It’s not everyday one gets the anniversary present I got.
It’s cancer, my sweet husband told me.
He had driven himself to the hospital the night before, for excruciating stomach pain. I woke up to a post-it note on the bathroom mirror. Test after test, surgery revealed he had advanced stage cancer of the worst sort. Every genetic test told us he had less and less time to live.
For five years – every other week – he spent a full day getting any line of treatment they could muster. Chemotherapy. Immunotherapy. Clinical trials. And surgeries. It became our second home after awhile. A home that was filled with ashen faces, thin bodies, and F–K cancer t-shirts.
Cancer, an insidious and manipulative enemy that destroyed his body and left us with some sick form of emotional trauma.
And then, mercifully, he died. When death is merciful, life…well, there is no word in the English language for what he experienced and what we saw. What we lived with, what my children knew as their normal.
An inside job, it was. They had the key to his body and destroyed it piece by piece, little by little. Sometimes backing down and giving us hope, then returning with a vengeance only to laugh at us as we believed he would live, for that brief moment between scans.
He died.
And I am left.
I don’t wish him back. I don’t wish cancer on anyone, much less the only man I have ever loved. The man who fought so hard and lived so brightly in the shadow of cancer. He is, after so long, able to rest without pain that even the most powerful opiates could barely contain.
He is gone.
And I am not.
Some days the sun shines and peace fills my soul. Other days it’s sorrow, rage, abandonment, and loneliness. In a world that strives for justice, there is great difficulty in stepping aside and watching a man die who did nothing but live.
Deflecting the opinions and justifications and human answers that fly in my face from those who’ve never faced anything of the sort. Knowing most mean well, but knowing that to be well would be to fill my well with silence.
To sit beside me in shared solitude. To let me speak with no words. To share a meaningful touch.
And to heal. 💙
#laughterafterdeath #lookingintherearviewmirror #itsme #lifebeginsnow