All the Things

 

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. “I’m here, and I’m coming for you.” Then the weight loss. Then the just feeling yuck sometimes for no reason, except for the fact he’s dying.

“You should probably see a doctor. It could be serious,” I joked. We’ve always managed to find humor in this, from the first day he was diagnosed seven years ago. Walking through the basement hallway of the hospital where they’d just found his colon cancer, my bra suddenly came unhooked. We both laughed as we fumbled through my shirt trying to hook the damn thing. You have cancer but we’re more concerned with boobs breaking free. 

A cancer diagnosis brings things into focus. You make it a point not to stress the small stuff, and you realize just how many things are “small stuff.” Material things become meaningless. “What do you want for Christmas?”  Um, my husband to not be dying would be great, thanks. You pay attention to what you fight with your spouse about and realize most things are so unimportant you don’t know why you gave them energy before. Does it matter if he leaves a light on when he’ll be dead in six months? Not really, no.

We were lucky. John’s initial six-month prognosis turned into “Well, maybe you have 18 months because this treatment worked.” And then into, “You could have a few years. Right now you’re cancer free.” We had time to ignore the small stuff, focus on the important stuff, treasure each vacation, anniversary and birthday. We’ll have our 17-year anniversary in a couple of weeks and this one will most definitely be our last. We’ve had seven more than we thought we’d get, and we haven’t taken that lightly.

When we got his final six-month prognosis, we knew it was for real. That doesn’t mean I’ve accepted it. I thought I skipped over the denial phase of the grief process and I was so wrong. I think I’m still there, actually. My husband is a Green Beret. He’s done some tough and scary shit. He passed kidney stones without breaking stride. He can’t die. I’ll be sitting alone in our house after they wheel him out, saying, “I never thought he’d die.”

Then there’s the anger. That part of the process I’m way too familiar with. Funny thing about anger, though. It’s almost never about anger. It’s about the emotion bubbling under the surface. For me, I’m comfortable with anger. It’s more familiar to me than any other emotion. It’s my go-to, and I know how to manage it. But in the quiet moments, when I channel my former therapist, and open anger’s trap door, I find pain. And when it is released, it’s a right hook to the jaw. The thought of losing John has awakened pain receptors so deep inside myself I can’t fathom it. I only let the pain out a little at a time, because if the floodgates open, I wouldn’t be able to bear it. The trickles I’ve let out send me into fits of sobs like I’ve never known. Somedays I wonder why I’m so exhausted and I guess it’s walking the tightrope between pain and anger. Whichever way I fall, well, it fucking sucks.

I've had to get used to people asking, "How are youuuuuu?" with that sing-songy voice that drips with pity and a hint of "I'm glad this isn't happening to me." It started with the nurses in post-procedure when they found John's cancer during a colonoscopy.  Their faces changed to a look of pity, and "you poor cancer patient." Well-meaning neighbors sing-song casual greetings, acting like we don't know they know, but their tone gives them away. We don't want to be pitied. Shitty things happen, and this shitty thing is happening to us, but tomorrow it could be them. We don't need to be pitied for something that will inevitably happen to everyone. From what I understand, nobody gets out of this life alive.

I also want to talk about the beautiful things. The other day we had one of the hard talks, where we talked about the nuts and bolts of it all. The mortuary paperwork, the obituary, and all the death stuff nobody wants to address. I looked at John and thought, What a gift this is to be on this journey with him. To walk towards death with someone I love so much that losing him will almost kill me. To share the experience of the process. “Are you having any weird dreams about dead loved ones coming?” “Not yet, but I kinda hope I do. It sounds cool.” To talk so openly about what my life will look like without him, what he hopes and wants for me without him. To say all the things, so nothing is left unsaid. To ask the hard questions. Not everyone gets this gift. Some lose their loves suddenly, with no chance for the last I Love You. Some stay mired in denial about a terminal illness and refuse to talk about the dying elephant in the room. I want to tell them not to deny themselves this gift John and I have been given. Ignoring the dying elephant won’t keep him alive.

John said he only gets to die once, and he’s going to get the most out of the experience. I don’t know if I could have that attitude, but I’m learning about dying gracefully and with purpose.

Let’s talk about the agonizing things. I’ll have to make the phone call to his daughter to tell her that her dad is gone, her children’s grandpa is gone. I can take my own pain. Punch me in the gut, I can take it. I’d rather take it than watch someone I love take it. I do not know how I’ll hand that big ol’ punch bowl of pain over to his daughter. The last time we were together, she said, “I’m losing my dad, but YOU are losing your HUSBAND,” and that’s where she broke down. And that’s when I knew she has found the love of her life, who she’ll marry early next year. She understands what that loss will feel like. I think about my dad, who loves John like a son, and who also can’t bear to see his little girl hurting. I don’t want to hand him the pain, either.

Agony is watching the man you love fade away, because cancer takes people away a piece at a time. For those who live with it for years, as John has, what the cancer doesn't take, the treatments do. Hands and feet that are always ice cold, stinging pain of neuropathy that makes it hard to walk, hard to sleep. And in the final stages, it steals your appetite, your energy, and leaves your give-a-damn completely busted.

Nobody told me how to do this thing, how to face the horribleness of it but still see the beauty, too. I think I'm doing the best I can.