Lost in Memory

This is the first year that I couldn’t remember the date when my husband died. I, who remembered everything, woke up in late September and had no reference point. No way to remember. Being stubborn and knowing there was a message here, I decided to live with this unknowing until I knew again.

This is the first year I can’t remember what came first. The day we knew the cancer was progressing even though the doctors wouldn’t say it. Or was it the day he almost bled out, followed by his rallying once again. Then that final summer when he pushed himself beyond what his body wanted, so his children could come for their final visits. He wanted to give them a good memory of their visit; when inside, he was ready for it all to be over.

When was the day when the pain forced him from the comfort of sleeping in our king-sized bed? Or the day he moved from using the recliner to sleeping into the rolling chair as his shoulder screamed pain at him, robbing him of sleep. When did I stop sleeping the nights so I could hear him and stop a fall from being serious?

This is the first year I couldn’t figure out the day he said no more. I couldn’t remember when any of those days happened.

This is the first year that I can’t remember. I look for the memory of when that day was, and I can’t find it inside me. It feels like an echo of immediately after he died. Then, I didn’t know how to go on without him there.

A week before the anniversary, I just knew again. He died on October 25^th. I woke up knowing he died on a Wednesday morning, long after 7am but not yet eight o’clock. There had been a change the day before. His attention had left me. I only had the comfort of being in the same room, still hearing his breath. We said the “I love you” goodbyes the day before. I had to let him go on this last journey alone. He needed to be free to leave, no longer tethered here by his love of me.

I let him go. He had gifted me with his presence during this long four-year cancer journey that had become part of our life. I had to let him go on alone.

Gene died. I saw his eyes empty of all that made him. I didn’t know where his spirit went. The pain owned me. I felt cracked open. My heart in statis, unable to move and feel beyond the furious emptiness of his loss.

Even in memory, it felt like forever. But it was only forty days after he died that I saw a way out. A way to fill the darkness of my unrelenting pain with light. A light that would show me a way to be thankful for the love we had. Thankful for the love that is still with me.