Hello everyone,
Three years ago today I sat in the DayWard of Saint Luke's Hospital in Dublin, Paul slipping in and out of consciousness in the bed beside me, and waiting for what blood test results and urine samples would reveal as the cause of Paul's rapid decline. It was a Monday.
Paul had been getting worse over the weekend. We had agreed with the doctors the previous week that, after a long chemo break due to pneumonia and a consolidated lung, we would resume the treatment. I don't know whether the oncologists and nurses who had seemed so optimistic had really believed that this would happen; but they had given me and perhaps Paul a tiny little bit of hope that helped us live through the weekend during which Paul became very ill. That morning, three years ago today, I brought him in, but it was obvious to me that we wouldn't do chemo as Paul had become too weak and too ill. I think the chemo would have killed him right away.
Maybe it was also around this time three years ago that the nurse took my arm gently and lead me into her office off the DayWard saying, "Mel, do you want to ring family or friends? I think now would be a good time."
It was in maybe one hour from now three years ago that the oncologist told me, "Melanie, Paul is seriously ill. And we think he won't survive this."
I can't remember having thought so much of the events from three years ago last year and the year before. And I think I am possibly thinking of them more this year because, for one thing, maybe I have grown stronger and can bear to think about it a little better and the other thing is that I have recently spoken to a very good friend of mine who also lost her husband to cancer and this has opened me up to my thoughts and feelings more.
The final weeks of Paul's life were so difficult for him. But actually not only the final weeks. In fact, I think that from the day he began his chemotherapy treatment there was so much suffering. Now I am not saying that chemotherapy is not a good treatment. Even though it is very poisonous, it is for many a life prolonger and for some even a life savor. But it is defeninitely a treatment that is so hard on every body. Paul suffered a lot: with nausea, with exhaustion, with weakness, with headaches, with lack of taste, with lack of appetite, with insomnia for a while. And in the final week of his life, when I was still thinking that he would have to go back on chemo and that we had "no time to lose", he said, "Mel, I think we all want that I get well only so that I can do more chemo which in fact makes me feel very bad."So he knew, and deep down of course I knew it too, that there was no going back to enjoying life as he/we once had. It was always going to be chemo or recovery from chemo or battling with infections and side-effects and then more chemo.
Today I am thinking how good it was that the three antibiotics that they were giving Paul three years ago didn't work. The kidneys and the liver were failing and, even if they had stopped the kidney infection and possibly had even cleared it, Paul would still have had the slowly progressing liver failure which couldn't have been stopped because the liver had become so canceruous. I think, if Paul had survived for a while longer, they would have had to get him into hospice; and that would have been something that neither Paul nor I would have wanted.
Three years ago today, right this moment, I didn't know that Paul and I would stay the night in hospital, that I would lean over the bed in the evening and say, "Sweetheart, I would so love you to stay with me for ever and ever but if you want to let go now please let go, it's okay to let go now" that we would have one more night and one more day in hospital before Paul would die on Tuesday evening, that I would be with him all along and have my hand on his heart whispering to him how much I loved himduring the final hours and minutes of his life and that I would find some strength to go on in the months and years that followed.
I miss Paul every single day - sometimes more, sometimes less. He will be forever in my heart because he is the love of my life, my soul mate, my husband and my best friend. But, over time, I have learned that missing Paul every day and moving forward in my own life is no longer a contradiction. I have also learned to find beauty in my grief because it is only because I love Paul so much that I can be so heart-broken because he is no longer with me. And I have also learned to be grateful for the time we did have; no, it wasn't enough, it was only nine years, but it was at least nine years! And they were wonderful years!
Here is a little reflection at the end of this long post that is with me every single day:
IN THE RISING of the sun and in its going down, we remember them.
In the blowing of the wind and in the chill of winter, we remember them.
In the opening of buds and in the rebirth of spring, we remember them.
In the blueness of the sky and in the warmth of summer, we remember them.
In the rustling of the leaves and in the beauty of autumn, we remember them.
In the beginning of the year and when it ends, we remember them.
When we are weary and in need of strength, we remember them.
When we are lost and sick at heart, we remember them.
When we have joys we yearn to share, we remember them.
So long as they live, we, too, shall live, for they are now a part of us, as we remember them.
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