Cyndi Smith
Loss of Husband, Matt, to Colon Cancer
Let’s get started! What’s your story?
My name is Cyndi. I live in the Birmingham, Alabama area. I have a 10-year-old daughter named Quinn. I love being outdoors, traveling abroad, reading, and laughing until I cry. I spent 9 years driving a semi-truck across the country before I met and married my husband and we started a family in metro Atlanta. I love to write, and find it very cathartic, whether I’m writing for anyone else to read it or not.
What was life like before the loss of your spouse, Matt?
Before my husband died, we had the American dream. We were blissfully happy, and truly enjoyed spending time with one another. We doted on our daughter and spent every minute we had with him when he wasn’t working. I was a stay-at-home mom and I felt like the luckiest person in the world. He immigrated from England, so we were raising a quirky little dual citizen together and loving every second of it.
You shared with me that Matt died from colon cancer. Can you share about the diagnosis and his experience with cancer?
Matt was diagnosed with stage 4 colon cancer at age 33. He had no symptoms. He was exposed to concentrated carcinogens at work that line up with the dates they think his cancer first started growing. He was extremely healthy and strong before. Cancer took our previously near-perfect life and challenged us in ways we didn’t even know were possible. I became obsessed with saving his life and I truly believed I could. I became consumed with reading every piece of literature I could on every cancer treatment available. We tried to make the absolute best out of the time we had left and make it as easy as we could for our daughter (if cancer can ever be easy). She was 4 when he was diagnosed and 6 when he died. She has very few memories of him without cancer, but she got to watch him be the most brave person either of us will ever meet in this lifetime. He fought hard for 18 months and died as peacefully as possible in our home. He was 35.
I know firsthand how difficult, beautiful, and heart-wrenching it can be to be a caregiver to a spouse. What was that like for you?
I completely shelved every need I had for 18 months. I was consumed by making cancer go away and being a buffer between all the bad and my daughter. I was able to protect her from some of it, but not all. I tried hard to filter what she saw and heard. I spent hours a day obsessing over treatments we should try or doctors we should schedule consults with. I was his advocate, and it was life or death. It was heartbreaking every hour of every day and every second of every minute and I wouldn’t wish it on anyone.
Any words of wisdom you would give to others in a similar situation?
You have to be an advocate for your person. They are oftentimes not in their right mind to make decisions, and you have to be strong enough to make fact-based decisions instead of relying on your emotions to lead you. When they have an up day, go in the bathroom and fall apart. But when they have all the down days, you have to be strong enough to support them. I did a lot of hard things. I can’t believe how strong I actually was under so much pressure. Educate yourself, and don’t be scared to call a surgeon at home to request a consult. I did that, and have never regretted it for a second.
Can you talk a little about the day your husband died?
We had been on hospice care at home for over 6 weeks. He was actually on hospice so long that insurance canceled him because he didn’t die fast enough. At first, they would call and say they were coming at a specific time and he would say, “That won’t work for me, I have places to go.” You couldn’t tell he was dying, and you certainly couldn’t tell him he was. He would run around and chase kids at church and people would be shocked that he was a cancer patient at all. If anything, it made him stop and savor every day. He lived life to the fullest until he couldn’t, facing every day with as much joy and humor as he could muster.
The day he died, we had watched him slowly decline. He had told everyone in the house how important they were and how much he loved them already. He left nothing unsaid. He thanked me for being the best wife and mother he could ever ask for. He slept off and on in the hospital bed in our living room that day, and we all gathered around him to tell him how much we loved him. Our hospice nurses were angels on earth. They guided us every step of the way, telling us what to expect at each stage. By the end, we were begging God to take him. He was in so much pain that we begged God to free him from his pain. The last breath he took, he raised his shoulders off the bed and had the most excited expression on his face. I believe that in that moment, he saw God. That gave me as much comfort as anything was going to at that time. I had no idea what to do with myself after. It was a surreal experience and I remember feeling so lost. It felt like all the air had been sucked out of the room, and all the life had been sucked out of me.
How did you cope in the immediate weeks after his death?
I have very little recollection of the first few weeks after. I drove my in-laws to the airport 2.5 hours away in Atlanta and I don’t remember driving there or back at all. The day he died was a Saturday. Sunday we went to church because that’s what he would’ve wanted us to do, Monday we planned the funeral, Tuesday was the funeral, Wednesday my daughter started 1st grade and I went to work as a preschool teacher at our church. We never slowed down, and I know now how much of a terrible decision that was. I remember folding clothes that next week after everyone went home thinking “Laundry is the one thing that stops for absolutely nothing.” I had no guidance and most of the people who were all over us daily when he was sick disappeared completely. The funeral was the end of the road for them. I was so shocked by that. I felt so alone and truly had to figure out life on my own.
What was a specific low point or struggle you experienced?
Oh boy. I turned to alcohol after. I would drink after my daughter went to bed. That turned into hiring a sitter so I could go party all night. I couldn’t sleep anyway. I would be awake for 3-4 days at a time. I was prescribed Xanax the day after he died and, while I didn’t abuse my dosage, I drank while taking it. I should not have been responsible for myself at that time, let alone a child. I was suicidal. The only thing that kept me from blowing my brains out was my daughter. If it wasn’t for her, I would’ve been gone a long time ago. I didn’t want to die. The pain was just too severe and I just needed relief from it. I tried, but I couldn’t function. I did the best I could. I became an alcoholic and a prescription drug addict.
How did you manage to find joy in those low moments?
I tell my daughter (now 10) how much she saved me. She was the only reason I had to keep breathing. I couldn’t change what had altered her childhood forever, but I threw myself into making sure she had the best childhood possible after to soften the blow and fill the enormous Matt-sized hole in our lives.
How do you live life differently from before the loss (if at all)? Has your attitude about life shifted? Any unexpected changes?
I used to be a type A, very scheduled mom. My house had to be spotless, I couldn’t go to bed if every piece of clean laundry wasn’t folded and put away. I wouldn’t dream of letting my daughter throw pajamas on and getting ice cream at 9pm. I thought I needed an SUV because I was a mom. We bought a mustang convertible and I haven’t regretted that decision a single day since. When we bought my daughter a new bike we put the top down in the rain and held an umbrella over us and laughed all the way home. Old me would’ve never.
I had all of these self-imposed rules about what it took to be a good mother, and 99.9% of them were bullshit. We grab clothes out of the clean laundry basket, we have ice cream whenever we want it, and bedtimes and speed limits are merely suggestions now. Matt was the fun parent. I had to learn how to be the fun one. I realized none of those things really matter. All of the rules, things we obsess over and worry about- they’re just noise distracting you from real life.
What do you want others to know about grief?
I want people to know that they should do as I say, not as I do. I tried to jump over grief, and that led to addiction and more pain than I needed at the time. I didn’t ask for help or guidance with financial decisions, and that was a mistake. I tried to numb my pain, and really I needed to experience it and learn to cope with it. There is no way around grief. You really do have to go through it.
How can a person best be there to support a loved one who is grieving?
Don’t disappear. They need you the most after. Don’t assume because they say they are ok they really are. I was the okay-ist person on the planet when people asked, but I was dying inside. I needed people and my couple friends mostly disappeared. I became public enemy #1, the single girl. I got so angry when that happened. I wanted to yell at my former friends that I wanted MY husband, not theirs. It’s a very lonely life, and one that I most certainly did not expect or choose for myself.
Just show up. Sometimes I couldn’t verbalize what I needed, and I am forever grateful for the few people who did recognize that and showed up anyway.
If you could go back and spend one more day with Matt, what would you do?
I say all the time that I would relive every second of our life together all over again, even if I knew the outcome would be the same. Our relationship was magical. He immigrated to America from England just to be in the same room as me, when other men couldn’t be bothered to cross the street. He left his whole life behind to start a life with me. It’s hard to pick a day, but there was this day that we were at Disney World for our daughter’s first birthday. It was a perfect day. I looked behind me on the dumbo ride and they were both smiling so big and having so much fun and thought wow - how lucky am I? So that day. But honestly, every single day of our relationship, even the hard ones. It was a sacred honor to spend the last years of his life with him and I’m so grateful for that time.
What brings you joy now?
Any and everything having to do with my daughter. I feel like I am so blessed to be her mom. She makes me crazy some days, but she makes me see all the good in the world because she’s so good. I consider it an honor to be able to raise her.
And Roger. Roger is my person. I didn’t think I would find someone who would be so loving and patient after Matt died, and I certainly dated a bunch of duds in the process, but I have hit the jackpot. He honors Matt’s memory with us, and he understands that I shouldn’t have to suffer for the rest of my life for something I couldn’t control. I love him for many reasons, but definitely because he understands that I can still love Matt and the time I had with Matt and love him now. He allows me space to grieve and isn’t threatened by Matt’s memory at all.
Those two together bring me more joy than anything else because they are hilarious together.
Anything else you’d like readers to know?
I need anyone going through grief to know that your pain matters. Your story matters, and can save other people’s lives and help them heal. Don’t be afraid to share your feelings. We walk around in a world hell-bent on being “ok” all the time, when it’s totally ok to not be.
Learn more about Cyndi:
I blog (though not nearly enough) at blondeblackwidow.com
Find me on instagram at @blondeblackwidow
Find me on Tiktok at cyndiandquinn2.0
I am available for speaking engagements and have most recently spoken on suicide awareness and how I pulled myself out of a mostly self-imposed hell.
