I wish I had written this a month ago, but I love symmetry too much. So I waited until it was 9 months, to fit with my other threads. I was doing better then. I went days without crying, and I had times that were good. I was going to write this and be proud of myself Now I am back to crying and feeling like shit for at least part of every evening. Most days I keep it at bay until I turn out the lights, then I start crying. Tonight I started early, so I thought I would write this and be completely miserable.
Rick was diagnosed on New Year’s Day, so all of 2009 has been pretty damn horrible. Even though it is 9 months since he died, it feels like it will be a year anniversary on January 1st. It has been a year since this nightmare started. I didn’t expect this Christmas to hit me so hard, but of course it has. It was our last happy time. By New Year’s Eve, he was feeling puny, although we didn’t know why. I look back on Christmas last year and think about how naive and innocent we were. This huge tumor was growing in him, but we didn’t know. We didn’t know. I recently met with Rick’s oncologist, and he told me he had never seen a case of kidney cancer where the cancer was as aggressive as his was. The damn thing was determined to kill him. The oncologist also said that he thinks Rick was biologically fated to die young–that it was a time bomb. Somehow that is comforting, when I can think that he was lucky to have lived as long as he did, and to die without much pain, and to have had as much time with me as he did.
I asked him once if he thought of us as a family and he looked at me like I was nuts. Oh course we are, he said. Now my family is gone. Just like that. He was my family, my whole family.
I miss him so much. He was so good to me, and so funny, and so kind. We were ridiculously in love with each other. I had no idea how wonderful it would be to be loved like that. I didn’t know it was possible to be so happy with someone until it happened to me. Now the same thing is true about grief–I didn’t know what it was like until it happened to me. Now it feels like I can’t escape it.
This is the kind of husband I had: When he was asked by his boss what he was proudest of, he said it was his marriage. He thought I was the most wonderful person on earth. Rick loved football, but he would forgo it to be with me. He told me the best part of his day was cuddling up to me at night. We kissed all the time, and said how lucky we were to be so happy together. We never doubted how much love we shared.
I know this should comfort me, and in good moments, it does. But the flip side is that I can’t help but see all the selfish husbands I know and wonder why they get to live and Rick died. I know the world doesn’t work that way, but damn it, it should.