I often wake thinking of the past 9 months. I reflect back to the beginning of the year, the phone call from her sister, the subsequent upset of the kids, days waiting for just a lucid response, her return home, chemo, radiation, moving to assisted living, and her gradual decline in the health clinic. I recall her resistance to talking about some concepts and concerns while focusing on other options as possible solutions. I think of her fixation on Hagen Das Swiss Vanilla Almond ice cream. But mostly, I think back on the several times she looked at me in earnest, with angst in her eyes, and whispered, "I am scared."
I remain shocked by how suddenly this all came about. How unexpected something like this was and is. And how, before all of this, her life was spent focused on what she did not have instead of what she did. It's haunting me, constantly, how one's life can be overturned so easily, so quickly, while also subject to being lost not to disease, but by lamenting the life you don't have, as your days pass by without being truly lived at all.
I try not to default to accepting blame or feeling responsible for what failed to work in our marriage. I've written amply and exhaustively about this already. Unmet needs and unrealistic expectations resulted in dissatisfaction and discord. The decisions I made were ones I felt best for each of us, the kids included.
Hindsight is 20/20. I have likely spent more accumulated time examining our past at this point than I did wrestling with the realities for 15 years. Yet I can not help but wonder how I would have handled things had I known then how this would end. That she would suffer from a terminal brain tumor at 60.
Of course, I would have tried harder. I would not have compromised on what I felt was the right decision and still do, though. I would have pursued separation and divorce as I did. Yet, although I feel confident that I tried my best at the time to reach a common ground of mutual understanding and respect, I gave up on doing so, perhaps too quickly.
I try not to default to accepting blame or feeling responsible for what failed to work in our marriage. I've written amply and exhaustively about this already. Unmet needs and unrealistic expectations resulted in dissatisfaction and discord. The decisions I made were ones I felt best for each of us, the kids included.
Hindsight is 20/20. I have likely spent more accumulated time examining our past at this point than I did wrestling with the realities for 15 years. Yet I can not help but wonder how I would have handled things had I known then how this would end. That she would suffer from a terminal brain tumor at 60.
Of course, I would have tried harder. I would not have compromised on what I felt was the right decision and still do, though. I would have pursued separation and divorce as I did. Yet, although I feel confident that I tried my best at the time to reach a common ground of mutual understanding and respect, I gave up on doing so, perhaps too quickly.
Early on, I had proposed that we meet weekly for coffee or lunch and work through the trust and presumption issues. That was met with skepticism in a way that indicated it would just not work. So I stopped trying. Perhaps, had I tried a little harder and endured more frustration, and tolerated the passive-aggressive comments I anticipated being subject to, maybe we would have come to the point of peace and lessened the conflict.
I want to believe that would have been possible. I realize I am trying to second guess the past, though, and I am frequently reminded by the kids or by revisiting historical communications that it would have been a struggle. One I did not feel as motivated to endure as I do now.
I am frequented by this vision, not in a manner of grief or regret, but simple sadness that a little more collaboration and a lot less resentment would have gone a long way towards achieving something healthy. Something that would have made all of our lives better while we had the time to live them more fully.
I want to believe that would have been possible. I realize I am trying to second guess the past, though, and I am frequently reminded by the kids or by revisiting historical communications that it would have been a struggle. One I did not feel as motivated to endure as I do now.
I am frequented by this vision, not in a manner of grief or regret, but simple sadness that a little more collaboration and a lot less resentment would have gone a long way towards achieving something healthy. Something that would have made all of our lives better while we had the time to live them more fully.
"Sometimes, in the night, I feel it
Near as my next breath and yet, untouchable
Silently the past comes stealing
Like the taste of some forbidden sweet
Along the walls; in shadowed rafters
Moving like a thought through haunted atmospheres
Muted cries and echoed laughter
Banished dreams that never sank in sleep
Lost in love and found in reason
Questions that the mind can find no answers for
Ghostly eyes conspire treason
As they gather just outside the door
Every ghost that calls upon us
Brings another measure in the mystery
Death is there to keep us honest
And constantly remind us we are free
Down the ancient corridors
And through the gates of time
Run the ghosts of days that we left behind."
"Ghosts" - Dan Fogelberg