And The Tears Came

My life as I know it is no more.  Most of my writing has been about pleasant memories and the wonderful events in my life.  These memories and events are not without struggles and often strife, but these past two years have been a series of struggle and strife.  My husband of 38 years at the time was diagnosed with adenocarcinoma of the esophagus in January 2015 after recovering from early stage bladder cancer.  We entered the cancer world of doctors, and tests, and drugs and all of the what ifs.  Our lives evolved around my husband's illness although like the trooper he always was, he never complained.  He continued working although he curtailed international travel, but he came home more exhausted each day.  He tried to do things I wanted to, and we talked about his bucket list, but advanced stage cancer doesn't afford the opportunity to do much as the body is already in a major state of decline.  He would summon the energy to take a few short trips to our lake house, and we took a car trip to Florida to visit my sister, but it took its toll on him.  After two different chemo regimes and radiation, cancer returned with a vengence, so off to MD Anderson for a trial.  He only completed one week of the drug and was too week to continue.  I honestly thought at one point he would die in the hotel room.  We returned home, and he tried one more treatment, but he knew his time was at an end.  Hospice was called.  On November 28, 2016, he died at home surrounded by his children and me.

While I may eventually write about those two years, what I must write now is the emotional upheaval his death created.  I thought after nearly two years of knowing the possibilities of his death and preparing in some small way for it,  I would be ready to take on this role.  Nothing, and I mean nothing, could have prepared me.  My role as care giver required 24/7 care, so after he passed my body and mind continued that role.  I awoke for almost a week every two hours thinking I needed to check him and give him his medications.  Several times I panicked because I did not hear him breathing. and then I would remember that he was gone.  The days following his death blurred into a whirl of business to attend to with little sleep at night.  I had no appetite, but I had tons of energy which I imagine was stress adrenaline.  I finished preparing the house (although a very simplified version of past years) for Christmas because we have grandchildren and they loved seeing the tree.  I had little focus for major decisions, and I think I must have rambled from one topic to another with my children who were helping me.  I felt as though I was floating above myself watching the actions but not really feeling.  Physicians would say I was in shock most likely, but I felt it was a coping mechanism.  Logically I knew my husband was gone, but the heart does not know yet, and parts of the brain have to be retrained to know.

Finally the service was over, family and friends returned home to their lives, and I entered a period in my life that I could not fathom.  My daughter stayed some nights with me, but she too had to return home to her husband and two year old and life.  I did not want to burden my children anymore.  They had already given so much.  My family lives away, so I could not visit them, but I was connected by phone and they were of great help as were friends.  But no one or thing can take the place of someone else, someone who had been a part of my life since I was seventeen years old.  He was my history, my now, but my future no more.

A widower described the heartache as a hurricane.  The waves come crashing down one after another relentlessly, and you feel as if you are drowning.  The waves pound and pound until you can no longer get up.  I felt the pounding, but I will have to say it was more like someone had shaken a soda bottle, and  as the cap is slowly twisted bubbles began to push out of the bottle.  My core began to feel the bubbles.  And I knew the lid of the soda bottle was about to explode with carbonation spewing like a volcanic eruption.  When that feeling began, I would cry and howl and cry some more.  It was good no one was home, and I have space between my house and my neighbors.  I can only use other author's words and describe it as the howl of a wounded animal.  Somewhere deep inside this sound emerges.  It builds and builds.  I cried so hard that my body ached afterwards.  I would collapse on the bed or sofa-a respite from the crying.  I would go several hours before the tiny bubbles would begin again.

Every little thing reminded me that he was gone.  I went to the store and my first thought was "I wonder what John would like today?" and of course the tears came.  I had to run errands in a neighboring city, and I picked up my phone to text him to let him know I was headed home and ask if   he needed anything.  And of course the tears came.  We celebrated Christmas at our lake home because I could not bear having Christmas in our home.  Like always, I left at the crack of dawn, and when I arrived I again was about to text him to tell him I made it.  And of course the tears came.  But what hit me harder in that moment was the understanding that no one checked to see if I had made it.  There would not be anyone to check again.  I was completely alone.  Nothing could prepare me for that realization.  And of course the bottle shook.  The bubbles came.  The lid exploded and the contents erupted.  And the tears, oh the tears, so many tears came.