Love never dies.
A heartbroken wife was encouraged to find new love by her dying husband — before he passed.
Deirdre Fagan was heartbroken to learn that her husband Bob was diagnosed with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) — a terminal progressive neurodegenerative disease that affects nerve cells in the brain and spinal cord.
Bob was just 43 years old when he was diagnosed and given less than a year to live.
“It was as though somebody pulled up in the driveway and said he’d been killed in an accident. I mean, the news hits you in the same way,” Fagan told Insider.
Bob was Fagan’s third husband but her first true love. The two met while earning their graduate degrees at the University of Albany and went on to have two children. The couple was married for nearly a decade when Bob was given his deadly diagnosis in 2011.
“I loved him so much and he was so central to my life and always will be, so it made me sad that he would just be stories for somebody else, and they could never know him themselves,” she explained, promoting her upcoming memoir “Find a Place for Me.”
Her parents and siblings had also sadly passed and the thought of her next lover not ever meeting any of the people who had meant so much to her throughout her life was devastating.
“It made me sad to realize the next person I would fall in love with would likely not know either of my parents, my siblings, or Bob. I wished that wasn’t the case, but I also knew I had no control over that,” Fagan remembered.
Distressed, Fagan lost her appetite for anything other than alcohol and her cigarette-smoking habit. She spent her days crying and planning for life without her husband.
After four months, the halfway point between Bob’s diagnosis and death, Fagan finally began to move past her “deepest denial” and accept her future. Bob’s symptoms were worsening with his fine motor skills and energy declining and his speech straining and slurring.
It was Bob who suggested that she begin her search for a new partner while he was still around. “You have always been happier in a relationship than not in one. I want that for you again, and for the kids,” he said, Fagan told Newsweek. “You deserve love in your life, and so do they.”
As Fagan opened up to the idea, she began to fall in love with her co-worker Dave.
The two grew close at a colleague’s dinner party and continued to spend more time together at the school where they both taught and at her house as he helped with household chores and caregiving duties.
“Dave was great with the kids — he let our four-year-old daughter draw smiley faces on his knees, and he fixed our son’s bicycle. He helped in concrete ways and fixed various things in our home to make our lives easier. He even installed a ramp in our kitchen for Bob’s wheelchair,” she recounted.
Dave grew close to the family and connected with Bob, but he had an obvious spark with Fagan. Despite Fagan’s worries, Bob wasn’t jealous. He encouraged his wife’s growing feelings for their friend. “Dave was now a private joke between us,” Fagan said.
Dave understood the delicate situation and was never deterred by Fagan’s love for Bob. In fact, he later admitted it was one of the reasons he fell in love with her.
“Dave knew that if I could love Bob like that, I could love like that. And I now love him like that,” Fagan said to Insider.
When the family surrounded Bob for his final moments in October 2012, Fagan and Bob’s young son was the one who suggested Dave join the somber gathering. He was in the room when Bob passed away.
Dave checked in on the family every day the week after the loving husband and father died. He hung out with the family bringing comfort to Fagan and her children as they mourned their loss.
Fagan and Bob finally shared their first kiss and they naturally grew closer after Bob’s passing. They’ve been married for more than seven years and together for 10.
“Bob was the first love of my life; Dave is the second,” she told Newsweek.