Losing wife to cancer was hard but support is out there

A MAN who lost his wife to pancreatic cancer when he was 50 said a bereavement charity helped him cope with the loss.

Stephen Herbert, 52, said he felt as though he was alone after Kate died on August 4, 2023, following an eight-month battle with pancreatic cancer. She was 52.

Mrs Herbert, who had been working as an administrator and events co-ordinator at Dorchester Abbey, had told her husband she had been feeling run down.

Mr Herbert said she had put this down to the events in the run-up to Christmas. He said: “Kate was feeling a bit run down and stressed and she had a bit of back pain and a bit of indigestion.

“Between Christmas and New Year we went to go and see the GP. They didn’t say anything but we had to wait two weeks for a CT scan. We knew that a two-week wait was a cancer pathway but didn’t really think anything of it because her symptoms were so benign.”

The couple were then called in to their GP where Kate was told that she had six or seven months to live.

Mr Herbert, an architect who specialises in hospital design, said in the months following his wife’s diagnosis, a support structure formed of Sue Ryder counselling, hospital staff and GPs had been put in place to prepare him and his sons for her death.

Their two sons, James and George, at the time 21 and 18, were at university and in the middle of studying for A levels.

Mr Herbert said: “As soon as Kate died, it was like overnight suddenly you’re having to negotiate life without her. That immediate support system, that was there to get us through the difficult times when she was alive, wasn’t there.

“I found myself in a very dark place where I didn’t know anyone who had gone through or was going through the same and I didn’t understand a lot of the feelings I was having.”

Mr Herbert said the four months following Kate’s death were a “battle”.

He found himself “alone” and trying to support his sons without knowing where to turn for support himself. “I found that really hard,” he said. “You don’t want to impart your own grief on to your children, you want to support them, but at the same time you are in pain.

“I may have lost my wife but I also needed to be there for my kids. They have processed it differently. Everyone processes grief differently.

“At the end of the day, kids are going to be resilient and they have done incredibly well in the circumstances.”

In December, he was visiting a neighbour for coffee when he learned about Widowed and Young (WAY), which supports those aged 50 and under who have lost partners. It provides peer-to-peer support through online and face-to-face meetings.

It was started by Caroline Sarll in 1997 in South Wales whose sister was widowed at the age of 35. It is the only charity in the country set up to support widows under 50. Since its first meeting, it has grown to 4,500 members across the UK.

Mr Herbert, who lives in Goring, contacted the charity and started attending online meetings. He said: “It was an opportunity to express how I was feeling without judgement and gave me the ability to cry when I wanted to.

“Everyone who is helping on the meetings have all gone through this process and it gave me that opportunity of letting out some of my frustrations in a safe environment.

“I think being widowed in your twenties, thirties, forties and early fifties, it feels like the rug has been pulled out from under you.

“Someone who hasn’t been through that, it’s difficult to really understand the emotional turmoil that you’re going through, the utter disbelief.

“Meeting people who were two, three, four or even 10 years into that journey, it showed that there is life after and that gives you hope.”

Mr Herbert eventually started engaging with in-person meetings, including walks and meals, which he said gave him the sense of feeling “normal” again.

He said: “As time went on I felt I needed less of that online support and now I still am involved in the meet-ups and face-to-faces. Going for walks is great because you don’t have to look anyone in the eye, just talk and chat and say how you feel. It’s nice to have that place to do that.

“I think when my wife died my greatest fear was that I would forget her. These meet-ups are an opportunity to talk about her. I talk about the fun times that we had and that is very cathartic as well.

“My wife died of pancreatic cancer and some of the group, their partners have also died of pancreatic cancer.

“The similarities between the symptoms and the speed at which it keels you over is just horrific and just being able to share that has been important. It gave me that opportunity of feeling normal again.

“You never stop loving your wife. Every morning, I think about her first thing and every evening when I go to sleep, I think about her. It hasn’t taken away the pain, but there is the opportunity to continue to move forward.”

Mr Herbert said one of the greatest benefits he received from WAY is that he learned it was okay to be open to love again.

He has since started a relationship with an old friend which he said has reminded him of what remains ahead.

He said: “She is not a widow so she sometimes finds it incredibly hard in that ostensibly I still love my wife, and I will always love my wife, but she gives me that strength to look beyond today and look at what life still has for me. I don’t have to be a grumpy, sad old man.

“Kate wanted me to do that. She wanted me to carry on living the life that she knew she was never going to have.

“When she was dying, she did say to me, ‘Stephen, you will be okay, everything will be okay and you will meet somebody’.

“At the time I didn’t want to hear anything of it — I had met the person I wanted to be with.

“In many ways, it was her gracious way of saying to me, ‘Stephen, I give you permission to love again’ and that is one of the greatest things that she has ever given me.

“I think the greatest support that WAY has given me is the chance to realise that there is still life to live, and to live for those we lost.”

To contact the charity, visit www.widowedandyoung.org.uk/
get-support/join-way