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15 pages

English

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Cancer has touched everyone's life in one way or another. This story tells how the author survived the first year after her husband's death, as she goes through many of the stages of bereavement; from denial and guilt to acceptance. Honest, day to day, week to week recounting of her personal struggles, reflections on their marriage, her husband's seven month battle with pancreatic cancer and how she was able to care for him during his illness. She tells this story with poignancy, truth and honesty as seen through the eyes of a grieving, new widow. In the end, her message is uplifting: although the grief and sadness is sometimes overwhelming, healing will take place. There is a "New Normal." This story is meant to inspire, teach and bring a sense of hope and realization that life can and will go on.

Sujets

Religion

Christianisme

Santé et bien-être

Santé mentale & traumatisme

Christian Living

Bereavement

Philosophie et théologie

Grief

Death

Informations

Publié par	eBookIt.com
Date de parution	27 février 2015
Nombre de lectures	0
EAN13	9781456623876
Langue	English
Poids de l'ouvrage	5 Mo

Informations légales : prix de location à la page 0,0174€. Cette information est donnée uniquement à titre indicatif conformément à la législation en vigueur.

Extrait

Damn Cancer

by
Nancy Tatum

Copyright 2014 Nancy Tatum,
All rights reserved.

Published in eBook format by eBookIt.com
http://www.eBookIt.com

ISBN-13: 978-1-4566-2387-6

No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means including information storage and retrieval systems, without permission in writing from the author. The only exception is by a reviewer, who may quote short excerpts in a review.

Dedication

To Jim: my friend, my protector, my partner in crime.
I will miss you the rest of my days.
DAMN CANCER
I buried my husband in Arlington National Cemetery today. He was 58 years old. It should have been me. Damn cancer.
ONE

As we walked through the woods again, this time was different. So different that it broke my heart. When we walked this path just a month before the diagnosis, his pace was steady. He seemed healthy, strong. We stopped occasionally to look for birds or to pick a wildflower. He loved the outdoors. While stationed in Europe, when he was in the Army, he participated in Volksmarches: non competitive six mile walks. At the end of each walk he received a ribbon or patch. He had a gallon baggy stuffed full of the patches. I surprised him for the first birthday we celebrated together. I snuck the patches from his dresser drawer and sewed them onto a blanket I had made for him. That blanket kept him warm as he sat at his computer, working on bills or catching up on daily events. He was healthy then. I never dreamed that eight years of marriage would end with his untimely death. Damn cancer.

He died on a Monday. So now, each Monday I say, “It’s been two weeks since Jim died. It was four weeks ago that Jim took his last breath. I can’t believe it’s been eight weeks since Jim died.” He’s been gone now for ten weeks. I’m still counting. Probably will for quite sometime. They say the first year is the worst. Each anniversary of some special event, I’ll play that game of “this is what we were doing on this day.” Makes me feel pretty sick inside. Lonely. Sad.

Grief. The definitions are somewhat specific and limited. Getting through the grief is not. You can look in any number of books or even Google the word. Briefly stated, grief is the reaction to loss. Mine has run the gamut from denial to sadness then actually believing he is gone and then WHAM! Right back to denial again. He’s gone. I know it every time I sit at the kitchen table to eat…alone. Every time I drive his SUV and I don’t have to adjust the position of the driver’s seat. Each and every day I miss his phone call to check in to see how I’m doing.
TWO

It’s been three and a half months since Jim died. I’ve lost track counting the Mondays that have gone by. It’s either 14 or 15 now. It just doesn’t seem real that he’s gone. I have two photos of him on the refrigerator. Photos that
say everything about him. His eyes squinting closed because his smile is so big. It nearly kills me to look at them. One of my dearest friends lost her 26 year old daughter to cancer several years ago. There is a memorial to her in their home in each room. I don’t know how she does it, everyday, passing by, looking at the photos, reminding herself of what she no longer has. I guess none of us needs any kind of reminder though. It’s there, either lurking in the shadows or so evident in my everyday blah blah blah that sometimes I just want to sit and cry and stare at the walls. Always there, photos or not. I feel miserable inside today. I don’t cry everyday, thank goodness. I’m quite capable of carrying on with my daily business, but the feeling of grief and sadness fills me from head to toe.

Damn cancer.
THREE

I sold our house several weeks ago. We had our place up for sale for three weeks last summer. Then he got sick. We had to take it off the market. He got sick so quickly and was never able to feel good enough again to try to sell it. We had decided to get out of our two story and had talked about buying a ranch with a basement. I just figured I’d carry through with our earlier plan to move. Jim had a lot of stuff: tools, man toys, sports equipment. He wanted to keep all of it. He wasn’t one to downsize. Our basement was full and he wanted to make sure our next home’s basement would be also. Every time I’d go to the basement and look at all the stuff down there, I felt overwhelmed. For years, I asked him to get rid of some of it, but he’d just ignore me. Now the joke was on me. There was a huge amount of his things to go through before moving to the new place. A job no one should have to do alone.
FOUR

Ever since I was a young child, all I ever wanted was to be a wife and mother. I married for the first time when I was 28 years old. I became a mother 11 months later. That marriage ended in divorce. I tried again and married a very nice man who loved me and my daughter. But that too, ended in divorce. Although all I ever wanted was to be married, it seemed that I needed turmoil. Husband number two wanted anything but that. He was stable and gentle. He never wanted to argue with me.

Several years after that divorce I met Jim at a speed dating event. Each man would rotate from table to table where a woman was sitting. We were given five minutes to talk about anything. One of my pat questions for each man was, “Are you having fun tonight?” If the answer was anything other than “Yes,” that guy was a big NO on my YES/NO checklist. I figured I didn’t want someone who was sour, sad or angry. Jim was none of those things. He was talkative, friendly and very upbeat. A definite YES on my checklist. It took us a couple of weeks to email each other then talk on the phone. Finally we met at a movie for our first real date and the rest is history. We married one year later.

Thankfully, by this time in my life, my desire for turmoil was gone. I felt very settled. I knew I could trust Jim with finances so I turned everything over to him. When something in the house broke, he fixed it. When I didn’t know how to use the new remote control or my new cell phone, he would simplify it as much as possible and teach me. Jim pretty much knew the answer to most things. During our eight years of marriage, I became very dependent on him, not just as the “fix it guy,” but also the accountant, errand runner, bread winner and most of all my dearest companion. We enjoyed running errands together. We’d spend Saturdays driving to a small town just to try a new restaurant that I’d read about in the paper or we’d pick a park to walk on a trail. We ate meals together. We’d go to movies just about every week. There were many evenings I’d watch TV downstairs and he’d be upstairs on his computer. He was a computer wizard, not only at home, but in his job. He was the go-to-guy at work when someone needed a computer program fixed. Sure, there were times we would argue, but it didn’t mean much, at least not to me.

Jim was the one. I was set. I was settled. I was finally content.

Moments after he died, I remember saying out loud, “Now what am I supposed to do?” I didn’t and still don’t want to live this life without him.
I thought he would retire in seven years and our life together would go in whatever direction we had planned. What am I supposed to do now? Reinvent myself? It ruined everything.

Damn cancer.
FIVE

I just looked at the memory card from my camera. The photos have dates at the bottom. There are photos of Jim three weeks before he got sick. He looked absolutely fine, but the cancer was already there….killing him. We had no way of knowing. He was going to work as usual. He was taking our dog to the park and throwing the ball for her. He was playing golf, going to movies, eating popcorn, living the good life. He seemed healthy. Fat, but healthy. Two weeks before he got sick, I had him get on the scales because he looked like he had put on a few more pounds.