Seven Days...

Last Sunday,November 10th, a little after 2:18 a.m., the Husbandly One breathed his last breath and was gone.  Just like that.

I was trying to give him a dose of medication to clear his airways, and had just asked him to open his mouth a little wider so I could get the oral syringe in.  His eyes flicked toward me, his lips moved and he whispered... something... and then he was gone.  I had stared at him, then stood up and said, "Oh," in shock.

Our friend, K, who was there helping me with the night watch, stood up and leaned over him to look, then looked at me, her eyes wide with shock, and she said, "Oh," the same exact way I had.

The next thing I knew, I was wrapped tightly in her arms, and I was roaring with grief as my knees threatened to buckle, because the worst thing ever had just happened to me, and I was trying not to leave with him.

Most of that night is a blur.  I remember staring at his face earlier in the night, thinking death was coming soon as I noticed how his skin was molding to his skull.  I remember staring at his face after the hospice folks had cleaned him up and dressed him, touching his face and crying at how small he was, how thin, how... cold.  I remember sitting on the couch in the dining room, holding E's dear, dear face in my hands as she told me she loved me.  I said, "I know you do, because you came here without your teeth."

I remember how kind the hospice people were, and the policeman who came in with extremely neatly threaded eyebrows.  I remember my sister holding me so tight and telling me how sorry she was, and my other sister on the phone, telling me how much she loved me.  I remember the guy from the funeral home, who sounded like Barry White.  And I remember looking out the back door at this extremely beautiful sunrise and being startled that so much time had already passed.

And now, it's been seven days.  Seven days since my husband died.  Seven days since I last looked into his face, wishing I could relieve his suffering, and knowing there was nothing I could do except respect his wishes.  He'd been unresponsive since Thursday morning.  His last clearly spoken words to me were, "I can't breathe."

And because he was in hospice care, and had a Do Not Resuscitate order, I called Hospice and not 911.  They helped me calm him down and get him breathing almost normally, but he was practically comatose after that.  If you asked him to blink to answer yes/no questions, he'd do it.  He'd smile, or smirk, or waggle his eyebrows, and he would hold your hand, squeeze it, and tug on it.

We held his hand around the clock.  Seriously.  We took it in shifts, there was always someone there to hold his hand when I needed to sleep, or to eat, go to the bathroom, go outside and cry... someone held his hand continuously.  If you didn't, he'd look for a hand, reaching out and trying to find one.

So we held his hand.

It's been seven days since I held his hand.  Seven days since I ran my fingers through his hair and talked to him.  Seven days since I lost the one person who got me and loved me anyway.  Seven days since I told him I loved him and he squeezed my hand back to say, "I love you, too."

Seven days of pretending to be a functional competent adult.  Seven nights of sleeping alone in my full-sized bed that suddenly seems way too big.  Seven days of pushing down panic and staying calm so my kids stay calm.  Seven days of not going through the stacks of mail and papers on my desk to find out what OTHER bills didn't get paid.

Seven days of missing my best friend, the person I tell everything first, seven days of wanting to tell THO something, or ask him something, or just wanting to see him, just because.

Seven days of missing his Facebook Messenger icon being constantly up on my phone, because we sent jokes, memes, or photos we'd just taken of something interesting to each other.

Seven days.  And I will never, ever be the same again.

Fuck.  Cancer.

It's Worst at Night...

Nighttime is the worst.  There are nights when I just can't sleep. 

I worry.  I worry a lot. 

I worry about my kids.  Granted, my oldest is an adult, and will soon be graduating with her BFA, possibly by next fall, and my youngest will be 18 in a month.  But I still worry. 

I worry about our finances.  I worry that we'll lose our insurance.  I worry that the Husbandly One will get worse, or he'll give up.  There are times, when he's asleep, that I will lay there and cry, dreading the inevitable.  I still have no clue how to deal with that.  He's 54.  I thought we'd be in our 80's or 90's before that became an issue.

But, unless some radical new miracle treatment comes along... I can't even think about it, even though I do.

I wonder, sometimes, if this ridiculous lingering illness I can't seem to shake off is really just extended broken heart syndrome.

During the day, we go along as always, trying to come up with enough energy between the two of us to get basic chores done.  Clean the kitchen, do the laundry, vacuum the house, hack back the bamboo that's trying to take over the back and front yards because the people who owned the house before us were idiots who really though they could keep the bamboo confined to one tiny spot in the yard.  We run errands, feed the cats, putter among the plants, watch the ducks, talk to the kids, you know, all the things you do during the course of the day.  And it's so much easier to push back the fear and anguish, the worry... I can focus on other things and do stuff.

But at night?  So much harder.  The house gets quiet.  I'm tired.  I lay down, turn out the light, wrap my arm around him and think, "He's thinner today." And then it starts.

It's so hard.  I lay there, my eyes burn, my face stretches as I force myself to breathe normally, fighting back tears as I think desperately, Please, please, don't take him away from me.  Don't take my husband, the love of my life, my best friend... don't take him away from me...

Sometimes, he just... knows, and he'll turn over, asking me if I'm okay. 

"I'm fine," I lie.  "Just... hurting a little, that's all."

No need to tell him that it's not my joints hurting.  Then we'd both be awake for the rest of the night.

Sometimes, I'm able to calm myself down and finally relax into sleep.

But some nights... some nights, I can't.  Some nights, I have to get up and go sit in the living room, or out on the back porch if the weather is nice.  Somewhere I can sit and cry my heart out, because... while I know the chemo is working NOW... I know that one day, hopefully years from now, but one day, he'll be done.  He'll have had enough, he'll be tired, and he'll say, "Enough."

Quality of life over quantity.

I can't even think about that right now.  It's really selfish of me, I know.  But I can't even bear to think about it.  The selfish, immature part of me wants to scream out, "DON'T LEAVE ME ALONE!!"

The selfless mature part of me is yelling it, too.

I just... can't even think of sleeping in that bed without him in it.  I can't think of being in that room without him.  In this house.  This life.

On the 16th, we'll have been married for 28 years.  I'm hoping for 28 more, but you know what?  I'll take every damn second I can get.

Tonight is one of those sleepless, full of worry, terror, and grief nights.  My focus for the last two years has been so narrow, just... getting through, day by day. 

Seriously, I am barely coping with any of this.  And I hate that about myself.

Day by day.

Now, if I can just get through tonight...

"To put it simply --- our brain span should match our life span." --- Meryl Comer

Mother's Day has come and gone, and as I prepare for bed after a lovely day out with my husband and children, my mind turns to a subject I've been subconsciously avoiding all day.

My mother.

And all at once, I'm overwhelmed.  I'm washing my face and suddenly, I'm in tears, completely unable to stop, because it's Mother's Day, and for the first time since I entered her life... I haven't called her to talk to her.

There is no phone in her room at the nursing home, because she no longer knows how to dial one.  One of my sisters, or my nieces, has to call me on their mobile and hand the phone to her, and I have to hope she knows who I am.

I miss... I miss my mom.

Yes, she's still alive, but... I miss my Mom.   I miss the woman I used to call for advice, her calm voice calming me, her laughter when I told her the latest funny thing the kids or the cats did, her excitement matching mine when I told her about a new rose in my garden blooming for the first time and promising her pictures.  I miss her humor, her intelligence when she'd challenge me about my opinions, making me back up my statements with facts.  I miss the stories she used to tell me.  I miss... asking her about recipes, and her rattling off the list of ingredients and how to make it, and then the pause before I said, "Okay, Mom, but... how did you make it?"  And then getting the real recipe.

I miss the woman she was before Alzheimer's stole her from me.  And I want her back.  I want her back, dammit.

But I know I won't get her.  I know she's gone, and what's left behind is this... shell that looks like her, and talks like her, and moves like her, and gives me occasional glimpses of the woman she used to be...

I'm terrified that I'll be just like her.  I'm terrified that I'll lose myself, that I'll forget my husband, and my children.  Just two days ago, my daughter stared at me with stricken eyes and said, "Mom.... don't forget me.  Don't ever forget me, please.  Please."

I smiled through my tears and said, "Like I could ever forget you!"  And prayed in my heart to whoever is listening that I can keep that promise.  "When they develop a vaccine for Alzheimer's, I'm first in line, I promise," I said.

Every time I forget something, every time I can't bring a word or a face to mind, every time I struggle for a word, every time I can't remember a name, or something that happened earlier in the day, a jolt goes through me and I want to scream.  It doesn't help that memory issues and fogginess are a hallmark of Hashimoto's.

A few months ago, when we went to the Ikea in Pflugerville, I had a moment.  A horrible, horrible moment.  Mike was driving, and we had just left 183 and turned onto I-35.  I was reading something on my phone, and I looked up when I was done and for a horrible, horrible moment that seemed to last an eternity, I thought, "Where are we?  I don't recognize this place!  Where... what is this?"

It was terrifying.  Nothing looked even remotely familiar, and this was a drive we'd made hundreds of times over the last ten years.

I didn't say anything, I just quietly stared around, trying to force my brain to recognize something, anything....

Then Mike, who was completely unaware of what was going through my mind, said, "Wow, things have changed so much since the last time I drove through here, I almost don't recognize anything!  Oh, look, the bowling alley is still right there."

I turned my head, and the bowling alley we took the Impertinent Daughter to for her fourth birthday, the birthday she found out she was going to have a sibling, was still there, looking just the same as it had nineteen years ago, and the world slipped back into place.

It wasn't me.  It was that it had been nearly two years since the last time we'd drove that way, and the rapid changes in Austin and the surrounding area meant many things had been torn down and new buildings gone up in their place.

But for that moment, that one terrifying moment...

I miss my mother more than I can say.  And at some point tomorrow, I will probably text one of my sisters and ask to arrange a time to talk to Mom over the phone.  And after I talk to Mom, I will go take a shower so I can cry my heart out without my family knowing.  I once said that watching my mom go through this was like standing on a shore while my mother stood in a boat that was slowly drifting away from the shore.  That we were holding hands as it drifted, and ever so slowly, she was slipping from my grasp, and that I knew one day, she would drift completely away.

Right now... the tips of our fingers are barely touching, barely connecting.

I hate that there is nothing I can do to change that.

Happy Mother's Day, Mom.  I miss you, and I will remember you... for as long as I can...