William kept himself in check all through his wife’s long illness, from the time she was diagnosed with cancer, through operations and “procedures” through chemotherapy and the long nights in the emergency room, with other lost and sick souls. It wasn’t hard. After all, she was going through a terrible time, and he loved her as he had never loved anyone. She never complained, she always thought she would recover, and that gave William the courage and stamina to be there, to help, to carry her colostomy bags out to the trash, to bring her the heated pads for her hip, to schedule and take her to her many medical appointments, give her the pills to ease her pain, to buy the many different foods she craved and then vomited into the basin, as if she were pregnant once again.
He would not imagine a world without her, even though it dwelt on the edges of his consciousness, dark and bleak. Cancer seemed to be progressing. Early in her illness, William researched it on the Internet. If it was not in her liver she had a 68 percent chance of survival, if it was in the liver, only 10 percent. No lesions were found at first, and so he told her what he’d found as encouragement, but later, cancer appeared in the liver and they never spoke of it again, William feared he had snatched away a measure of hope.
Another procedure opened up her kidneys and she brightened for a time, even with urine bags hanging from the bed. She began physical therapy, learning to transfer from bed to wheelchair, to car. The hated chemotherapy was still their last hope and a return to the recliner and the needle a chance at life. He would take her, push her wheelchair. An appointment on the calendar, a hope for recovery.
But then the doctor said there was too much damage, that chemotherapy was no longer an option.
It became apparent that she was fighting for life, not for herself, but so that her family would not have to suffer her death. And her family, realizing that, told her not to worry about them, but to do what she must do. To focus on getting well or – unsaid – to give up the ghost if her pain and suffering became too much. To love is to hold close, but the greatest love is to give permission to go, this time forever. But that permission cost dearly and home from the hospital, in a house without her that seemed dead, William allowed himself in the shower to let out what he’d held in check, as the water flowed and grief found vent and volume.
The family gathered around the bed in the intensive care unit, a circle of love and medicine, of hand holding and needle sticks, of kisses and monitors moving with bright lines of life. Conversations about palliative care, make her comfortable. She could go tonight, the doctor said. She had signed a red “do not resuscitate” form, and when the doctor explained that she could be kept alive for weeks, perhaps, on machines, she said no. And so the morphine increased, the oxygen was lowered to normal levels, William and their youngest daughter held her hands and kissed her face as the light left her eyes, the lines on the monitor went flat and she died peacefully in the hands of Morpheus and her family.
William was the last to leave her bedside, beloved wife become beloved object, forehead still warm to his lips, monitor switched off, oxygen tube removed, her wrists still taped with IVs, her arms bruised from attempts to find a vein, and she in a yellow gown signifying “unable to walk unassisted.” He looked at her face, the face he had loved and kissed and stroked for more than 30 years, now bereft of life, of animation, of her.
She was a spirit now, free of pain, of disease, of body. He knew that and yet that knowledge did not give him peace. He walked in shadows, numb, driving the car he bought for her, feeding the birds she loved, sleeping in their bed alone, playing with the two little dogs that had followed her about the house.
Family and friends carried what was left of her – the memories, the photos, the imprint of love and happiness and life. But she was missing from a world of reminders of what was taken. And the sweetness of their love which existed at the core of William’s existence turned to darkness and despair.
He threw out the hated medicines, the pills, the blood pressure monitor, her heating pad, ostomy bags and equipment, skin lotion. And the appointment for chemotherapy which had been their last hope, slipped by unnoticed on an otherwise empty calendar. Their children and friends were wonderful, the only life still left, as they visited, brought food, cleaned house and offered love and comfort through their own grief. And a friend took him to the funeral home and paid for the cremation.
Later, he sorted out her things, packed boxes of clothing for charity, donated her books to the library, and took her death certificate to the bank to consolidate accounts. Hated things that must be done. Friends helped with bills, gathered data on what to do with the house, while her phone accumulated messages from friends and clients, and her family rushed to find voicemails she had left them so as never to forget her voice.
And one day, he walked from the funeral home carrying her ashes, and even the beloved object that had been her body was gone. And the light had left his world. On the way home, he passed a restaurant he and his wife liked, and he had a thought: they would never again eat there. How could anything be so final?
So that life was gone, and a new one must start. But what an effort that takes. William wanted his old life back, not a new one. But a new one must start and William reluctantly began, his strongest impetus that she would not want him mired in grief, disabled, producing nothing. A month went by, then another, as the darkness slowly retreated, and William made the decision he had avoided so long: He must emerge from the past which was so very sweet but gone, take up residence in the present and begin planning a future.
But only the past had her in it. The present was a city destroyed by death, stumps of trees scratching at the sky, all the rest just things – houses and streets and cars, their house silent, her cell phone disconnected, treasured voice messages on William’s phone, a video of her singing happy birthday to a grandchild. But that again was the past, not the present, as the past pulled everything into its sweetness and gripped it with terrible loss.
The future became the plans they’d made in the past. A trip to Ireland, writing conferences they would attend together, visiting children and grandchildren, perhaps another trip to the San Juan Islands and the Butchart Gardens, that little cottage they’d build if they could decide where. Even the back yard, the terrace she wanted and fruit trees. The present was a house underwater, the future? A house sold, empty, or someone else living there.
The little dog she’d loved for 16 years was next to go, her trachea collapsing, she struggling for air – an echo of the hospital, oxygen level monitors, how many liters of O2? The little dog would eventually suffocate, said their vet, but medicines could help for a time. And so William must become god, must make the decision when to have his wife’s dog put down. And while the dog suffered through the night, she revived at morning, and he teetered on the brink of yes, no, yes, no. Wait and risk her suffocation, or act and cut her life prematurely short?
He must rise several times a night and give the dog her pills hidden in cheese or peanut butter, squirt medicinal syrup into her mouth as she squirmed and coughed the sticky stuff onto the couch and the floor. And yet he didn’t mind. He had done the same and more for his wife and learned a lesson.
While it was a relief of sorts to see his wife’s suffering end – to stop racing to the emergency room with heart rate spiking, gasping for breath, frantic phone calls and nurses probing with needles for a vein still open as she grimaced with pain and the bruises spread across her wrists – when it was over he knew he would give anything to spend an hour with her again in a hospital room, emergency room chair or anywhere as long as she could be alive, and warm and he could kiss her and hold her hand. But that was the past intruding again. In the present that sweet face was ashes and in the future that face would live only in the photos on the bureau. The spirit that is truly her would wear another face, which gave some comfort. She would become a child in some new family.
He took their little dog to the vet after a long night of coughing and struggling for air. He set her on the vet’s green lawn and she walked stiffly around. She wasn’t coughing, the medicine had opened the airway temporarily, and he fed her bits of cheese, her favorite food. He told her she got to become a puppy soon, and a picture arose between them of a litter of small brown and white puppies, their eyes still closed. Was it his picture? Hers? William didn’t know, but somehow he knew the message got through.
In the treatment room, she huddled next to William on the table as he held her and fed her the last bit of cheese. The vet injected the drug, and instantly her head dropped, her body went limp and she was dead. The vet stayed with her as William went out a side door, past the green lawn in which she had just walked, and out to the car for the plastic bin that would carry her home, to be buried beside her favorite cat, playmates when they were young.
The struggle for air, the love between his wife and dog, pulled him back into their struggles. Even the vet, a family friend, had attended his wife’s memorial service, and the similarities pulled him back into the past. With the dog, he felt he had acted at just the right time. One more night and the dog might have suffocated, and yet she could still enjoy a big green lawn and bits of cheese. Perhaps she was now a puppy in a box in some family’s laundry room.
William buried his wife’s dog, and later went to meet his friends. He knew he would hate coming home to a house without his wife, without her dog, without the life he had loved so long. But he had their children, there was another dog and two fat little birds who needed him, bills to pay, taxes to file, a house to sell and a future to plan. He knew that, but he also knew his wife would dwell with him forever in a secret place in his heart.
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