09-22-2024, 05:19 AM
(09-22-2024, 04:19 AM)FlyersFan Wrote: I feel for you.
My husband is my soul mate. We met when I was 8 and he was 10. We have known each other 54 years and have been married almost 35 years. He recently had bladder cancer and has just been diagnosed with Parkinsons. That means the future is going to be rough (and expensive).
This means he's probably going to die before me. And I can't imagine being separated from my soul mate. I've thought about that a lot in the past couple of months. How very difficult life is probably going to get while he's here, and then what it's going to be like after he's gone. It just doesnt' seem right. it's cruel.
So I feel for you. I'm not where you are yet but that's probably my future. And I already want to cry.
The separation is just wrong ....
I'll be thinking of you too now.
My friend, I wish it weren't so.
I know the stream of platitudes I could offer would pale against the worst-case scenarios that might assail your imagination. But I hope that in whatever time you share with your spouse, you can find the very thing you both might need to endure the future. You see, in all the grief of my loss there still remains a bright lining... that time I spent with my wife as we neared the end was joyous... despite the looming sadness of what was to come... I will tell you that I am not exactly proud of my (purely internal and unshared) emotional response to the news that she 'was going to die no matter what we might do.' (She was not a candidate for a liver transplant AND a heart transplant... tool old (65,) for one thing, (and the cynic in me also demands I add "and too poor.")
So while I remained frustratingly (for her) upbeat and supportive, she remained stoically committed to embracing her fate. It was a troubling experience for me... it seemed to manifest as 'denial' on my part... but it was a commitment to make her happy... it was the least I felt I could do. Her attitude and behavior was stunningly graceful;... for me, it would have called for a Herculean effort to contain my disappointment and grief... she made it look easy, until the last day...
She simply took my hand and told me, "Honey, I'm ready to go... I can't do this anymore." My shock drove me into numbness... I refuted that she should "go"... and that still makes me feel shame. Shame that I didn't allow here to hear me accept it... even though I really did... and I think that she was worried for me (may God bless her kind soul.)
I can't pretend that I have any "advice" for you. I wouldn't presume that anything I could offer would serve to remedy what your dreading. But I am going to risk saying that you can offer your husband dignity, and respect (after the soulful love)... I suspect that it will serve him well. I like to think that my presence served my wife as well... I hope it did.
Speaking of 'hope', don't feel afraid to hope... hope for a turn of fortune, hope for new and better healthcare options, and hope that as bad as it sounds, it might not be the horror show we are always 'told of' in movies, shows, and media... (those things are almost always poison.)
No one, anywhere on Earth knows your husband the way you do... bank on that. Where he suffers, you can lead him to access his inner strength, and he, ironically or not, may bolster your strength too... forget guilt, forget anything that detracts from what you and he are 'together'... Nothing trumps that. The love you found in each other cannot die... ever.
Nature offers reprieves... it's OK to hope for that too.
If I can help... (however unlikely that may be,) please feel free to ask. I believe in prayer... but if meditation is your analog... do that.
Always celebrate your love... because such a gift seems rarer now than it has ever been.
Be patient with those who want to help, even if they don't really know how.
I feel like I may be mangling this...
If I could just wish it all away for you, I would do so happily...
You will be in my thoughts...
