Coping After Losing a Loved One to Cancer
- Actor Patrick Duffy, 75 and his new love Linda Purl, 68, from “Happy Days,” recently went on vacation to Mexico, and their trip was filled with joyful memories, advertising sour dough bread, and spending time on the sandy beaches.
- It’s wonderful to see Duffy enjoying life with Purl after losing his late wife Carlyn Rosser, who he married in 1974, to cancer back in January 2017. 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. For others, support groups or turning to faith may be helpful.
- Whichever methods of support you look for after loss, you should know that there is no correct way to grieve. There is no perfect timeline for grieving, either.
Duffy, known for his memorable roles as Bobby Ewing on the primetime soap opera “Dallas” and Frank Lambert on the 1990s sitcom “Step by Step,” tragically lost his wife of more than 40 years, Carlyn Rosser, to cancer in 2017. And although he didn’t expect to discover love after grief, he did at the start of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020 when he began talking to Purl— and they’ve been making memories, baking sour dough bread, and traveling together ever since.
Read MoreIncluded in the post, which received praise from fans describing them as a “beautiful” and “wonderful” couple, was a photo of a clear night sky, featuring dozens of stars, as well as another photo of some calming beach waves.View this post on Instagram
One fan commented, “Gratitude is always expressed in every life experience you share. I’ve learned to be grateful through your examples. Keep en joying your beautiful life together.”
Another wrote, “You are so adorable together!”
Purl then shared a video of a crocodile, and jokingly warned, “Don’t go swimming here.”
She also met up with “inspiring” painter Mari Carmen Hernandez, whom she also took a photo with.,
However, the best part of their Mexico vacation is their joy for life and ability to always have fun, something that’s easily seen in a video clip Purl shared of her and Duffy on the beach, showing the “Dallas” star coming across “some Duffy’s Dough on the beach.”
Purl captioned the post, “The man from Atlantis was my first tv crush!!! I was 7!!!,” referring to how Duffy stared as Mark Harris in the 1977 sci-fi TV show “Man from Atlantis.”
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In the adorable and comical footage, Purl pretends they were shipwrecked while they were “just trying to deliver some Duffy’s Dough.”
As she says, “I don’t know where Patrick is,” Duffy is seen emerging from the coastline and moving quickly toward her with a loaf of bread in a clear bag, saying, “Look, I saved a loaf of Duffy’s Sourdough Bread from the wreck.”
Purl then replied, “Oh thank heavens … where is the recipe book?” … prompting Duffy to return to the water, seemingly in a panic.
We’re delighted to see the loving duo having fun along their travels. Purl even shared an image of her posing alongside a very large, fallen tree branch.
“Birds flying? Dragon leaping? Not sure what but this driftwood speaks, no?” she wrote alongside the photo.
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Patrick Duffy Finds Love After Loss
Duffy shared a long and happy life with his wife Carlyn Rosser, who he married in 1974. She 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 spoke with 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.”
More Resources On Coping With Loss
- Mental Health: Understanding the Three Wellsprings of Vitality
- Mental Health and Cancer — The Fight, Flight or Freeze Response
- How to Be Realistically Optimistic: Coping With Mental Health Long-Term
- Dealing With Grief Related to Health Problems
- How to Handle the Emotional Toll of Caring for a Loved One With Cancer: Prioritizing Your Mental Health
- Mental Health: Coping With Feelings of Anger
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 admitted, “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,” he explained.
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.”
Dating After Cancer; Getting Intimate with the New You
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.”
‘Adversity And The Art of Happiness:’ How Hardship Makes You Even Stronger
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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