Blog My Mind

  I want to write about how beautiful, horrible, rewarding, and agonizing it is to watch someone you love slowly die. I want to be so brutally honest, you, the reader will need to take a knee after reading. I want to write this because I want to help someone else who might be here one day. Because nobody told me how to do this. He should have been gone by now. My husband was given a six-month prognosis six months and 15 days ago. The colon cancer had spread and there were too many fronts to fight. John said enough was enough and got his affairs in order, as they say. He retired from his job. We flew to Tucson to visit the new granddaughter. We drove to Oregon to visit my dad. And we got used to our new routine of John home all day, every day. My me time suffered, even though John was trying not to be “underfoot.” We fell into the new steps of our routine quite easily, while we each silently counted the months. Then the pain started. The tumor in the pelvic bone was poking at him. “

 "You mean to tell me there are ten people in more pain than she is in," John told the ER intake nurse when she told him how long the wait would be. I heard him, but couldn't see him. I had my eyes closed, willing the pain in my back to go away. We'd been dating less than two months and I wasn't ready for him to see me at my worst. Next thing I knew, he was helping me to the parking lot and putting me in his car. "We're going to a different hospital." I sat in the waiting room, silently crying, embarrassed to let him see me cry. He stayed with me while I changed into the immodest gown (although he admitted later he was just hoping to see me nekkid). He found a warm blanket when I said I was cold. He waited in the hall outside the CT room and walked beside my gurney back to the ER holding cell.  That was nineteen years ago this month. It was the night I fell in love with him. It was when I knew he'd be my protector, the one who'd have my back,