Well here I am. Still here. Still putting one foot in front of the other. One Day at a Time, and all that entails. Next week it will be 8 months since my lovely husband died. And if I look back at my blog posts and at my journal, I can see I am not in the same place I was. I remember people on this site telling me I wouldn't look at things the same in the future, that there was a future, that the spaces between the pain get further apart, that one learns how to manage. And that is true. That searing, heart wrenching, eviscerating deep deep pain is not as intense. There are spaces now. But deep down, deep down there is a heavy aching sadness for the loss of one I loved and still loved as no other. A sadness for me and what I have lost, too. A sadness for the passing of time, the loss of youth, of that easy happiness and contentedness that mark a shared relationship that has been through thick and thin, been tested, tried, was not easy, was nearly thrown away. Yet it was strengthened by the real test of near death when my man decided to land upside down out of the sky and I drove at breakneck speed to A & E where he'd been helicoptered. He should have died then 4 years ago, but was spared. And we had 3 more testing years in which to grow closer.
3 more years only to have everything blown apart, shattered, splintered, smashed and broken by that terrible terrible diagnosis, ' You have metastatic urothelial carcinoma and your treatment can only be palliative.'
I HATE cancer. But I loved and still love that man.
I have been in shock since the diagnosis, since his death, functioning as an automaton, doing what I though I should because I had to. And only at Christmas did it start to register that this is it, girl. He ain't coming back. Welcome to the rest of your life as an amputee. Oh hey, what's that you say,'You don't know who you are anymore?' Well you'd better find out. Yeah...... an unwilling single ageing woman in the land of couples and aliens.
So, on Monday, my man's birthday, I went to the grave with snowdrops and red roses. Always red roses. And it was sort of ok. It was a day. And I am learning to feel ok about my own company, even to prefer the quiet and peace to the frenetic stuff which is real life. Learning to try and live through pain and weirdness. Trying to be more of a warrior, to be kind to myself and not shy away from fear. Oh but it is the hardest thing I have ever done. And now I smile when I think of my man. I even laugh. I talk to him. Yeah - I'm a mad old bat and I don't care.
The worst thing has happened. Maybe there will be more tests and more bad things. That is how life is. But I am still here. I AM HERE. And I will try to make the best of how things are. Say YES to everything, even when it's scary. What have I got to lose? I will try to live for me and for my D, who loved life so much.
Today, the sun shone, the sky was so beautifully blue and the tears started because it was so beautiful. And today, I squared up to something I've been trying to do but couldn't quite. And for some stupid silly reason, it just knocked me out and I wept and wept. Silly. I shut down D's mobile phone, ended the contract, shut it down completely, for good. End of story. That's it. The woman said that some people take years to do this. I know why.
So, here I am, wobbly and jelly-like but trying to be a warrior. And it is hard, but somehow I will keep trying. Because I have a choice. Some of you on this site are facing far greater things than I, far more difficult, more testing. But for those of us who have been to that place beyond everything, perhaps you understand where i am coming from. I have a choice. some of us do not have that choice. I owe it to myself, to my beloved D and to all those who have no choice left to make the best of what I have been given.
Little Jen XXX
