My beloved, the love of my life is gone

Today is one month since my life changed. I lost the love of my life, my soul mate, my beloved to lung cancer. He was a great loving husband and father to our 2 kids aged 11 and 9. He did not accept the prognosis and fought, and it looked like he was winning the battle. He looked so well and he was fit, however just after Christmas he began to feel tired and unwell. On the 20 of January, we were told he had multiple metastases in his liver and he had weeks to live. He died just 37 days later in my arms in our bed on the 26th of Feb 2011. I was all alone in the room with him. He was unconscious for a few hours, but I kept talking to him. He died early in the morning and when he actually took his last breath and went limp in my arms, I felt devastated and lost. Nothing had prepared me for the empty feeling. Some how I managed on auto-pilot and it is now 4 weeks. The pain is intense and almost unbearable.

We were such a close knit family and we were always together. 2 days ago I went for my kids basketball match. He would have been there with us, and seeing another father there, I felt cheated. He should have been there for us.

I miss him every moment. Our kids and my faith keeps me going. My husband accepted that he could die and had prepared for his death and funeral.He cared for me till the very end. He had great faith and this gave him comfort and till the very end he was serene and peaceful. When he passed away, we got many signs from him. On his funeral day, I was able to remain composed, however at the grave, when his coffin was being lowered into the ground, I could not control my tears. It was then that my sister-in-law told me to look up in the sky. It was a beautiful summer day with a blue sky and suddenly out of no-where there was a big white solitary bird gently flying just above the grave. It circled the grave 3 times and then flew high up and vanished as it had come. My tears turned to joy, as I felt a deep peace overcome me.

It is now 1 month and life is very tough for me. Some days I am OK, other days I am a mess. I appear to be strong for others, but when I am on my own, the tears seem to just. I do not know what I am doing and I am in a daze. At times I am angry.

I am reading a lot of books on grief and will join a grief support group, but the palliative care team tell me I need to wait for 8 weeks before I am ready to join a group. At the moment I am on leave, but I will need to return to work sometime, and I am afraid of how I will cope.

I am now lost for words on how to end this, so I will just stop.