In 2013, Christina Frangou and Spencer MacLean were packing up their life in Calgary, Alberta. Spencer was just finishing up his surgical residency, and the young couple had everything in place to move to California, where Spencer was set to start a fellowship in orthopaedic trauma. The future that stretched out in front of them was exciting and and, it seemed, vast. And then it wasn’t. In a gutting span of 42 days, Spencer was diagnosed with Stage IV kidney cancer and, at just 36 years old, he died. At just 36 years old as well, Christina was left behind with a shattered heart and a shattered future. The day they were supposed to start their drive to California, the day their new life together was set to begin, she buried her husband and embarked on a different new life – one as a widow. Three years after Spencer's death, Christina, a freelance journalist, wrote a moving story about life before, during and after Spencer's diagnosis and death.
This is a conversation about the enduring heartache of losing your person. It’s about how to keep going when the future you thought you were getting is completely obliterated. And it's about the lasting love that exists between two people, even after one of them dies.