It began as a tiny spark over 3 years ago. That’s when my husband tried to kill himself with an overdose of insulin. I spent 3 days by his side in a hospital room while he was under “observation”. He told them everything they wanted to hear so they would let him out. But when we got home, he was quietly furious that I had saved his life. It wasn’t what he had wanted. He had wanted to die.
If I had been only 10 moniutes later in finding him, he would have gotten his wish. It’s burned into my mermory of what I found that morning. His eyes were open but rolled back in his head, he was literally foaming at the mouth. His body was cold. I called 911. When the paramedics came, they couldn’t get a reading on his blood sugar or blood pressure. They worked on him for several minutes then took him to the hospital. They administered high doses of glucose and he slowly came back.
Me? There was a burning in my chest, a small ember of what would later become a bonfire that was my life. It hurt. I wanted to scream at him. How could he do this? How could I not know that his despair was this bad? I was his wife of over 45 years at that point. And the flames burned more after he came home. He told me don’t ever do that again. He had wanted to die and was pissed when he woke up. Not grateful that it hadn’t happened. No, he was angry.
I found out that he had been researching the best way to kill himself for a long time. He hadn’t actually had the guts to try it until then. Every word he said, every confession he made about it made my insides burn to ash a little more. Why? Why did he want to die? Why did he want to leave me all alone? What had I done?
He tried a couple more times over the next year or so. They were half hearted attempts. He tried to drink himself into oblivion. Ater the second attempt, I sat by his bedside, holding his hand. I told him fine, you want to die, I won’t stop you again. As much as it hurts me, I can’t stand to watch you suffer. If that’s really what he wanted, I knew I couldn’t stop it. But I still loved him and wanted him to stay with me. I don’t remember everything I said through my tears, but I was becoming hollow. My emotions were burning me to ash. Numbness set in. But then he didn’t attempt it any more and I thought maybe he had decided it wasn’t worth it.
Life became a bit better as far as our relationship. We didn’t speak about his wanting to die any more. And over tha course of the next months I saw some changes. He decided that since we had a membership in a fitness place we would start going to the gym. At first we went maybe a couple times a week, then every other day. He was frsutrated that he couldn’t do more but slowly he began to get muscles he hadn’t had for a long time. He still couldn’t get his stomach flat the way he wanted but his legs and arms became like steel. He would look at himself in the mirror and show off to me. He tried to get me to do more but between working out and my work, I spent more time in the massage chair most days. But I supported him going and saw the positive changes. It was good.
Then came the day I noticed his color was off. His skin had taken on a strange hue. He went to the doctor and the diagnosis came back pancreatic cancer. He joked about how he always knew this might happen. Both his parents had died from different fo rms of cancer. His mother had been lung cancer, his father, colon cancer. But this was different. Pancreatic cancer is the worst and most insidious. Usually by the time you find out you have it, it’s too late. One of the hardest to diagnose and beat. Most don’t survive for more than 6 months to a year. We both researched it quietly. But the fire was spreading along with the cancer. How long would he have?
As the cancer progressed, little by little he became unable to do things. First it was the gym. The muscles he had prided himself on now hurt and he felt ill after a short time of working out. It got to be fewer and fewer days we would go. Then we stopped all together. He just couldn’t bring himself to do it. Our lives burned to ash bit by bit. The muscles he had so prided himself on, wasted away. His strength left him and he was frustrated that just such a short time ago, he had been more msucled than ever. He became weak. And the pain started.
At first it was just an ache in his back, sometimes his chest. Then the pain grew sharper and more intense. It kept him awake at night. First he blamed it on the bed. He adjusted things and got some relief. But it was short lived. He would lie down and it would start. Sleeping became difficult and he would often nap during the day simply because he was exhausted. He began taking pain meds. Then came the food.
It became hard for him to eat. Nothing tasted good. Or after a few bites, he just couldn’t eat any more. His body refused. We tried everything. Protein shakes so he wouldn’t lose what muscle or weight he had. Every time he thought he wanted something, I would rush to get it for him. But within a few bites, he was done. He wasted so much food, but I didn’t care. If it kept him alive, the price was worth it. But eventually, he stopped eating. He would take a bite, maybe 2, then he was done. He kept trying different things and every time something sounded good, he would just smell it and knew he couldn’t touch it. Even all the things he had once loved to eat, he couldn’t even put into his mouth.
We had had plans to take a trip and celebrate his 70th birthday. But he had been so weak by then, he could barely walk to the car. Trips to the store were exhausting. We cancelled our trip and he spent his birthday quietly at home, unable to enjoy it or do much. There was no cake, no celebration, even though it was a milestone that he made it this far. A lot of days we didn’t know if he would.
We contacted hospice finally. They came with advice and help. The end was near. We had tried and failed. All they could do was offer support. He was so far gone, all we could do now was to try and make him comfortable for the end. He got to where he couldn’t even drink anything but a few sips of water. Then even that stopped. His days became a constant watch and meds. He lay in his bed, wrapped up in a cocoon of blankets because he was always cold now. His once muscled frame had wasted away to skin and bones. Over the course of his illness, in 8 months, he went from 225 to a mere 180 pounds or less. His skin sagged. His hair thinnned even more than it all ready had. His bones in his back and shoulders jutted out. He couldn’t even get out of bed. Then he wasn’t there.
He was still alive. He breathed. He even opened his eyes sometimes. But he wasn’t there. I would kiss him and say I love you but there was no response. That was when I knew he was gone. He left this world a few short days later. I watched him leave. I sat by his bedside after having called hospice because I had found him that morning with what looked like blood spilling down from his mouth and across his shoulder. They had offered comfort and said to let them know if anything changed. He was still breathing but barely. Then I saw a white wisp of something and I knew he was gone. I checked his breathing , his pulse. Nothing. I sat for a few moments before calling them back to say he was gone. They offered condolences and said they would handle things. He had donated his body to the University and they woukld make the arrangements for him to be picked up.
After I hung up, I sat for a few minutes. The flames that had slowly been consuming my life with him, burst into a conflagration in my soul. I wept. Silently. Slowly. I didn’t shout or scream, even thoug I wanted to. I sat silently looking at him or what was left of him. Then I picked up my phone for the dreaded phone calls. I couldn’t reach my daughter. I called my grandson. He answered with “this is the call I don’t want” and I replied “yes”. That was all it took. I told him I hadn’t been able to reach his mother and he said he would head over for her. As soon as I hung up, she called me. Within the hour, everyone showed up, my grandson first. The 5 people who mattered most in my life came. They waited with me for him to be picked up. They went and got food. We sat and talked. It took about 6 hours. Then we watched them take his body away. It was raining heavily. And still we kept talking. Eventually they all went home but not before assuring me they would come back tomorrow.
The next morning I contacted all of them and said I didn’t want them to come. I needed to be alone. I spent the day pretty much in bed. My life had just gone up in flames. I had spent 50 years with him. While it hadn’t always been good, it wasn’t all bad either. Towards the end, we had grown closer. More holding hands and hugging. Saying I love you more often. But it was all gone now. My life as I had known it, was burned to ash. The memories were there. They replayed over and over in my mind that day. Our wedding, the last time I held him as he cried that he couldn’t be strong anymore, our time spent together and his final hours. My chest ached. It burned. It was all gone.
Over the next few days I cleaned out his closet with my daughter. I gave her the food I would never eat. Slowly I changed what had been into what needed to be. When people asked hiow I was doing I told them I was in phoenix mode. My life had gone up in flames and now I was rebuilding out of the ashes. I felt guilty because slowly a lightness happened. The anger that had been a part of my life and his, was gone.
He had grown up abused by his parents. Not physically. Mentally and emotionally. Which is far worse and goes deeper and lasts longer. Physical wounds can heal. But emotional ones, mental ones, they touch your soul. They corrupt how you see yourself. He felt unworthy and a lot of the choices he made only served to reinforce the despair that was his life. I worked, he didn’t. That made him not a man. His father had been a Marine drill sargeant, old school. His father constantly belittled him for being soft, for caring, for having a conscience. Real men stood up. Yeah, his father was a real man. He would beat his wife for the slightest infraction he thought she had committed. It was what she deserved. She would take it, too. But when he wanted to hit the children, she finally stepped in, pulled a knife on him and then left with the children. But even though the physical abuse was never there, the mental scars would never heal.
The mother wasn’t much better. No, she didn’t really get physical with the children, but she abandoned them at every turn. Sometimes leaving them alone for a couple days while she went off with the boyfriend of the month. My husband and his younger sister would have to fend for themselves. They were 12 and 10. Once when my husband was about 15, he said something to his mother she didn’t like, she tried to shove him out a second story window, backwards. She had him thrown in juvenile detention for a week, saying she was incapable of controlling him. Yet he was a good student. Didn’t get in trouble.
The demons he carried were the direct result of evil parents. He had a conscience, they did not. They would run up bills, buying a car and furniture, then skip out in the middle of the night. Move somewhere else and do it again. Before the age of computers and such, they could do that and not be caught. That life bothered him. It caused scars that were deep. It angered him. It frustrated him. He could never escape it. So he became a very angry person. All the time. As he got older, it got worse.
His anger was never directed at me. It was always inanimate objects that he took it out on. Breaking phones, stereos, tools, dishes, whatever was at hand when the volcano of emotions erupted. I had lived with not knowing if each day it would be the lady or the tiger I would find. I felt his anger, frustration and despair. It affected me and my feelings. But once he was gone, so was it. I started to laugh more, smile more. I didn’t feel on edge all the time. The anger that had been a part of our lives for so many years, getting especially worse the last 20 or so, was gone. I miss him. I will never forget him. Every day the memories are there. The love we shared is there. But the anger vanished.
For the first time in over 50 years, I am alone and responsible only for myself. I am rising from the ashes of the life I chose to share with him. I am rising up to find a new way of life. I am finding myself after being consumed by the fire. I was a wild child before we got together and I feel that wildness coming back. I am doing things I put off or on hold for so long. I am dancing again, which I once loved. He didn’t dance so it just faded into nothing for me. Singing more. After months of being numb and taking care of only him, I want to sing. My time alone isn’t lonely. It’s cathartic. I am rebuilding who and what I was before the illness that took his life. His illness not only took his life but a big part of mine as well. I am slowly looking forward to things I thought were gone.
Out of the ashes, I am reborn. I will always miss him. I have no regrets about the things I gave up to share my life with him. He was my other half, my soul mate. We spent over 50 years together and I would not trade any of it. But now the future is mine. I will honor his memory by living the best life I can. I will face the challenges ahead with him in my heart and our time together etched into my soul. I will not give up. I will not wallow in the grief. I will rise stronger than ever. I will soar into the life ahead of me on wings of hope, letting the love and memories we shared be the currents that carry me into the future. I will not be sad that he is gone. I will be happy that he is finally at peace.
Grief is a phoenix. Let it fly free.
