After losing a spouse to cancer, birthday celebrations might be more difficult for family members to enjoy. In honor of his 80th birthday, legendary singer Tom Jones is taking a trip down memory lane and sharing how he and his wife Melinda Trenchard, who passed away from lung cancer, met when they were teenagers.
While speaking to BBC Radio, Jones reveals that he and Melinda met when they were 15 years old during a game of marbles. According to Jones, it was love at first sight, and the pair married at the age of 17.
Read MoreDespite decades of marriage, the couple was rarely seen together in public, but Jones has consistently said that their marriage was strong and Melinda has always been the love of his life. During an interview, Jones admitted that he sometimes blames himself for Melinda’s death, saying he didn’t urge her to visit the doctor soon enough.
“By the time we found out about her cancer it was too late. I thought, ‘What could I have done?'” Jones said.
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Coping After Losing A Spouse To Cancer
Losing a loved one to cancer can be an incredibly hard experience for many families, and takes a toll on people’s mental health significantly. John Duberstein lost his wife, writer Nina Riggs, to metastatic triple negative breast cancer, and says that even with the pain of losing Nina, and even though he didn't want to talk about it at the time, he's so glad that his wife forced him to have uncomfortable conversations about her disease.
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I did not want to talk about what was going to happen with me after Nina died. Nina is the one that really brought it up, she brought it up a number of times. She wanted to make sure that I knew that it was OK … she really wanted me to have another relationship after she was gone."
Doug Wendt lost his wife Alice to ovarian cancer after being married for 25 years and had two children together. Even though coping with her passing was extremely difficult for Doug, he told SurvivorNet that throughout her two year journey with cancer, it was important that Alice had her partner by her side every step of the way. He also explains to SurvivorNet that he'll never really get over losing Alice, but he does hope to move forward.
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"We're never gonna move on, I don't even think I want to move on, but I do want to move forward," Doug says. "That's an important distinction and I encourage anybody who goes through this journey as a caregiver and then has to face loss, to think very carefully about how to move forward."
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