As much as Patrick Swayze's death hurt his fans, the pain was infinitely worse for Lisa Niemi, his wife of 34 years.
"I am so grateful for what I had and my connection to him, and part of me believes that I will see him again, and I'm just going to have to go on until then," said the actor's widow Tuesday during the "Grief, Healing and Resilience" talk at the Women's Conference 2009 in Long Beach.
The roundtable discussion took place in front of about 14,000 people and was moderated by California first lady Maria Shriver. Kelly Preston had originally been scheduled to take part, but she later canceled, saying it was too soon to discuss her son Jett's death in January.
Recalling how she told Swayze she loved him over and over in the weeks before his death, Niemi said she still worries it wasn't enough.
"I've spent two thirds of my life with him," she said. "My regret is that I didn't tell him that I loved him enough over that entire 34 years."
Niemi helped Swayze pen the memoir The Time of My Life during those final months. The couple didn't have any children but counted the horses and dogs on their New Mexico ranch among the closest members of their family.
Loss is like "an animal all its own," Niemi said today.
"When the grief takes you, it's like your body is not your own. I'm just going with the flow. I know I have to go through it."
She said a handful of close girlfriends helped her through during her darkest days following Swayze's death Sept. 14 from pancreatic cancer.
"I was in the middle of a full-blown panic attack one evening," Niemi remembered, "and I picked up the phone and called one, which is really hard for me to do because I'm used to being so self-sufficient and taking care of myself. But the very act of picking the phone up to call someone helped to calm me."
Niemi will have her first one-on-one sitdown with Oprah Winfrey on Friday.
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Remember some of Patrick Swayze's best moments in our tribute gallery.