Coping With The Loss of a Loved One
- Actor Patrick Duffy lost his wife to cancer eight years ago, but found love again with Linda Purl from “Happy Days”—and the pair have been praised as a “beautiful” and “gorgeous” couple following Purl’s most recent social media post.
- Duffy’s late wife Carlyn Rosser, who he married in 1974, passed away in January 2017 after a battle with cancer at 77. The couple had two sons together.
- Grief is a difficult, truly personal process, something Duffy has shown. Some find solace in vulnerability and sharing how they feel with others.
- While working through grief and vulnerable tackling of the emotions that accompany it, some find tools like therapy to be helpful. Support groups can also be a benefit for those who are feeling isolated in their feelings of grief. Faith can also be a powerful coping mechanism for some.
- Whichever methods of support you look for after cancer loss, you should know that there is no correct way to grieve. There is no perfect timeline for grieving, either.
Duffy and Purl were commended for being such a “gorgeous,” “beautiful,” and “cute” couple by fans after Purl’s recent Instagram post featured the loving duo looking incredibly joyful and prepared for chilly weather on a beach.
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Purl’s last post of her and Duffy was shared at the start of this year, so the new photo is seemingly just what their fans were waiting for.
“Lovely photo. You both look absolutely fabulous. Hope you have a wonderful week,” one fan commented.
Another wrote, “So nice to see you two after a long time… gorgeous couple.”
Others commented, “Beautiful couple! Blessings” and “Finally you had me worried! Love you two together.”
“Beautiful picture. You two hadn’t posted in a while. Glad you’re both well,” another fan stated.
In a recent interview with Woman’s World, Purl commented on how she and Duffy have been able to maintain their relationship, admitting, “Believe me, we were just as surprised as anyone. Patrick and I were acquaintances for 40 years. We met in 1980, then again in 2000 and then four and a half years ago. I was living in New York at the time.
“Anyway, the story goes, we have a mutual friend, Richard Thomas, and when I ran into Patrick, I made a comment about Patrick doing a play in London with Richard and how I lost touch with Richard.”
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She continued, “Then I asked if he could please give Richard my information. Next thing you know, the three of us are chatting back and forth, which was fun. Then the Pandemic hit, and I moved out of New York. Patrick, and I started to text and FaceTime and then we were Zooming every night. We did this for about three months and by that time it seemed pretty clear we were turning a corner. So, one day Patrick got into his car from Oregon where he was living and drove to Colorado where I was and that was that.”
As for how her relationship with Duffy is different, she explained, “You don’t sweat the small stuff at this stage of life. You want to be a part of something that can make a difference, and it is lovely to cultivate things that allow you to stay in the game, learn and grow. Without a doubt, age and time on the planet serve us well.
Patrick Duffy Finds Love After Loss
Duffy shared a long and happy life with his wife Carlyn Rosser, who he wedin 1974. Rosser tragically passed away in January 2017 after a battle with cancer at 77. The couple had two sons together and a beautiful love story.
The heartbroken actor previously opened up to Closer Weekly, saying that he knew it was forever from the time they met. He said, “I was an immature college graduate touring as narrator with this dance production, and she was a beautiful ballerina 10 years older. We met on the tour bus and that was, for life.”
Expert Resources On Coping With Loss
- How to Handle the Emotional Toll of Caring for a Loved One: Prioritizing Your Mental Health
- Mental Health and Cancer — The Fight, Flight or Freeze Response
- Mental Health: Understanding the Three Wellsprings of Vitality
- Dealing With Grief Related to Health Problems
- How to Be Realistically Optimistic: Coping With Mental Health Long-Term
After his wife’s passing, Duffy was candid about how the loss affected him, telling Closer, “I know what she would expect of me, and I try and live up to that. I feel close to her all the time, [but] what I miss most is her touch.”
“I still consider myself a married man,” Duffy said in 2019, showing us how grieving is an ongoing process, and that it’s good to be patient with yourself as you process your grief after losing a loved one to cancer.
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Despite the pain Duffy experienced, he and Purl were brought together in 2020. The two were old friends, and their mutual pals initiated a group text prompting everyone to stay connected during the pandemic.
The group chat led the now-loving duo to reconnect, and shortly after they were chatting just the two of them.
When Duffy felt that he and Purl had more than a friendly connection, he drove to visit the “Happy Days” star, where they quarantined together. “I loaded up my car and drove 20 hours and ended up on her doorstep just to see if it was real. We haven’t been apart since,” he previously recounted to People magazine.
Duffy explained, “I never thought I’d feel this way again,” noting that he thinks his wife would be happy for him.
“I feel quite honestly, that it is keeping with the desires of my wife, the fact that we are intended to be happy. “So when it’s offered, think about it, do whatever you do, but don’t let it pass you up if it’s the right thing.”
Moving Through Grief
Grief is a difficult, truly personal process, something Duffy has shown. Some find solace in vulnerability and sharing how they feel with others.
Following his wife’s death, Duffy took to Twitter to say: “On this day 6 months ago my heart stopped yet I live on as she wishes We will be together eternally.”
‘Therapy Saved My Life’: After Losing A Loved One, Don’t Be Afraid To Ask For Help
While working through grief and vulnerable tackling of the emotions that accompany it, some find tools like therapy to be helpful. Support groups can also be a benefit for those who are feeling isolated in their feelings of grief. Faith can also be a powerful coping mechanism for some; Duffy previously spoke about how his Buddhist faith helped him deal with his feelings of loss.
Whichever methods of support you look for after cancer loss, you should know that there is no correct way to grieve. There is no perfect timeline for grieving, either.
Dealing With Grief Related to Health Problems
Surviving the Loss of a Partner
Fighting your own cancer battle is one of the toughest experiences in life; watching the disease take someone you love is a different kind of pain. In some cases, a spouse with cancer can take proactive steps to talk about what might come after.
“She wanted to make sure that I knew that it was OK, she really wanted me to have another relationship after she was gone,” one widower told SurvivorNet in an earlier interview.
Meanwhile, John Duberstein lost his wife, writer Nina Riggs, to metastatic triple negative breast cancer. He says that while he was watching her suffer from the disease, he couldn’t help but wish things could go back to normal, but Riggs had already embraced her new normal.
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“I really wanted things to go back to normal, whatever that meant,” Duberstein told SurvivorNet. “She was not for that. She wanted to embrace the existence that she had, even before she knew she was going to die imminently. 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.”
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Duberstein explained that even with the pain of losing his wife, and even though he didn’t want to talk about it at the time, he’s so glad they had those seemingly uncomfortable conversations. “In retrospect, I can’t even explain how glad I am that I had that.”
This is a reminder that having those uncomfortable and painful conversations with your partner can be fundamental to your well-being as you move forward in the grieving process, alleviating the guilt felt in starting to date again, and/or eventually marry.
Finding Joy Through Adversity
When faced a loved one’s cancer battle it can be hard to focus on life outside of their disease or the loss of a loved one. But it’s important to remember that your mental state can actually impact your success as a patient, caregiver, or someone who is mourning.
“I’m pretty good at telling what kind of patients are going to still have this attitude and probably going to live the longest, even with bad, bad disease,” Dr. Zuri Murrell, a colorectal surgeon at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center, previously told SurvivorNet. “And those are patients who, they have gratitude in life.”
Dr. Dana Chase, a gynecologic oncologist at Arizona Oncology, also advocates for cancer warriors to prioritize their mental health. She noted that emotional well-being has been studied as a factor in patient outcomes.
“We know from good studies that emotional health is associated with survival, meaning better quality of life is associated with better outcomes,” Dr. Chase told SurvivorNet in an earlier interview. “So, working on your emotional health, your physical well-being, your social environment [and] your emotional well-being are important and can impact your survival.
“If that’s related to what activities you do that bring you joy, then you should try to do more of those activities.”
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If you’re like Duffy and his new love Purl, focusing on your emotional health might look like traveling. Other people might turn to yoga, painting, writing, spending time with family or a number of different things.
There are no right or wrong answers, but Dr. Chase says doing things that bring you joy is important.
She recommends writing down ten things that make you happy and intentionally making the time to do those activities throughout the day.
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“Sometimes I will talk to a patient about making [a] list of the top ten things that bring them joy,” Chase says. “And trying to do those ten things, to make at least 50 percent of their experiences positive throughout the day.”
Contributing: SurvivorNet Staff
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