Blessed Is A Woman Who Has A GOOD Man

 

 

 

“Although you probably avoid emotional hotspots, recalling and experiencing them can provide fuel for creative expression.  Coming face-to-face with the most real and raw issues and feelings and then channeling that energy through a creative medium may produce not only intense work but also emotional catharsis.  Instead of reburying a recurring memory, put on your spelunking garb and start exploring.  Hard hat suggested.” – Lynn Gordon

All of us have some dark days, months, years.  I did.  I will only say that I was put in hiding with my kids for 6 months.  I left an abusive relationship and got into another one, as many of us do, before I learned.

That was decades ago and I stayed single for a long time before I ever healed myself enough to be found by my soulmate.  We had 12 awesome years before he died in one month from liver cancer.  He was a GOOD man…the best for me and I for him.  We had such fun and great love for each other.  He was kind and funny and adored me as I adored him.  I will often do paintings about Grief, even yet.

That was a whole different kind of dark, believe me.  He was a great gift to me and he treated me like his queen.

“Men will treat you the way you let them. There is no such thing as "deserving" respect; you get what you demand from people... if you demand respect, he will either respect you or he won't associate with you. It really is that simple.” ― Tucker Max, I Hope They Serve Beer in Hell

It was on July 25, my birthday, that the oncologist, from the VA, gave us THE NEWS.

“Does he have a year?” I asked, silently begging for at least a year.  “She hsook her head.

“Does he have six months?” My heart was beginning to break.  She shook her head.

“Does he have weeks?”  I askl incredulously.  She shook her head.

I stopped, completely roken.

“He has a few days,| she saoid.

We stumbled out, nothing more could be said.  She gave us a few deytsilsd aotu home care, we left, stunned.

But, before the door closed, he stepped in and asked her another question, “What is dying going to be like?”

She said, “The ammonia from the liver will go to your brain and you will not even know about anything.”

We set up a home care situation in the Livingroom.  His daughter went back to Florida to work.  I tried to stay upbeat.  He was still lucid for a few days.

One night he came banging up the hall from his bedroom.  I rushed to see what was wrong.  “I can’t find the damned bathroom.”

From that night on, there was no real sleep. The VA  home care brought a bed, a lift chair, and everything we might need.  I made the Livingroom look pretty.  I kept trying to make his favorite foods.  He ate less and less as the days went on.

We sat and talked.  He had nothing more to say, finally, and then there was no lucidity.  I watched him die a little every day.  Soon, I knew it was close.  I had been up and eaten little and totally focused on him for 5 weeks.  I called his daughter and said it was time she came.  She could not believe it and begrudgingly flew up.  That started three days of a new kind of hell.

Grief does strange things to people.  She took her dad to the bank.  Papers were changed.  I was beyond exhausted.  He knew us but did not talk to us any more.    He begrudgingly went to the hospital bed set up against the wall. He did not get up any more.  We had three days.

“Do you want something to eat?’  He shook his head.  He had stopped eating and drinking.  It was time to start the medicine…THE MEDICINE.  The medicine was to help him go.  I could not administer it.  I asked his daughter to do it.  We set up our beds on the floor and the couch next to him.  Whenever he stirred, she had to give him another dropper of THE MEDICINE.  We did not talk, she and I, and her cousin who came to stay with her/us for those nights and days. 

Family started coming to sit with us.  His youngest brother was absolutely a rock. His older brother would sit for a bit but could not take it.  His other brother came and he would leave, broken hearted and come back in an hour or so.  “He’s not close” he would say. Two days left.

The head coordinator of palliative care came and we had to fill out papers.  I could not.  I was beyond that.  I let her take over.  He was her last parent.  She had nothing left for immediate family.  Her extended family came and comfort was given.  I was even more aware of how lonely I was, a fringe person, someone sitting alone beside him as they comforted and chatted with her in the other room.  I could no longer acknowledge anyone as I moved into a further and further space of being alone without comfort.  We both broke a little more each hour.

The night before, he suddenly sat up,   He spoke his last, “What are all those people ding here?”  I told him they had come to go with him.  I do not know how many times I told him I loved him.  I sat by his side and whispered what I knew would be my last words to him.  I thanked him for being a good man.  I reminded him of how we met, how we laughed, the things we did, how very much I was going to miss him.  (I had no idea). I sat beside him as much as I could.  My focus was only on him. 

I had no family there.  I had no one to comfort or care for me.  More of his family came, bringing food, and staying just a short time.  Seven hours left.

His middle brother came, a favorite of mine, and was standing next to him, when, suddenly, Richard put his hand out and started poking at his jeans pocket.  We all laughed as his brother joked about him not getting any last change from him.  It was bittersweet.  His older brother returned again and left.  He now knew it was close.  Four hours left.

I phone my family.  I need family comfort.  I phoned my brother who was very close to Richard.  He was heartbroken.  He could not talk.  I phoned my younger brother.  I drew comfort from them over the phone.  My daughter called, and I could feel her heartbreak for me.  I had no one to hold me, to comfort me.  I was breaking.  I could not visit with anyone.  I was a huge maw of hurt.

Suddenly, Richard sat up again.  He began waving with absolute joy at something/someone he could see that we could not.  He recognized someone.  He fell back on the bed.  I knew we were close.  I knew that when he recognized someone, that it was even closer.  Two hours left.

His dying was not painful at all.  He never complained.  He had shown the greatest dignity that he had ever shown.  He had totally accepted his fate.  While he dwelt in Grace, I was breaking a little more every hour.  The grief was hinge and dark and I no longer greeted or meeted anyone that came in.  There were long blocks of silence as we watched him breath his last breaths.  There was a sense of apprehension, of huge loss, of needing to ESP every beautiful thing I could think of to him, as I sat and held his hand as he was leaving.  At 7:10 pm, it came.  He quietly slipped away from us to wherever he was going.  The silence was deafening.

Of course, there was that reaction by all of us as we realized he would no longer draw n a breath.  My sorrow for her was there, but I could no longer care for anyone.  I could no longer fight my own fight with his death.  I completely broke.

I went out under the harvest moon, large and beautiful and soft light shone down on me as I refused to stay while the coroner took him away.  I could not go back in the house.  I had asked for his turquoise ring.  I focused on that someone brought it to me.  He had asked me to give it to my brother who admired it, the one who loved Richard as much as any brother could.  My brother who was such a huge part of our lives, who we spendt every day having adventures with in Yuma, who loved Richard.. yes, loved him like a real brother.  I stood outside in the moonlight and begged her to comfort me, to wrap her light around me.  And then I was no longer me. I wanted my lfie backl.  Everything was gone.

The next day, my daughter flew down and got me.  My treasured things were put in bins to be shipped home.  I gave everything else away.  The house was stripped, empty.  I was led like a child around as I could not make any decisions.  I had entered a terrible space.  I could not make decisions at all.  In a flurry, I had emptied the house of anything of me.  It was hollow as we closed the door the last time.  His older brother thanked me for loving his brother and that they loved me.  We got on a plane and I was taken home to Alberta.  I would never go back to Maine again.  It was a yesterday.  We were a yesterday.  I was a yesterday.

Grief filled every waking moment.  But, with the help of my daughter, I had a place to live, a vehicle, everything I would need to set up a home.  A home.  I was home but would never feel at home again, even now.

I just had ten days thinking I could gain some comfort during this monmth for a time.  It did not happen.  I have filled these days of my leftover grief with everything I could to ward off the tsunami of grief.  I sought comfort.  It was not there.  I am awake, tonight, allowing memories to fill me. 

I had a good good man.  I was a blessed woman.  I had finally know true love.  It was taken from me.  I am not ever going to be who I was.  I have gained back a lot of who I was, but there is the overriding grief that comes crashing in, and, at this time of year, it is huge.  I honor that good man.  We were blessed to have found each other.  We were blessed that , for twelve years, we were happy and had so many sonderful adventures.  The adventures are no longer.  I slip into my aging, knowing that I am still a blessed woman.  I have much to be grateful for.  But, someone who is grieving is never fully themselves ever again.  I can not regret that I am unable to give totally, fully,. Of myself to anyone.  There is something missing. 

Us.  He was a good good man.   

Tonight, I honor him and my grief is huge again.  It is not as painful, nor as sharp, but it is there.  I care for myself.  I do whatever I can to comfort myself through this next ten days.  Everything I do will be infused with that grief that has become an old friend after these seven years of getting used to who I am now.  I know what a good man is.  I am with our best friend.  He is a good man, too.  I am a blessed woman.  He receives what I can not give to the greatest love of my life, what I have left to give.  I make him happy. 

©Carol Desjarlais 8/17/22

The tag was done with a challenge to use staples, masculine in theme, a tag substrate, a playing card, and pastel colors.  It completes #76/100 collage.