Posts
December
31, 2019
It is New
Year’s Eve – preparing to launch in the year 2020. It is so hard for me to imagine that I have
lost two husbands in these first two decades of the 21st
century.
Twenty
years ago was when all the Y2K hoopla was going on. What were computers going to do when it
rolled from 1999 to 2000? Huge amounts
of money spent on research to protect the world from going into some cosmic
meltdown in regards to technology and the internet.
Twenty
years ago Mike and friends made the plans for the church to have a Y2K
party. Music, games, songs and laughter
ruled the night. We didn’t know it would
be the last New Years Party, let alone just a party, that Mike would be at. We still had a lifetime ahead of us. We had plans.
This year I
enter the new decade alone. Unlike Y2K
when we thought we had years ahead of us as a couple and a family, this one I
enter with a sense of loss. Loss of my
partner and husband, loss of the feeling of home, loss of the retired future we
had looked forward to.
Yet I must
move forward. Every movement I make is
bittersweet, whether it be doing some traveling, working around the house, cleaning
out the plethora of tools and nuts and bolts of the garage, preparing to get
the house ready to sell. While some of
these were thoughts that I had to keep me going during George’s illness, the
actuality of doing them brings me sadness.
After fifteen years of caregiving, the only person I have to take care
of is me… yet even that is difficult to do right now.
The first
year of the new millennium decade (2000) and the last year of this decade(2019)
have not been kind ones. They’ve been
times of loss, struggle, depression. I’ve
had to let go of what was and start over again. For the first four years of
George’s cancer diagnosis there have been periods of darkness and hopelessness,
but overall they weren’t too bad (well, factor out 2016 when he needed two
separate surgeries). This last year,
however, was not a great one for the entire time. For the first nine months George struggled
with so many health issues that took their toll on his weakened condition. And, for me, the last few months I’ve
struggled with loneliness like never before.
While I am
now free to roam about the world in a way I could not before, the price of that
freedom is not something I would wish on anyone. I’ve been telling myself for years that I
needed to be patient, that the day would come when I wouldn’t be needed to care
for someone. That time is here and there
is a part of me that is sad about that.
As horrible
as 2019 was, I would do it over again in a heartbeat if it meant that I could
hold George’s hand a little bit longer or snuggle up to him and fall asleep in
the crook of his arm just one more time.
The C word
story has come to a close – but the feelings and emotions will linger long into
the future. The C word has changed my
life forever. It has changed the lives
of all those who have been connected to us over the years.
George, if
you’re out there, know that you will never be forgotten. You will be remembered for your strength of
character, for smiling on the outside even when you were hurting on the
inside. You’re a witness to the power of
faith and the power of prayer, something you talked about on Father’s Day in
2015. When people talk to me about you,
they talk about how your eyes sparkled during conversations, about how ‘good’
you looked all the way to the end. They
attest to the strength you showed in battling this disease and your positive
attitude. They will not forget you.
I love you
and miss you every single day. Your
whole family does as well. We will keep
putting one step in front of the other because that is what you would want us
to do. We will keep sharing our stories
of you to keep your memory alive. As a
family, we will be there for one another, to help each other cope.
Thank you
for loving me for the past twenty years.
I love you, always and forever.
…. Your Angelface
