Lost Husband to Lung Cancer - October 17

First off, I don't like to write. I'd rather talk. Talking is how I process things. But talking generally requires a listener, and I'm running out of those. When it comes to loss, I think friends should have a label that says "use sparingly." I understand, they run out of patience before I lose my need for them to listen, mostly silently, while I talk.

I know this because I've been here before, sort of. My husband and I lost our only son, 7 days old, 27 years ago. I was a young 27 year old (remember when 27 felt old?) and believed born babies didn't die. Of course I knew about miscarriages, but thought once you made it out of that danger zone, the baby lived no matter what. Couldn't doctors fix anything nowadays??? When I first learned there was a problem, I thought okay, my poor baby will have struggles in his life. Never, never, never occurred to me that he could die. I learned, and I learned the hard lessons of grief, like how most friends and family drop off after a week, then the diehards after 2-3 weeks. At that point it seems they think you should be over it. At least that's what I experienced with my baby. For some reason it seems they thought, because he was only 7 days old, I hadn't had time to form an attachment to him. Honestly, I know I would have been just like them if I hadn't experienced such a loss myself. I learned. It took months of crying every day, followed by years of meltdowns whenever another friend got pregnant, had a baby, celebrated a child's milestone, etc. Twentyseven years and I'll still grieve for him, though in an entirely different way. 

So I'm no stranger to the grieving process, and I expected people would lose their desire to listen long before I lost my need to talk. I just didnt expect it to happen as quickly. Don't I get more than a week to talk about this? I mean, I was so numb the first week it shouldn't even count, right? I still want to talk. I want to talk about my husband of 33 years, how strong he had always been, how I felt unbelievable guilt for leaving him five years ago, how I never stopped loving him, and he never stopped hoping I'd come back. I want to talk about how that guilt has grown into an all consuming feeling - guilt about leaving him back then, and major guilt about leaving him alone to evacuate for Irma, even though I knew he was sick. He had just started to feel something serious was happening - we both thought it was COPD. I tried to help him from my safe place 1200 miles away. I sent him updates about when the power was expected to be restored (he was without power for 10 days), where to find gas for the generator when the gas stations started to reopen, and not to drink the water yet because of boil water notices. It was the first time I ever evacuated for a hurricane. I told him I was nervous about leaving him alone, but he told me to go. I know it's because my anxiety over the storm would have driven him crazy. I wish I would have listened to my gut and stayed! If I had only known then what he found out the day before I returned - it wasn't COPD, it was lung cancer, already spread to the brain and possibly other places. As he put it when he called me, "it's bad, real bad." Oh my god! I left my husband who had stage four lung cancer alone during what was expected to be the worst storm to hit Florida in our lifetime! To deal with 10 days of no power, no AC, no gas for the generator, food spoiling, and his brain being eaten up so he was losing his sense of time, his sense of reality. ("You told me yesterday that your friend said my power would be back on today and it's not! They lied! Everybody is lying to me!" No, I never said that. I'll never forget how strange that conversation was, almost a week before he found out it was cancer. I tried to tell myself his confusion was from lack of sleep, but I guess deep down I knew this wasn't COPD, especially when he started sleeping constantly. My brain just wouldn't let me think it yet. Because what kind of wife leaves her terminally ill husband alone during a hurricane??? Oh my God! I will never get over that guilt!)

I want to tell someone every detail about the next three weeks of hell, from scheduling the first oncologist appointment ("We can see your husband November 1st." In six weeks??? Are you kidding me??! No, he could be dead by then! We need to see the doctor today! Tomorrow at the latest!), starting radiation the next day, going in for the lung biopsy consult, deciding not to have the lung biopsy, hearing the oncologist had called and talked him into having the lung biopsy, getting the $&3%#?! lung biopsy, and being admitted to the hospital due to serious complications. I want to tell someone how my husband who has a phobia of hospitals went in for a lung biopsy and (almost) never came home. About how every day in that hospital was a torturous hell for him, and would have been even without the brain tumors that made him think I was gone for hours when it was minutes, and days when it was hours. How on the evening of the eighth day I found him in his hospital room, awake, with every light and TV off, as he told me quietly he knew he was never leaving the hospital, that he was going to die there. He had given up.

And something happened when he gave up, I grew stronger. The same way I did when I had to let our baby die. Something inside that says I can grieve later, and for the rest of my life, but right now I will be strong for you. I am here for you and only you. The amazing clarity that feeling gives. I have only one priority for now and that's you. 

Thank God for hospice! They made it possible for me to tell the doctor the next morning (when he told us for the ninth time you wouldn't be going home that day, or for a long time) that you were leaving as soon as hospice and I could get you home. And when you got home you relaxed. I relaxed. Yes, you still had paranoid moments, and fixated moments, like when you insisted I log in to your Dominoes account so that you could get the points for the Pizza order (seriously?!) but they were our moments, to be shared alone together, without nurses or doctors. 

I want to tell someone how you lived for four days at home, where you wanted to be, then slipped away so peacefully and quietly on the fifth morning, exactly four weeks after being diagnosed. I'm grateful for every moment we had together, and I'll miss you terribly, probably every day for the rest of my life. Oh I know, this grief will change, become more bearable. I'll cry less, smile more, and enjoy life again someday. I know this because I've been down this road before. We've been down this road before. Grief is a process, not linear, but eventually you move forward. I know this. But for now, I hide away in my room, and I cry, and I ache, because I want to talk, I want to tell someone, not just about your death, but your life, our life. I love you. ❤️

And I just needed to tell someone, so thank you for listening.