Sarah’s Story
Sarah's husband, Carlos, died suddenly in January 2023. After receiving support from Cruse, Sarah shares her story.
My husband, Carlos, was 51 when he passed away. He was one of those people that just walked in a room and lit it up. We were very yin and yang, as I was always worried about everything in life and he just always thought everything was going to be ok.
The night I lost him, it was 10th January 2023. It had been a normal day, we’d both been to work and everything was fine. At about 8pm he said had a terrible headache and that he didn’t feel good at all. He never complained of being unwell, and I knew something was really wrong. I called an ambulance but I knew he was going downhill quickly, so I called my friend, Lizzie, who lived round the corner. By the time she got to me, he was unconscious and he then stopped breathing. We performed CPR until the first responders came. They worked so hard and were amazing, but he didn’t come back unfortunately. And I lost him.
I did get to say goodbye to him. I lay down with him, told him I loved him and said to try stay but if he couldn’t that I understood. After I said that he stopped breathing. Not everybody is with their loved one when they die and although it leaves you with untold trauma, I’m glad I was with him and I’m glad I was the one who was by his side. He was extremely special and I would not have wanted him to be alone.
You look for answers after you lose someone
At the time, I remember just thinking it doesn’t happen to you, it happens to others. But it does happen. You look for answers after you lose someone, as to why them, why me. Carlos was so fit and healthy, he went to the gym every morning at 6am and was in amazing shape, but he died of a haemorrhagic stroke.
The support sessions I had through Cruse helped me to realise that sometimes there are no answers. In life there’s a lot of things you just can’t control.
You have to rebuild everything
Losing a partner, you lose your future, you lose your present. You have to rebuild everything. All the plans you had are gone. Everything you had, that you thought you had in your future, is gone. You have to start again almost and rebuild everything.
When you have that terminal diagnosis, you keep grieving. You wake up and you’re constantly grieving. When you lose someone suddenly, and it’s no better (I don’t think either one is any better or worse), it’s the absolute bomb that goes off all of a sudden. You go from being totally normal one second, and then you lose everything.
Support from Cruse
I called Cruse’s Helpline about a week or two after I lost Carlos. I had the most amazing person on the other end of the phone who took all my details and listened to me. After I called the Helpline, I then received one to one support from Cruse.
It’s very difficult when you lose someone suddenly to differentiate between the person alive and the person that’s passed, they become almost two different people. The sessions with Cruse helped me to understand that a part of a person’s journey is that they pass away. That is part of all our journeys.
Grief is a forever thing
People are so closed off to grief and death, until you actually go through real intense grief and pain. It’s so important to talk about grief because it never goes away, it never leaves you. Sometimes I can be smiling and enjoying the day, I’m laughing and then it just hits you. It never leaves you. Grief takes such a toll on your body, it can be physical symptoms as well, and people do need to be more aware of it
Everyone needs to understand that grief is a forever thing, and a charity like Cruse is so important.
Supporting Cruse
After I finished my sessions with Cruse, I felt like I had this incredible support and I didn’t pay a penny for it. I thought “what can I do?”. That was when we decided to start fundraising for Cruse.
Every year since we lost Carlos, we’ve done something. We do the Great North Run, and make it a whole weekend of Carlos. The reason we choose the Great North Run is because I am not a runner and Carlos used to find it very funny when I did run. But I do it for him, with my daughter and Lizzie. I cry the whole way round but it’s the one time I really feel him there with me.
Having the chance to be able to raise money and do it for Carlos is very important to me. If the money I raise gives a few sessions to somebody or it gets Cruse’s name out there I think that’s such an important thing to do.
Between Cruse, my daughter and Lizzie, I’m not sure I would have been here if I didn’t have the support there. Being able to raise money, I feel like I am giving a little bit back to say thank you as I’m eternally grateful.
Your life does start growing around grief
I remember saying in the beginning “I hope this feeling is not here forever”, and although my grief is still here, it’s a different feeling. Your feelings do change over time and it’s not as heavy as it was in the beginning. That beginning grief is so hard. If people can know, not that it gets easier, but it gets lighter. It’s important to know that because sometimes that’s the difference between people choosing to stay here and not. As much as we may feel like we don’t want to be here in the beginning, we need to.
Your life does start growing around it, slowly but surely. You start doing things and you look back and think “I never would have thought a couple of years ago that I would be doing that without them”. You might cry a little bit when you do, but you do manage to still do things after they gone. Sometimes in their name and sometimes just for you. It’s ok to do that. It’s important to do those things for you too. I know that Carlos would want me to be laughing and be smiling. He’s not here to be able to do that, so if I can then I do.