Anja passed away today
Categories: Personal Life
Written By: James
Table of contents for Cancer
The world has lost a truly beautiful person this evening as Anja took her final breath and finally passed away, peacefully as she slept. Her short but difficult fight with cancer is now over and she can rest in peace forever.
I am too broken to write all the words that are in my heart, but for those of us who knew Anja, we know she can never be replaced. She was a very unique individual who touched the hearts of all she met.
Her loving spirit will live on in all of us and her memory will never be forgotten.
I am now a broken and shattered soul who will never find true happiness again, but I feel honoured and privileged to have known Anja, to have been her husband and to have shared so many happy times together as one soul. Above all else, Anja was my best friend and the love of my life.
Goodbye my angel. I will love you till my dying day. I can never let you go…
The sun is always shining even when it is dark!
July 28th, 2008 at 7:46 am
She’ll always be in our hearts too. She was such a wonderful and beautiful person…
Anja, you will be missed.
July 28th, 2008 at 11:44 am
Our thoughts are with James and the rest of her family.
We will never forget Anja – she was really unique and such a good friend.
I am too upset to write more.
July 28th, 2008 at 12:53 pm
Oh, James – I’m so sorry!!
July 28th, 2008 at 1:15 pm
James, truly sorry to hear this, from reading your blog I gathered she was a kind, warm person. I hope that you manage to rebuild your life and continue in a positive direction.
We will pay tribute to your loss on the show today. Regards from everyone at sittingnow
July 28th, 2008 at 1:51 pm
Oh James, I am so sorry. She will always be around you. In these days that follow, please take care of yourself. You are in my thoughts.
July 28th, 2008 at 6:09 pm
James, you have my deepest sympathy. You are in my heart and i will think of you often, sending wishes of strength. I bow to your pain and send a comforting hug from an ocean away.
July 28th, 2008 at 6:28 pm
[...] our usual sharing today, but my heart simply isn’t in it and my mind is occupied elsewhere, as the death of one of us diminishes us all. Today, my thoughts are of loss and mortality, and, yes, love. “There is a door [...]
July 29th, 2008 at 1:39 am
Dearest James,
Loving deeply and being loved deeply in return creates a deeper capacity to love. That is a gift you gave each and to many of us who witnessed it, even online. May this sorrow transform in the deepest of happinesses for you and connected to you and Anja.
July 30th, 2008 at 4:50 pm
We are still here James. How i wish there was an ointment to soothe a broken heart. Yet perhaps there is – in the unbounded affection your dear wife has for you. Let that be your strength and your focus. Take good care of you.
July 31st, 2008 at 3:34 pm
I’m so very very sorry James.
I have no grand words or gestures, I just hope you’re managing to get through each day with what must feel like a massive hole in your life. Take care of yourself.
July 31st, 2008 at 6:17 pm
I can only repeat what Jackie has said – I really don’t know what else I can say..
August 1st, 2008 at 12:53 am
I have no business here, other than one who peruses “Ample Sanity” on occasion.
I am going through my own difficult times, but they pale. The world loses so many valuable souls each day, none more valuable than the next.
May your grief have meaning. I’ve always told my children: “The price of love is pain: but it is so very worth it.”
I need not ask you if your life would have been better without Anja. And the grief surrounding her passing. It is so much easier to go first, whether it be children, spouse, or even parent. We are left empty but whole.
Someone leaves. Always. I suspect you would have chosen different. Love is like that. Sweet irony. We accept the pain of others in our passing so that they survive us. The choice isn’t ours, however, unless we selfishly induce it.
So Anja smiles as you would. As I would. She took away your choice. Love is like that.
warren from afar. godspeed.
August 4th, 2008 at 12:19 pm
Thank you to everyone who has passed on their kind thoughts and words.
To be honest, I am struggling with how to go forward from this point and feel a HUGE hole in my life as a result of losing my best friend, soulmate and beautiful wife. Anja was a one-in-a-billion person.
People keep advising me that time heals, but as it is now, I see no future – only despair and sadness in my heart.
However, all of your support has really helped and I truly do appreciate it.
Thanks again for everything!
August 4th, 2008 at 9:37 pm
Oh, James. I am so very sad.
Once again, I wish you strength.
Sterkte.
August 6th, 2008 at 6:40 am
Wondering every day how you are coping – I can’t begin to imagine it.
Waking up every morning, getting through the day and not letting despair take over:
it must be awful.
Our thoughts are with you and we wish you much strength.
You are always welcome here James if you are in Holland.
We are just so glad that we saw you both last November.
Love from Tom & Barbara.
August 6th, 2008 at 8:45 pm
Please do something you especially love. Ice cream, some extra time with a favorite book, a dinner with a good friend, whatever it might be. Waving to you from near the South Pole…
August 7th, 2008 at 4:01 pm
@ Liz
‘Something I especially love’
That’s a hard one.
Like anyone in my situation of losing a best friend and loved one, as the hours/days/weeks pass by, I have started to reflect on my own life, past and present. What it was is now no longer applies and I see a huge mountain range before me with hardly any will to climb at all.
I know I am experiencing all the normal emotions and feelings that are expected in this situation and I am trying desperately to move on. But the will and motivation is weak – almost non-existent.
I am a loner by nature, and have never sought friendships. And yet for the first time in my life, I find myself wishing I had a someone to talk to, someone who will listen to me, be with me and simply be there when I need them. I feel like a child who has lost his security blanket. I feel so absolutely alone!
Anja was my best friend in so many different ways. And suddenly she is gone. I talk to her photos, I hug her cuddly toys, I still find myself making her coffee, buying things she always liked when I go shopping and feeling her presence all around me. I miss her more and more as each day passes.
I do not know what I love to do any more. I am losing my sense of even who I am.
In essence, I have lost the will to live…
August 7th, 2008 at 8:02 pm
It is SO painful, James…it just is.
August 8th, 2008 at 9:51 pm
My sincerest and deepest sympathies.
Be well Friend.
August 9th, 2008 at 8:04 pm
Hi James,
I remember after my grandmother died, that Saturday was the worst day of the week. I was trying to remember what you said, since Anja died at home, if she was in hospice. I was wondering if so, if there’s a group for bereavement or grieving? It is so important not to stay alone — the emotions can get so big and talking to others going through a similar thing can make a huge difference.
And you too will help others just by their hearing your story. If we online who do not even know you can be affected and helped, imagine your presence for someone who has just lost someone too. This is something you can offer.
I was wondering too if Anja asked for anything for her to be done for her after her passing. Maybe just taking one step a day towards such a project could help for that hour. I know in my grief it was hours — minutes even — not days. Time takes on a different quality.
A friend of mine who is a professional in hospice told me that England has an amazing network of hospice and grieving resources. I found some links and put them here: http://delicious.com/lizhamill/deathanddying
You were a great “carer” for Anja…please take care of yourself and for all the other Anjas in the world……..
Liz
December 3rd, 2008 at 9:18 pm
James, I found this site by doing a search. My beautiful wife, Susan, passed away on October 27, 2008. We found out she had brain cancer in 2005 and she had successful surgery and chemo. We thought all was well and Susan was healthy until a new tumor was spotted on her MRI this April. It progressed quickly. Susan was 38, I am 37 and we had no children. We were trying to conceive in 2005 and were in the process of applying for adoption this April. Like you, I lost my best friend, my lover, my soul mate and the center of my life and everything I do. I feel that same hole in my life and her absence in everything. Susan too was a one in a billion, happy, beautiful woman whose smile could light up the world. I feel so lost and sometimes wish God would take me and let me be with Susan and not here. I saw this page and was compelled to share a similar story. I would be willing to bet from what I read that Susan and Anja have met in heaven. Thanks for sharing and for letting me get this off of my chest as well.
Take care,
Scott
December 27th, 2008 at 9:21 pm
Hello James,
just thinking of you-
December 16th, 2009 at 3:54 pm
I lost my husband Oct. 27th this year 2009. he was only 44 it was the same cancer that took my mother. losing your mother then your husband it just too much to bare. my chest is very heavyand the lump in my throat, hole in my heart and stomach is only getting worse. it’s almost to the point I can’t breath. I am closing myself off I feel.
I have lost 1/2 my hair and i’m so thin. I don’t know how to turn this around.
I believe the only thing that keeps me going is websites like this. just to know i’m not the only one struggling for one more breath.
god bless