What if today
Was the last time
I saw your face
What if this
Was the end
What if today
Was the last time
I kissed your lips
What if this
Was the end
What if today
Was the last time
I held you tight
What if this
Was the end
What if today
Was the day
Your broke your promise
What if today
Was the end of 'forever
“You must live in the present, launch yourself on every wave, find your eternity in each moment. Fools stand on their island of opportunities and look toward another land. There is no other land; there is no other life but this.”
The last card I gave you...just after the cancer came back...
The card said...
Quietly you came into my life
Openly you shared yourself with me
Gently you drew me closer, always closer
Tenderly you touched a place deep in my heart
Gratefully I celebrate the beauty of each moment with you
Thank you for the miracle of you...
You are and always will be the
Love of my life.
What I said...
No matter how all this goes down, I'll be beside you for every step you take. I will love and support you, in all things. Most of all, I want you to know that you have made life an adventure every day, every minute and I would not change a second of it!
Thank you for taking me along on your journey. I am so much the better for it. Actually, LOVE isn't nearly a big enough word...
Forever yours.
S.
Toi et moi, ça ne changera pas.
I have been thinking quite a bit lately about my newly bestowed title of "widow" and the more I have thought about it, the less I have liked the term. I also thought quite a bit about why Dave and I got married in the first place. It had more to do with commerce, taxation, property and other legal ramifications than it had to do with committing ourselves to each other. We did that long before we ever signed our names on a government document. We didn't need that piece of paper to tell us that we were bound together forever. That sounds a little hippyish but it is completely accurate and true. After we had been together for a while, it became annoying to have to pay separate taxes, insurance, etc.. It also occured to both of us that if anything (like illness or death) happened to either of us, the other one would have no legal right to have a say in things like treatment, funeral arrangements, etc. He told me he wanted a Viking funeral, should anything happen to him and we both knew his family would never understand that one. And so we got married.
Now that Dave is no longer physically here, the law has deemed me a widow and again I am being forced into something that I really don't believe in and certainly didn't ask to have thrust upon me. I was not Dave's chattel, I was his partner and his equal, something he reinforced to me often. I resent having society look at me like I am some sort of pariah just because the legal bindings between my husband and myself have been severed by his death. Yes, our legal contract has been terminated, but that is all that happened. We are no longer partners on paper. End of that story.
My relationship with Dave is not over, it has just changed. Granted it has changed in the most dramatic way possible but it still exists. I spent the last 16 years of my life living, breathing, loving a man who has died. His physical body is gone but he is still at the center of my every day. His influence affects most everything that I do. I still love him with all my heart. I know that he changed the world for the better just by being in it for the 50 years he was here. The fact that I am not physically able to touch him doesn't seem to be such a huge deal in the grand scheme of things (and the truth of that is a toss up because he was cremated and his ashes are sitting here with me even as I am typing this). No we can't hold each other or make love any longer but that happens to couples lots of times when both parties are still alive and kicking, so that doesn't mean a whole lot, either.
Of course, I am lonely and quite sad much of the time and I do cry over silly, sentimental things but that is mostly because I have a tender heart. I did love the physical man very, very much. He attracted me in ways that volumes of romantic literature have been written about. Just watching him walk - long legged, fluid and graceful as a cat- was so sensual it makes my heart beat faster just picturing it as I type this. Beautiful blue eyes that could pierce your soul and make you want to swoon from the intensity of them. Tender, gentle, ardent, sincere and generous as a lover. Oh, yes, I miss the physical man.
But the things that attracted me the most had nothing to do with his corporeal being. His mind, his spirit, his great heart, his honesty, his intelligence, his confidence, his devotion and spirituality, his courage and aplomb. So many things about this man that had nothing to do with his substance and everything to do with his transcendence. He was so much more than just a man. I knew it from the moment we met because our souls recognized each other immediately. It just took my sentient self a while to pay attention.
And so to trivialize the relationship I had with this incredible human being by marking me with a label as demeaning as widow infuriates me. I was worthy of the love of this man which makes me pretty damned special, too. I am not somebody to be cast aside in pity because I no longer have a man at my side. He was a seraphic being that graced this earth with his presence and he chose me to be his partner. He chose me to stand beside of him in everything he did from the day we first met forward. He loves me as fiercely, passionately and as grandly as I love him. Love never dies and I refuse to be cast into the shadows with the lonely and unloved because I was worthy of this man and he of me. And that is all that matters and all that ever mattered.
I remember something from the book "Flowers for Algernon" (and the movie "Charlie").The title character was transformed from a regular person into an astounding genius and he was asked to punctuate what looked like a bunch of jibberish on a blackboard. With a four punctuation marks he turned it into a profound and deep statement. The puzzle: That that is is that that is not is not The solution: "That that is, is. That that is not, is not." That has stuck with me for many years and it is something that speaks to me now. In my personal reality, "What exists, exists. What does not, does not."
And so I refuse the title "widow". I am still the Wife of David, Soul Mate Extraordinaire and Bestest-Bestest Friend. That has not changed in my world. I do not need a title to describe myself. I exist, I am alive and I will live my life on my own terms.
( The title translates: "You and me, it does not change.")
I miss this handsome face...
 |
| Our last Christmas, 2009 |
 |
| With Naomi, summer 2009 |
 |
| Jamming at Mike's house |
 |
| July 2009...the meds were turning his beard white.... |
 |
| A moment of peace, August 2009 |
 |
| Love my Tractorman, 2007 |
 |
| Praying for rain, drought of 2007 |
More questions than answers
It's 1 a.m. and here I sit again, wondering if I could fall asleep if I went to bed. And would it be the fitful, dreamless sleep I have had since Dave died? Will I ever dream of him again? I think I may have dreamed of him the other night but as much as I have struggled to remember the dream, nothing comes but the nagging feeling that I did dream of him but can't recall it. Is this my mind's way of trying to keep me from remembering because it is so painful to remember? Or are dreams the conduit between this world and the next. He has come to others in their dreams. Some of those dreams have been glorious and all were filled with meaning. Why does he not come to me? Am I so lost in my grief that he can't find his way through it and into my dreams? Or is he waiting there patiently before he shows himself because he knows that it will cause me more pain to see him right now? I read somewhere that grief can be so deep that one stops dreaming completely. If that is true, I am trying very, very hard to put aside some of this overwhelming feeling of despair in the hopes that I will be able to dream of my golden one again.
After You
It took me 42 years to find you and now you're gone.
Who's gonna love me now?
Who's gonna call me Baby and want to hold my hand?
Who's gonna turn to me in the dark and whisper "I love you"?
Will there ever be another person who will never lie to me?
Who's gonna keep me safe?
Who'll look into my eyes and see what's is in my heart?
After you, who?
Original poem, copyright 2010, Suzanne Ballard
Widow
Origin: bef. 900; (n.) ME wid(e)we, OE widuwe, wydewe; c. G Witwe, other widuwo, L vidua (fem. of viduus bereaved), Skt vidhavā widow; (v.) ME, deriv. of the n.;def. A women whose husband has died and who has not yet remarried.
What a narrow definition for something so consuming. It is interesting to me to note that this definition says who has "not yet" remarried. Somehow thinking about having another person in my life is the farthest thing from my mind and it seems strange to me that it should be part of the definition of what I have now become. I do not like my new status as a widow. It is lonely and everything seems to be going by me in slow motion. Little things make me well up like a fountain and they are usually the silliest things imaginable. Like walking through the aisle at the market and seeing Dave's favorite cereal on the shelf or finding a pair of his dirty socks in the laundry hamper. Part of me wishes that he wasn't every place I look but mostly I am terrified that I will stop seeing him everywhere.
I thought that the nights would be the hardest but strangely that has not been the case. At night, in our bed, I am comforted with thoughts of all the nights he lay beside me there and sleep comes easily to me. He became so fragile near the end that it was impossible to give him more than a cursory hug or to just stroke his arm and I think I miss not having one of his hugs most of all. He used to enfold me in those impossibly long arms of his and he could encircle me almost completely. I never felt safer or more secure than when he did that. I take my comfort in knowing that in the years Dave and I were together we shared enough hugs, pats, squeezes, touches and more than most people have in their entire lifetime. Once Dave said that we had shared enough love that if we stopped right at that moment and never touched again, what we had already had would last the rest of our lifetime and into the next. How could he have known those words would be true?
Writing on this blog about my life with Dave is how I am getting by right now and I thank those of you who follow it for indulging me. I have another blog that it is about my life on an organic farm and this is a part of life that has to be dealt with. Dave and I believed strongly in the natural order of things, in the circle of life. How can I profess to believe that if I do not accept that death is a necessary part of that circle. Nobody lives forever, as much as you might want them to. Dave just completed his circle ahead of me and I know that he is waiting for me on the other side.
I am feeling this song tonight...
Bonnie Tyler's "Total Eclipse of the Heart"
And I need you now tonight
And I need you more than ever
And if you'd only hold me tight
We'll be holding on forever
And we'll only be making it right
Cause we'll never be wrong together
We can take it to the end of the line
Your love is like a shadow on me all of the time
I don't know what to do and I'm always in the dark
I'm living in a powder keg and giving off sparks
I really need you tonight
Forever's gonna start tonight
Forever's gonna start tonight
Once upon a time I was falling in love
Now I'm only falling apart
There's nothing I can do
A total eclipse of the heart
Once upon a time there was light in my life
But now there's only love in the dark
Nothing I can say A total eclipse of the heart....
And I need you more than ever
And if you'd only hold me tight
We'll be holding on forever
And we'll only be making it right
Cause we'll never be wrong together
We can take it to the end of the line
Your love is like a shadow on me all of the time
I don't know what to do and I'm always in the dark
I'm living in a powder keg and giving off sparks
I really need you tonight
Forever's gonna start tonight
Forever's gonna start tonight
Once upon a time I was falling in love
Now I'm only falling apart
There's nothing I can do
A total eclipse of the heart
Once upon a time there was light in my life
But now there's only love in the dark
Nothing I can say A total eclipse of the heart....
I am recent widow whose husband succumbed to renal cancer. Originally diagnosed in 2005, when he was 44, he had his kidney out and was pronounced cancer free until Oct. 2008. Compression fracture of L2 vertebrae at that time required extensive surgery that left him with a 12 inch rod in his spine, numerous screws, pins and other hardware and more pain that he should have had to bear. Only had tiny tumors in lungs and one in liver that I never was able to see on the scans, but our oncologist assured us that it was there. Tried several protocols but no results.
Unfortunately, during those last 10-12 months, he started having bone mets show up everywhere....hips, ribs, more in the spine, clavicle, right femur....it became rampant. We did Sutent, Afinitor, radiation, etc. for a while but then he said enough was enough. While he was in tremendous pain, he was still his wonderful self until right before Valentine's Day this year when he had an outbreak of shingles. He said that the pain from that was worse that the cancer and it was a horror to watch him suffer like he did. At one point he was on so many medications that he had to be hospitalized to get them regulated....from fourteen down to just two in the end.
I don't know too many people who could have endured what he did. He NEVER complained about how he felt. He always tried to be positive and I know it was mostly for me. He knew that he wasn't going to get better and we tried to spend every moment together; we are self employed and I pretty much took the last 10 months off. I am so grateful for making that decision and for having that time together. Unfortunately, it has pretty much left me broke, but who cares. I'd sleep in my car for the rest of my life to have spend those last months with Dave.
I was very worried for a while that I wouldn't have the patience or skill to care for him like he needed me to but in the end, it was all about love and I found a well of strength inside of me that I didn't know I possessed. He died on March 24th and I miss him so very, very much. While I am thankful that he isn't suffering any longer, I just wish he was still here with me and that makes me feel awfully selfish sometimes.
Now the strangest things bring me to tears. I can't listen to the radio anymore, every song reminds me of him (he loved music and played guitar), the movies we wanted to see but never got to, television shows we watched together (I always did hate reruns). Our favorite food was anything Mexican but now it makes my stomach hurt just to think about eating it without him to share. I can't sleep at night (see what time i am up typing this...2 a.m.) but I don't want to get out of bed in the morning. How can I ever live in this world again with Dave not in it? I am not even sure that I want to try...this is all just too hard. I think about living another 30-40 years without him and I am struck dumb by the thought. Does this really ever get any easier?
Unfortunately, during those last 10-12 months, he started having bone mets show up everywhere....hips, ribs, more in the spine, clavicle, right femur....it became rampant. We did Sutent, Afinitor, radiation, etc. for a while but then he said enough was enough. While he was in tremendous pain, he was still his wonderful self until right before Valentine's Day this year when he had an outbreak of shingles. He said that the pain from that was worse that the cancer and it was a horror to watch him suffer like he did. At one point he was on so many medications that he had to be hospitalized to get them regulated....from fourteen down to just two in the end.
I don't know too many people who could have endured what he did. He NEVER complained about how he felt. He always tried to be positive and I know it was mostly for me. He knew that he wasn't going to get better and we tried to spend every moment together; we are self employed and I pretty much took the last 10 months off. I am so grateful for making that decision and for having that time together. Unfortunately, it has pretty much left me broke, but who cares. I'd sleep in my car for the rest of my life to have spend those last months with Dave.
I was very worried for a while that I wouldn't have the patience or skill to care for him like he needed me to but in the end, it was all about love and I found a well of strength inside of me that I didn't know I possessed. He died on March 24th and I miss him so very, very much. While I am thankful that he isn't suffering any longer, I just wish he was still here with me and that makes me feel awfully selfish sometimes.
Now the strangest things bring me to tears. I can't listen to the radio anymore, every song reminds me of him (he loved music and played guitar), the movies we wanted to see but never got to, television shows we watched together (I always did hate reruns). Our favorite food was anything Mexican but now it makes my stomach hurt just to think about eating it without him to share. I can't sleep at night (see what time i am up typing this...2 a.m.) but I don't want to get out of bed in the morning. How can I ever live in this world again with Dave not in it? I am not even sure that I want to try...this is all just too hard. I think about living another 30-40 years without him and I am struck dumb by the thought. Does this really ever get any easier?
Our Song
Looking out on the morning rain
I used to feel uninspired
And when I knew I had to face another day
Lord, it made me feel so tired
Before the day I met you, life was so unkind
But your love was the key to peace my mind
Cause you make me feel, you make me feel, you make me feel like
A natural woman
When my soul was in the lost-and-found
You came along to claim it
I didn't know just what was wrong with me
Till your kiss helped me name it
Now I'm no longer doubtful of what I'm living for
Cause if I make you happy I don't need no more
Cause you make me feel, you make me feel, you make me feel like
A natural woman
Oh, baby, what you've done to me
You make me feel so good inside
And I just want to be close to you
You make me feel so alive
Cause you make me feel, you make me feel, you make me feel like
A natural woman
I used to feel uninspired
And when I knew I had to face another day
Lord, it made me feel so tired
Before the day I met you, life was so unkind
But your love was the key to peace my mind
Cause you make me feel, you make me feel, you make me feel like
A natural woman
When my soul was in the lost-and-found
You came along to claim it
I didn't know just what was wrong with me
Till your kiss helped me name it
Now I'm no longer doubtful of what I'm living for
Cause if I make you happy I don't need no more
Cause you make me feel, you make me feel, you make me feel like
A natural woman
Oh, baby, what you've done to me
You make me feel so good inside
And I just want to be close to you
You make me feel so alive
Cause you make me feel, you make me feel, you make me feel like
A natural woman
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