USE MENU ABOVE TO VIEW MORE IN THIS SERIES
Editor's note: Among the widowers who responded with accounts of their bereavement was William R. Bickley, a retired communications director for the Milwaukee Road railway, an avid golfer who worked part time in semiretirement at the Chevy Chase Country Club in Wheeling, and a longtime commander of Glenview American Legion Post 166.
He died at age 90 before his submission could be published, but we thought you'd be touched, as we were, by the exquisite love he described for his dear late wife, Marian.
— John Lampinen, April 18, 2018
My wife, and love of my life for 62 years, had finished tests and was to be released from the hospital following a visit when I told her I loved her and would pick her (up) in the morning.
I never talked to her again. She suffered a stroke and died three days later.
But I have seen her in my dreams every single night since she passed some six years ago.
Sometimes we're very young. She was 16 when we met, holding hands in the park. Or we're visiting in the hospital after the birth of one of our four children, or we're old and having an argument about one thing or another.
But she is as alive in my dreams as can be to the extent of being scary.
My health allows me to continue to be active in the American Legion; I still drive; visit relatives; and keep in touch with my kids and grandkids; but have no desire to date another woman.
She may be gone, but the memories linger on.
All loss is difficult. But few losses are as devastating or as challenging as the loss of life’s partner. Join us as we explore this unusually personal topic with first-person accounts and through the story of one family's tragic loss.