For partners grieving the loss of a spouse to cancer, Valentine’s Day can be particularly painful; which makes Duane ‘Dog’ Chapman’s touching Valentine’s Day tribute to his wife, Beth, feel especially bittersweet. “A lot of valentines days [sic] memories that will last forever,” he writes on Instagram. The post includes a montage of photos and videos of Beth Chapman — who died of lung cancer on June 26, 2019 — set to music.
Read MoreCohen, author of Shattered by Grief: Picking up the Pieces to Become WHOLE Again, has lived through it herself: “The [tv] commercials with elderly couples holding hands and walking off into the sunset? When you’ve lost your spouse, this is horrible.”
Friends and family, who may have been attentive from Thanksgiving to New Year’s may not recognize that Valentine’s Day has the power to stir up fresh feelings of loss for a surviving spouse.
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As Russell Friedman, co-author of The Grief Recovery Handbook, wrote in Psychology Today: “Even surrounded by family and friends, they may feel isolated, alone, and as if no one understands,” he wrote. “And those feelings can extend long past the first year.”
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