How One Woman Spent Final Days With Dying Husband

One Reddit user was determined to live, not just survive, the final moments
By Elizabeth Armstrong Moore,  Newser Staff
Posted Nov 7, 2015 1:00 PM CST
How One Woman Spent Final Days With Dying Husband
   (AP Photo/The Telegraph, John Badman)

When 26-year-old Bangalore native Anukriti Mehta learned that her cancer-ridden husband, 28, had one month to live, she reached out to others on Reddit for tips on how best to live, as opposed to merely survive, their final days together. She pulled together tips that ranged from the practical (sort out where he keeps his things in files, hard drives, etc.) to the nostalgic (relive your first date, go back to your high school, etc.). Her husband has since died and Mehta, whose real name has been changed, reveals on Reddit's publishing site Upvoted how she (her user name is here) and her childhood sweetheart spent those final days.

The highlights? They took photos together. Lots of them. They got their logistics in order so that she would have his account numbers, passwords, insurance info, etc. They discussed her future love life so that she wouldn't feel guilty if she ever has one, and he wrote a letter to her future spouse describing what he felt the man should know. "I finally managed to read the letter and I’m more confident than ever that nobody will come close to understanding and loving me the way he did," she writes. They had a romantic balcony picnic, sex under the stars and all. They celebrated the holidays he would miss early, including Christmas and Halloween. They captured his "essence" by having him wear his favorite shirts so that she could still smell him, at least for a while. They threw him a party with his closest friends. And they spent every waking moment together. (These parents died within days of their grown daughter.)

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