Grief’s game: A widow’s navigation on ‘what’s next?’

In the aftermath of uncertainty and loss after death, Kelci Jager shares her journey of resilience and challenges amidst the memories left behind and responsibility ahead.

The sun had finally set that summer night in 2022 when Kelci’s, 44, husband, Collin, said his last words, leaving her a widow.

“He told me that he would continue to watch over us and that he would make his presence obvious by giving signs that he’s near. And I promised him that I’d take care of the boys.

“We sat close like that until he died. The finality, the fact that he had gone was crushing - soul crushing,” Kelci says.

Collin had been diagnosed with leukaemia in January the year before, disrupting the bubble of bliss around their family.

It was biting outside when the call had come in on a Friday night.

Kelci was watching television with her children in 2021 when the doctor had called to tell her about Collin’s leukaemia diagnosis. The air had dropped in temperature when she realised Collin was alone and didn’t know yet.

“It felt like an out of body experience. I went numb, shaking out of shock.

“We sat on the phone and sobbed - he told me everything would be okay,” Kelci says.

The symptoms with leukaemia were rapid and immediate treatment had to be given. Although it is not uncommon for large and combative doses of chemotherapy and radiation to wash a patient out to the brink of looking and acting different, being a shell of who they once were, Collin’s treatment had left a devastating effect.

He had suffered 559 days in a disease-ridden body, enduring immense loads of pain.

Collin received the aggressive kind of treatment to the extreme at which he almost died on the first round. “He was not the same at all, just completely trashed,” Kelci says.

He had aggressive cancer for so long that people around him had thought it was easier if he wasn’t suffering anymore - but they had hope just like Collin.

“Collin had faith that he could beat it, and could survive. He had faith.” Kelci says. “He told me he didn’t want to worry me, that he knew the leukaemia had come back a year later  - certain that he would be healed. But, deep down in my soul, I knew it wasn’t going to happen in this life.”

Kelci was helpless as she watched the love of her life suffer emotionally and mentally and that was its own kind of sick torture for her, too. “I tried so hard to keep my children’s lives as normal as possible even though none of it was normal, really.”

“I don’t know what it’s like to be the only kid at the table that isn’t discussing exciting plans with my father. But my son does and that fact is devastating.”

Kelci, their children and his mother were all around him as he took his last breath when he came home the day before from the hospice. On the way home in the ambulance, no one knew whether he would survive.

The morning of, the family knew Collin could pass at any moment and despite losing the ability to communicate and respond, Kelci held his hand and spoke to him.

Those final moments were full of silent understanding and their whirlwind love story when they met in 1999 and got married four years later, beginning their family.

“I used to say I hit the husband jackpot,” Kelci says, “He was loyal and honest and he had a magic way of making everyone feel important - like they were his best friend.”

“When he died, it was as equally devastating as it was beautiful. He was no longer suffering and could rest but I was heartbroken to live without him,” Kelci says.

Collin’s routine treatment had meant that the hospital had shifted to become his primary home; he saw his four sons less and less whilst they only had a faint idea of his sickness.

But they did know about grief - about how it felt to lose someone important, their dad, at such a young age.

“I don’t know what it’s like to be nine years old and watch my father slip from this life to the next. But my son does.” Kelci says.

Similarly for Kelci, Collin’s memory and his teachings were valued immensely by his sons, especially during his sickness. “He shared how to be a good father - a good person.

He shared his love for the ocean with our sons, too, letting them sit on the back of his surfboard as they felt the water moving beneath them,” Kelci says.

Her four sons’ grief was just as gut wrenching as hers.

That grief had pushed her to see a therapist but she didn’t get that much help - it had come down to her own resilience and faith after Collin’s death. “Spring always follows winter - there is still love and light to be heard and I am capable and resilient.”

Blood cancer is the 3rd biggest cancer killer and 5th most common cancer in the UK. Every 16 minutes someone is diagnosed with blood cancer in the UK. In the UK, approximately 250,000 people are currently living with blood cancer. More than 35 people die every day from blood cancer in the UK.

- Leukaemia UK

Symptoms generally include:

- weight loss

- easily bleeding

- petechiae (tiny red spots on skin)

-reocurring nose bleeds

If you or a loved one is dealing with any type of grief, or if you would like to follow Kelci's journey, then you can find her at https://www.instagram.com/kelci.jager/