Patrick Swayze’s widow takes brave public bow
Posted on October 28th, 2009 by Austin
Just six weeks after losing her partner and soul-mate of 34-years, Lisa Niemi told a hushed room of women that loving Patrick Swayze was the core of her life.
Speaking at ‘The Women’s Conference’ 2009, in Long Beach yesterday, Lisa told an audience of 14,000 supporters that this scale of loss could be felt, “on a cellular level.”
“When the grief takes you, it’s like your body’s not your own,” she told a round-table discussion on ‘Grief, Healing and Resilience.’ “I’m just going with the flow. I know I have to go through it,” she explained.
Since losing Patrick on September 14, Lisa told how her closest girlfriends had been her salvation, “They say, ‘We don’t care if it’s 2 in the morning, call me’,” says Niemi. “I was in a full-blown panic attack one evening and I called one, which was really hard because I’m used to being self-sufficient. But the very act of picking the phone helped to calm me.”
One fallout of such loss is the endless regrets, and Lisa has since faced them in legion; Many times in his last months she told Patrick she loved him, but was it enough, “I’ve spent two thirds of my life with him; My regret is that I didn’t tell him that I loved him enough over that 34 years.”
Giving Lisa a moment to gather herself, conference host Maria Shriver summed up the day’s goal, “We all hope this panel will help the grief-stricken among us to see that there is light at the end of what seems like an endless tunnel,” People quotes her as saying. “It is our hope that this conversation will give anyone dealing with a broken heart a sense that you are not alone. Because you’re not.” she remarked.
And though regrets are a burden, Lisa looks forward to new, brighter days, “I am so grateful for what I had and my connection to him, and part of me believes that I will see him again,” she said, her voice almost breaking. “I’m just going to have to go on until then.”
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