I can recall my husband calling to say he wasn’t feeling good. We both thought he just needed some rest and to take his medication and he’d be back to his old self in no time. Within a week, I heard the words that forever changed my life, “Your husband has died”.

It seemed surreal because we were making plans to celebrate our first anniversary as a married couple since we’d been apart on March 5. Now, here it was six days later and my hubby was dead.

It didn’t seem fair that we had no time to make peace with death (if there is such a thing). We hadn’t created a bucket list and snapped pictures in exotic locations. There were no soul-stirring conversations about what my life would look like after he was gone. One day he was here and the next he wasn’t.

Though I didn’t know any other young widows at the time, whenever I’d read about one who lost her spouse to cancer or other fatal disease, I secretly envied the fact she’d had time to prepare…that death hadn’t just shown up announced.

Since starting the Young, Widowed & Dating online support group, I’ve seen how naive I was to think there is ever a way to “prepare” to lose your soulmate…to say goodbye to your heart.

I spoke to others who shared what it was like to be on the other side of a “sudden death”. They talked about the countless doctors’ appointments, the stress, the heartache of seeing their spouse in pain and even the toll an illness can have on a marriage.

Jennifer, a YW&D member, said her husband battled cancer for 15 months. He was diagnosed with Stage 4 Thymic Carcinoma, a very rare cancer.

“He really felt like he was going to beat it and he was the miracle,” she said. “His dad was also diagnosed with cancer in the 60’s when chemo and radiation were trials and had been given only six months to live. After two battles with Hodgkin’s lymphoma, he succumbed to lung cancer 18-20 years later. Therefore, Alan always felt that he would beat his cancer and told the kids after he received chemo and radiation that he would be going into remission.”

Though Jennifer hoped Alan would in fact be the miracle, she had to prepare herself and their children as best she could.

“In August 2014, he woke up with a tumor on his skull which ultimately caused his collar bone to break,” she explained. “At that point, things really changed. He couldn’t lift more than a gallon of milk so I needed to manage all five kids and the house plus help him get dressed.”

The doctors eventually told the couple Alan had less than a year to live. As they prepared to spend what would be their last Christmas together, Alan’s weight continued to drop. They took a family vacation to New Hampshire and though he wasn’t able to get out of bed, the family enjoyed their time together.

Jennifer admits it was the most challenging and difficult time for the entire family, yet she is thankful for the last 15 months of Alan’s life.

“We were always close, but boy, did we grow closer as a couple,” she said. “The love we had for one another keeps me strong each and every day now.”

Fellow member Amelia also lost her spouse to cancer. He had been labeled a “cancer patient” years before they met and eight months into dating, he was re-diagnosed with Acute Lymphoblastic Leukemia (ALL). From then on, she became his caregiver. The pair got married in June 2013.

Three months later, Andrew had a bone marrow transplant – his second.

“After that transplant, I had a feeling and knew this was it…the ending,” she said. “At that point, my thought process completely changed. I knew there would come a time when I would no longer be married and have the man I loved and cared so much about in my life.”

Unfortunately, due to a number of factors, the pair’s solid marriage began to fall apart. Once the financial toll of Andrew’s illness was accessed, a social worker suggested the couple get legally separated.

“I tried to explain things to him but I felt like my words were being twisted by the poisons [chemo, medications, radiation]. He was unable to process a “normal” conversation,” said Amelia. “He kept asking if we were getting divorced and needed me to reassure him we were still going to be married. We ended up moving out of our apartment. Andrew went to his mom’s and I moved in with my parents who lived a couple towns over.”

The move was a breaking point for Amelia who began burying herself in work, drinking and seeing other guys.

“I pushed myself away from the one man I loved, my husband,” she said.

In some ways she feels she was prepared for his death when it did occur, yet in other ways she wasn’t.

Joe, a widower and member of the YW&D group, believes he was as “prepared” as he could be. Once the doctors told them his wife’s illness was terminal, they began making lists of all the things that needed to be taken care of following her death (stocks, social security, etc.).

“The diagnosis didn’t really have an effect on the marriage other than the sadness that would creep in every now and then,” he said. “I think the worst part was knowing things were going to be the last…her last birthday, the last family Thanksgiving, the last Christmas. It was a very sad time but we had to make it special for our kids.”

He found the five days with Hospice at their house especially difficult as he watched her “waste away”.

“The energetic, strong woman devolved into a Dilaudid-loaded shell of herself,” he recalled. “Those last images of her taking her final breath are forever etched in my mind. It’s hard to remember her smile without that memory popping in.”

Another member, Julie, was her husband’s caregiver for many years prior to his passing. He had been a “cancer patient” and later developed a brain infection which resulted in memory loss and personality changes.

“I feel like I had to grieve for the ‘new’ him when he died. A much slower process of grieving for the real him then began. I never had time to do that in-between caregiving and raising my son. I am a different person than I was before the caregiving,” she said. “I think you can never be fully prepared, but I also can’t imagine a sudden loss.”

After listening to these stories of spouses who battled illness, I’ve come to the conclusion that there isn’t a “better way” to lose a spouse. Each situation comes with its own unique set of challenges and the surviving spouse can often find “contentment” in his/her situation vs. the other.

Mom to a feisty preschooler, Kerry Phillips became widowed at age 32. She runs anonline support group for young widows and widowers venturing back into the world of dating and is a blogger for The Huffington Post.