Past

I'm in the past a lot these days. Some people I know through the Internet—I like to think of them as friends; I hope they feel the same way—have ill spouses who are approaching end of life, and reading about their experiences and thoughts takes me back with startling clarity to the last few months of John's.

I'm not going to look back on what I wrote then; I have a feeling that I was overly optimistic and measured in my tone. But I have been honest with these women who are staring down the barrel of the gun, albeit a gun pointed at someone other than themselves. And so I shall be honest here.

I remember the day—the very day!—that I understood that John's death was on the horizon. It turns out the horizon was further away than I thought; he died four months after this day I recall. But it was on that day, the day I knew John was done fighting (and I say that with no judgment about his decision) and the day he had truly accepted what was to come, that my emotions changed, too. It was on that day that I started to fervently wish that he would just die right then.

Yes, I thought that. It sounds awful, but I did. And I then went on to be at times full of rage that it took him four long months to go.

Of course I wanted him to live longer, but not when he was a shell: exhausted, ravaged by disease and medication and side effects, uncomfortable, restless, unhappy, disengaged from life. He was done, and I was done.

There's not a lot of room in the culture I grew up in to accept death, especially a death not your own. I used to get so mad at people who put pressure on John to fight harder, fight longer, not to "give up." And yet, what I said to John back then was, "I love you. I need you. Stay with us." Yes, part of me felt that way. But the bigger part of me said that because I felt I was supposed to.

I wish I had had the courage to say this instead: "I love you. It's OK. I'll be OK. We'll be OK. You can go now." Because by the time I did say that, I'm not sure John could even hear me.

Overshare

I still share too much, sometimes. I started learning about not sharing so much when I first started in Al-Anon, where wise women helped me learn how to say no. "All you have to say is no," they said. "You don't have to explain why, or sound guilty, or talk about how you wish you could say yes, or apologize. Just say 'No, that won't work for me.'" I'm still not very good at saying no, but the idea that I don't owe the whole world an explanation of every decision I make was liberating and instructive.*

When John died, I had much to learn about a specific kind of oversharing. I've written about that here before, about the need to explain where Maddie and Riley's dad is even when no one has asked, about elaborating on my single status when no such elaboration is needed. When I keep things to a Need to Know basis, I'm more comfortable as are most people to whom I'm talking. I don't mean close friends here, but just the people one encounters in everyday life: the checker at the grocery store, the librarian, the customer service agent on the phone.

It's that kind of oversharing about John that I still sometimes can't avoid. I want so much for everyone—even those people with whom I intersect in only the most incidental of ways—to know that I had a partnership once, with a person who was a devoted father, an individual full of ideals and character, good grace and humor, and love, so much love. I don't feel unworthy on my own, or less than, it's not that. It's just that it was such a pleasure for everyone he encountered to know John, and such a pleasure for me to have him in my life. I miss sharing that with everyone I know, and even with the those I don't.

I was on the phone yesterday with a mortgage broker. He was really nice, and we soon discovered that we are both parents of twins. We did the twin-parent bonding thing. Then he asked me bunch of really personal questions because that's what people do when they need to get all up in your credit. I mentioned that I had some money available in the form of a life insurance policy that I could liquidate. He asked me the cash value of my policy. Instead of simply telling him how much was left in the account that I got when John died, I said, "Oh, the policy isn't on me! It's on my husband. It was on my husband. Then he died!"

TOTALLY AWKWARD.

We quickly moved on to a discussion of the other places I stash my vast sums of spare cash, and the moment was gone, but yeesh.

As I reflect on this particular moment of oversharing, however, it's clear to me that this was not one of those times when I wanted, needed to tell a stranger that I had once had a partner. This was a moment of fear and vulnerability. I'm thinking of buying a house. This is scary business! It's a huge decision and a life change, one that I was not sure I ever wanted to make again. And while it feels right to be strongly considering the option and I have all my ducks in a row and I'm perfectly capable of doing this on my own, it's still scary.

On an emotional level, I miss John. On a practical level, I miss shared risk. I am lucky to have many good friends (including one who acts as my stand-in spouse when I need one; I'm looking at you, Erk) and a supportive family who are happy to discuss things with me, help me work through things, make pro and con lists with me, and gently tell me when I might need to consider another point of view. But at the end of the day, they are not there to enjoy the daily ups and downs that are the result of that decision making process. There's a simplicity and ease to always getting my way in life's big decisions, but all the responsibility can also feel like a burden.

This is not to minimize unpartnered life or glorify marriage. It's just to say that my marriage was good to me. My partner was good for me.

*The conundrum of then writing about that on a blog—home of more oversharing than any other form of communication—is not lost on me.

The Exact Instructions I Need

I absolutely love it when someone posts something in their blog that is the exact thing that I need to read that day, even if—especially if—I didn't even know that I needed it. My friend-via-blogging ComebackNikki did just that today on her blog 10Eleven.

I'd never heard of Thomas Bien until five minutes ago, but I sure do like his three instructions for happiness, and I thank ComebackNikki for sharing them:

1. Know that happiness is always available to you.
2. Accept imperfection.
3. Don't try so hard.

These seem like good rules to live by. I'm going to give it a try.

Snapshot

I was gloating a little bit inside when the gate agent invited families with small children or anyone else who needed a little more time to board to go ahead and get on the plane. I was unencumbered, kid-free, able to loiter around the gate area, admire the desert hills through the plate-glass walls, soak up warm, soothing air that blew through the open doors. I saw the gaunt man in the wheelchair get pushed through the doors onto the tarmac, and I felt a pang of sadness, even pity, as I quickly looked away and resumed my daydreams.

I don't think I noticed that gaunt man and the companion who had been pushing his wheelchair—a woman who at a glance appeared to be at least fifteen years his junior—right across the aisle from me as I settled into my seat. I fished my book (that smug, overachieving fourth book in as many days!) out of my bag before shoving it under the seat with my foot. The cloudless sky, the cactus-speckled landscape, the heat through the window, the glow of vacation, the anticipation of heading home, the headiness of sanctioned self-absorption, such are the things that were on my mind.

Sometime during the ascent into that bright blue sky, though, I caught the hint of a gesture out of the corner of my eye. I brought into focus the caress of a hand across a bony back, then the look on her face a mix of compassion, fear, and knowledge of something still present yet already lost. He was dying, I'm sure of it, of cancer or some other ravage, his body mostly gone. He had a different, equally familiar look on his face, the look of one who knew this was his last vacation, of determination to make it appropriately great, to enjoy it despite it all, but an acknowledgment that mind can only triumph over matter for so long. He slouched forward over his tray table, eating one of the very same protein bars John used to eat, without gusto, just the way John ate them. He was probably no older than she after all, just that much nearer to death. Her hand was still on his back.

Did she feel the way I did when I was on that vacation? Did she feel resentful of the caretaking? Guilty about having moments of sheer joyful fun when her spouse couldn't? Tired of pretending that it was all OK? Unbearably sad that her life as she knew it was literally crumbling before her, the progressive decay visible to the naked eye? Did they talk of funeral arrangements over dinner? Did she just want it all to be over, to move on to the inevitable if painful catharsis of Next?

Because I took that vacation, and that's what I felt. Those are the things I did. I took that vacation four years ago, and most of the time, I forget that I even had those feelings, did those things. But it took only that one caress to bring it all right back.

It's not a vacation, that vacation. Under certain circumstances, it's better than no vacation. But when four years later, you take a real vacation you realize just how deeply you can deceive yourself when you have no other choice. It truly did feel like a vacation at the time, but I can see now that it was not. It was the best we could do, and I have no regrets. There's just not much best in death.