sending you heartfelt condolences for your tragic loss and i'm sorry you had to go through that. you can prepare as much as you wish and it still comes as a shock. after going through the end stages of two husbands dying from cancer, (one i was with for ten years and the other twenty four years) i wish at times they would have went fast. each of them, after diagnosis, lasted about a year and watching them go downhill from the robust, athletic, loving life to the hilt type of guys was agony for me and them. neither one of them really wanted to go even after talking about ending it quick if something should ever happen to them. i don't think most really want to leave this life, especially after having a love affair with it. not including me in this, just their love for life.

I do not feel there is any reason for you to regret not being prepared. Forty is an unusually young age for someone to lose their life. My husband had small cell cancer that had metastasized into his brain and his back. We expected him to last six months but he only lasted 4 because he fell and his radiation and chemo had done away with his immune system and the small scratch on his arm became septic. He really did not want to talk about dying. He never even told me that he knew it was going to happen. I asked him to take care of some things just in case and he graciously did that. He was not religious and I tried to talk to him about what if he died what kind of a service he would want and his standard answer was I don't care I won't know about it. We had a party and a wake with all of his friends ,and. BBQ. The children made a video from his youth riding a bull and everything in between in his long fulfilled life. We had the wake at our home and I expected about 60 people 230 people signed the book that I didn't get out until it was halfway over. Some people had to walk a half a mile because of the lack of parking. Most people do the best they can at the time.I'm sure you did as well.

Two years before my husband's death the doctors informed me that he wouldn't survive another SMA (superior mesenteric artery) collapse and that could be in weeks or a few months. Eighteen months later he beat the odds, spent a month in the hospital and was on the mend. Four months later he died in his sleep from a heart attack.

Arrangements for his funeral were decided long before but the morning of his death was still a shock even though I had dreaded it for nearly two years. He seemed to be getting better in the months after his last surgery and my mind just couldn't imagine that it would actually happen. I called 911 that morning and was amazed that I could even talk let alone calmly. Once I hung up I just shattered, crumpled to the floor then went numb. He was only fifty, too young to die. That was seventeen years ago and the memory is still clear.

Sorry for your loss. Losing her so suddenly without even a warning is such a shock. You get that shock on top of the devastation of losing her.

I agree with AncientNight. Even if we know the end is near, we can never quite be prepared. When death arrives, the nightmare then becomes real.