was complete. Those events turned out to  have significant impact on our lives. In our case, I feel it is guidance from above. 

 

Maybe Rhonda dreamed of her mother's cancer. Maybe it was a glimpse of Rhonda's future but she wasn't sure it was she who would be stricken with cancer. I don't know if you will ever get answers to those questions. I never gained insight as to why my husband was to adamant about getting this one task done before he died. 

 

I do feel my husband left this earth when it was his time. Now l can see why he might not have been meant to continue with us. As much as we want him back, there was nothing we could do to keep him here. 

 

I hope you find some peace Steve.

Eileen

[Wheelerswife]

Interesting discussion here.  I need to preface this by saying I could not open your links, so I am responding without the opportunity to read your wife's words.  When I think of my first husband, I know he was predestined to die young - because he got 2 bad genes that together gave him a progressive neuromuscular disease with a lousy prognosis.  He was expected to die in childhood, yet he lived to be 53.  The beginning of the end started 16 months before he died when he became critically ill and his muscular weakness impacted his ability to breathe on his own.  With today's technology, he was able to have ventilator support at night.  Some people live for years with the assistance of technology and some people with his disease have lived for decades in a much more debilitated state than my husband.  However, the loss of function and the anxiety that overcame my husband were unbearable for him.  In the end, when facing another long ICU stay, he chose not to avail himself of extensive measures. 

 

A week before he died, Patrick Swayze died of pancreatic cancer.  We had followed Patrick's story in the news, as we had enjoyed some of Patrick's films together.  We had just come off a weekend away together at a casino/resort where we had stayed 2 nights in a luxury hotel, seen a few shows, and had some nice meals together thanks to a gift from his parents.  I had carted his ventilator and other medical equipment with us to the hotel, as nothing was going to stop us from living as fully as we could.  My husband was extremely weak and medically vulnerable; however, he was not sick.  The night that Patrick died, my husband wanted to talk, and so we went to bed a little early and I held him in my arms and we basically reviewed our life together.  We had talked abut death and dying since we met (18+ years earlier) and so this was not unusual for us, especially in light of Patrick's death announcement.  As we were talking, my husband asked me if it would be better for me if he died a quick death or a slow death.  I told him that it wasn't about me - that when his time came, I hoped he would have a peaceful death and that I would do everything in my power to see that he was not in pain.  I told him I hoped we had many more years together and that we would overcome the challenges we faced.  He seemed very calm after our conversation.  I put him on his ventilator and we went to sleep.  The next morning, he woke up after the best night's sleep in years...but he was congested.  Within 24 hours, he was in the hospital and quickly critically ill.  He chose not to undergo aggressive treatment and went into a coma a short time later.  He woke again later that day and had 2 lucid days before becoming confused, then comatose, and several hours later, he died peacefully. 

 

Something tells me he knew his time was close.  I know that as sad as I was to lose him, I knew his suffering was over.  In some ways, my suffering also ended....or perhaps just changed.  I no longer had to ache for him for his suffering.  I no longer had to worry about him choking or his fear of losing the balance of his head or if his daytime caregiver would know how to make subtle adjustments to make him comfortable.  But now I suffered from the loss of the man I loved so deeply.  We are left to process loss on the part of our spouses/partners as well as our own losses.  For me, this has been life-altering.  Twice.

 

I don't honestly think my second husband had a clue he was about to die, even though he was in unknown heart failure.  I was clueless myself.  Sigh.

 

Sorry for the hijack, but thanks for reading.

 

Maureen

 

 

Edited July 4, 2018 by Wheelerswife

[Minny9]

 

Let's try this again.   

 

 

 

Edited July 5, 2018 by Minny9

[Bunny]

This widow page’s predecessor is pretty much what turned me into a fatalist. Just  reading all the ways people have lost their young partners, some of it so incredibly random, while other people who should have been long dead live on and on and on. ... Maybe it’s just the best way for me to emotionally handle it- ‘knowing’ our days are truly numbered. And I’m agnostic, don’t believe in heaven/hell,  so it’s not like I see it from a religious perspective. 

 

 My LH ‘s best friend told me LH used to get drunk in their youth and tell him ‘I’m going to die a slow, horrible, painful death’ This happened several times- said he always sounded so anguished about it. And he did die that way. 

 

 I guess it was about a year before he was diagnosed, I had a very vivid dream about him dying.  I remember the moment in the dream I realized he was trying to tell me he was already dead -it was agonizing and the pain woke me up.  I immediately looked over to see him next to me, reading in bed, and I cried in his arms so hard and so long because it just felt so real. 

[lostwholesoul]

On 7/3/2018 at 12:30 PM, Eddienhp said:

I know two weeks before my husband died, he just had to get something done. It was unusual behavior for him. I was always curious as to what made him behave in that way. Was it premonition? Was it a nudge from above? I do find it intriguing because had he not completed the task, our lives would be very different today. I know he didn't want to die and fought hard to live so I am not sure I believe he knew he was dying. 

 

I have found over the years there are specific times where I just felt I had to do something. It was like I could not rest until it was complete. Those events turned out to  have significant impact on our lives. In our case, I feel it is guidance from above. 

 

Maybe Rhonda dreamed of her mother's cancer. Maybe it was a glimpse of Rhonda's future but she wasn't sure it was she who would be stricken with cancer. I don't know if you will ever get answers to those questions. I never gained insight as to why my husband was to adamant about getting this one task done before he died. 

 

I do feel my husband left this earth when it was his time. Now l can see why he might not have been meant to continue with us. As much as we want him back, there was nothing we could do to keep him here. 

 

I hope you find some peace Steve.

Eileen

"I do feel my husband left this earth when it was his time. Now l can see why he might not have been meant to continue with us." I long for this clarity. Always believed everything happened for a reason. After losing my DW, I am not so sure if I subscribe to it still.........

[SaraJ]

I don´t think my husband knew, but I think I might have had premonitions. My husband died of sudden heart stop due to myocardities, I don´t think he knew that he even was ill, just having fever the last days before due to a flue. But days before that I had events where my heart raced in a way it really never has before. While jogging or on a bike. Had to stop exercising twice in three days. Was due to stress according to the doctor I went to. It was really strange, because I´d never encountered that before though I understand that it is common with stress. It has only happened once afterwards, half a year later. Anyway, within the week my husband dies of heart stop, 31 years old. None of us has had heart issues or any real health problems before that. 

[SaraJ]

Some other really weird and extremely unlikely coincidents/accidents/events happened to people in the neighbourhood within the week after my husband got his heart stop before they shut off the respiratory. It was uncanny and often it felt like I wanted to tell people to ask my mother, it is actually real and I´m not making these things up. But sometimes I just felt that the world wanted to tell me that some things happen for a reason and I might never understand it and probably never appriciate it. But it feels a bit like I was being told it was deemed to happen and there was nothing we could have done to change it.

[Marie Carbo]

On 2/5/2019 at 10:15 PM, SaraJ said:

Some other really weird and extremely unlikely coincidents/accidents/events happened to people in the neighbourhood within the week after my husband got his heart stop before they shut off the respiratory. It was uncanny and often it felt like I wanted to tell people to ask my mother, it is actually real and I´m not making these things up. But sometimes I just felt that the world wanted to tell me that some things happen for a reason and I might never understand it and probably never appriciate it. But it feels a bit like I was being told it was deemed to happen and there was nothing we could have done to change it.

 

Hello Saraj,

I am new here, lost my boyfriend (yep not married) a little over a month ago. He died of a cardiac arrest after a run, he was 28. He had no health issue, the autopsy revealed nothing. His heart just stopped, it was a sudden death. 
I remember the week he died, he went to Dubai for his work, and I remember not feeling well. I told one of my colleagues at work that I had a very bad feeling. He dismissed me, made fun of me and of my paranoia, and eventually,  everything went well, his plane didn't crash...
But 4 days later, he died. 
And I knew it.
When I met him, he told me that he used to play rugby a lot when he was younger (almost became professional). My first thought, but I never shared it with him, was that he could have a cardiac arrest anytime, as we see soccer players die suddenly while still playing. And it never left me. The last time I saw him alive, it was in Paris (he was living in London,  we were in fact living between Paris and London for work), he was on his way to take his train back to London and I said to him "please don't die" he said "I can't promise you, but I will do my best", and then, well. He died. 
We were supposed to go to a wedding together and he was stressed as he didn't know what to wear. He wanted to match with me, so when I told him that I bought a beautiful black dress, he said "fair, that's my favourite colour, I hope you don't mind we match" (well, we were a hell of a match  already anyway ), it was the last text I ever received from him, and I thought "both of us dressed in black, we are not going to a wedding, we are going to a funeral". And that's what we did instead.

I totally get what you say. I had a very very bad feeling two weeks prior his death. Even when I met him... I try not to get obsessed with these thoughts, but I am still in awe when I think of it. 
I am so sorry for your loss, and so sorry for everybody's loss. 

 

Marie.

[Bubu27]

On 8/24/2019 at 10:49 AM, Marie Carbo said:

I totally get what you say. I had a very very bad feeling two weeks prior his death. Even when I met him... I try not to get obsessed with these thoughts, but I am still in awe when I think of it. 

Same here. From the moment I met Ken I was fearing he would die. Ken is 19 yrs older so there was a possibility he would go first but I would never expect it too happen so soon at 53.

 

About 3 months after our wedding and 3 months before Ken passed away, I was out with a friend and I told her "I am worried Ken will die". I don't know why I said that, there were no signs he wasn't well, we just came back from our honey moon, life was beautiful..

 

And then with our wedding - Ken was never good at time management/ organising things etc and it was always me planning and pushing him to do things. Yet when it came to our wedding, he organised it all on his own and it was like he was in a rush. Engagement and wedding all in a space of 2.5 months. My family couldn't come but he insisted we get married regardless. Had we waited, we wouldn't have gotten married, I wouldn't be financially secured, I couldn't have stayed in our flat, you name it. Had he not rushed with the wedding (even I was shocked by it), I would have been in a much darker place (financially and housing wise). He always looked after me so it is no surprise that he did it all to secure me a stable future

 

Did he know? I don't know. I see it as a nudge from Heavens. Like this gut feeling that makes you do things without really knowing why