I agree, @update2020 that we do need to find a more appropriate term than "loss". It's a rather materialistic way of looking at a person. Think of "profit and loss". And we say "sorry for your loss" as an almost meaningless cliche when we meet someone who has been recently bereaved. I lost Margaret in a material sense when dementia set in at lest 6 years before she died, possible more. But I've never lost "Margaret" either then or now as we wait for the funeral, because her essence or spirit or soul, call it what you will, is still with me and always will be every time I look at her photograph or read a piece of her writing or sort out her things. I found a photograph yesterday, whilst sorting out, that was taken in I think around 1999 when we visited Florence. We went to the Uffizi gallery and the photograph was taken by a random stranger whom Margaret engaged in conversation and shows her in a black polo neck jumper and stylish black jacket wearing designer sun glasses for all the world like some kind of "nouvelle vague" film actress. That was the presona she'd decided to adopt for this particular visit and sums up for me exactly how she was and how as long as I live, or at least that memory lives in me, she is still with me. So she's not lost. Whatever imprint she made on the world is not lost and I'm sure the same applies to your husband,@update2020 and to Bridget, @Dutchman . We can't assess a person's value in what they did, but in what they were and how they affected others. Perhaps no life is "cut short"; Perhaps they're just as long as they're supposed to be. I don't think Margaret was sent to "do" anything, just to "be". God bless.