The Queen Came Through for Her Bagpipe Player
- A bagpipe player for Queen Elizabeth II recently opened up about how the royal family came to his family's aid when his wife was diagnosed with terminal cancer.
- The Queen made a point to remind him that his family should be the priority. The royal nannies even stepped in the watch the couple’s children.
- Losing a spouse to cancer can cause immeasurable pain, but it’s important to try to have uncomfortable conversations with your loved one if they’re open to it during their cancer battle.
Methven dutifully awoke his Queen with the sound of his bagpipes below her window at 9 a.m. from 2015 to 2019. He even traveled with her from Buckingham Palace to Windsor Castle and Balmoral and would chat with her regularly. His life seemed to mimic a fairytale until 2017 when his family received the devastating news that his wife, Morven, had terminal cancer.
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He also said the Queen told him to prioritize his family during the difficult time. If anyone questioned him about abandoning his duties on any given day, she said to tell them he had her permission.
“People on the military side were conscious about me getting back to work,” Methven said. “But the Queen said, ‘Absolutely not, it's family first, you have as much time as you need to look after your wife.'”
His children stayed at Balmoral and later Windsor castle. They even played tractors with Prince George and fed the red squirrels.
Morven was given just weeks to live, though she died a year after her diagnosis. Although he suffered an immeasurable loss, Methven remains incredibly grateful for all the support he received from the royal family during that time.
“People genuinely think what you will about the Royal family or the Queen, but they pulled it out of the bag for me,” he told BBC Scotland.
Losing a Spouse to Cancer
Losing a loved one to cancer can cause immeasurable pain as Scott Methven can surely attest to. And while it’s hard to imagine life without someone like your significant other, it can be important to have hard conversations with your loved one if both parties are willing to talk.
No one knows this better than John Duberstein who lost his wife, writer Nina Riggs, to metastatic triple negative breast cancer. He previously told SurvivorNet that all he wished for while she was suffering was for things to go back to the way they were but Nina had already accepted her new normal.
The Toughest Conversations: Losing a Spouse to Cancer
"I really wanted things to go back to normal, whatever that meant," John said. "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. She wanted to make sure that I knew that it was OK … she really wanted me to have another relationship after she was gone."
John said 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 started those seemingly uncomfortable conversations.
"In retrospect, I can't even explain how glad I am that I had that," John said. “And I think, across the board, the people who have had those conversations who I know who have lost a spouse are immeasurably glad that they did.”
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