Death killed us, but it didn’t kill our relationship

Jane died 71 months ago today. That I still observe that event on a monthly basis should tell you a lot about our relationship. It does not tell you everything.

…she would never be the same.

People have the illusion that our relationship was perfect. It wasn’t. People sometimes get the impression I was a paragon during Jane’s last days. Some days, she hated me–and some days, she had cause. People only think otherwise because I tell the story, not her.

The things that gnaw at a relationship

But I don’t understand how spouses walk away the day they discover their partner has cancer. And yet a part of me does understand. I know a part of me was glad when the nurses would tell me to go out for a day. I know going to work some days was all that kept me from doing or saying something I would regret.

Some days, she hated me…

And there were days things came out of my mouth that hurt her–even in the last week of her life. Frustration and impotence are terrible things. They gnaw at the spirit and at the will. They break the most patient human being and suck out the marrow of the soul.

Two sides to relationship blues

It happens to patients and it happens to caregivers. The pain of the cancer–the pain of impending death–speaks through both sets of lips. Nothing hurts more or angers more than that.

Frustration and impotence are terrible things.

Jane and I both knew we would make mistakes–would say things we didn’t mean–would hurt each other without intending to. The day before she went into the hospital, we tried to short-circuit the guilt we knew we would both feel at times in the weeks ahead: We forgave each other for the mistakes in our past and forgave each other for the mistakes we knew we would make in the future.

Relationship to forgiveness

What I have failed to do is find a way to forgive myself for those things I did. Forgiving her was easy. Between the frustration of trying to think through drugs and the frustration of what the cancer was doing to her, I could explain away her actions and her words. And between my own frustrations and the exhaustion, I had cause enough to act out.

Jane and I both knew we would make mistakes…

But I can let none of it go. I carry it with me like a remembered walk in the New Hampshire woods or the feel of her hand in mine. A life together is made up of both the good and the bad moments. I don’t get to keep the joy without equally embracing the hurt.

Relationship and mistakes

We made so many mistakes. And yet I doubt repairing those errors would have changed much for either of us. Doing the operation in October instead of November might have bought us a few more weeks–or cost us the weeks we did get. Discovering her cancer in February might have bought us a couple of months–or not. And what quality of life would those months have had?

But I can let none of it go.

Sometimes, ignorance really is better than knowledge when all knowledge grows is greater grief and greater frustration because there is nothing to be done. Those things fester into anger and hate that helps no one, given time. Seeing anger and hate in the garden of our love would have killed us both even more than Jane’s death has.

Relationship to today

But today…today is Worldwide NET Cancer Awareness Day. It falls, as it does every year, on the monthly anniversary of my wife’s death. It falls, as it does every year, on the day before the trip to Dana-Farber that always marks, for me, the beginning of the end.

We made so many mistakes.

On November 13, we would sleep together for the last time. On November 14, I would take her to the hospital. On November 15, she would have the valves on the right side of her heart–destroyed by her cancer–replaced. She would awaken on November 16. Part of me wishes she hadn’t.

The beginning of the end

On November 17, we would celebrate her 56th–and last–birthday. She would tell the nurses and doctors she got a new heart for her birthday.

She would awaken on November 16.

That night, she would suffer her first carcinoid crisis, though we would not realize it at the time. I would stay awake with her for 38 hours. She would recover, but she would never be the same. Twenty-two days later, she would die with me holding her hand and stealing one last kiss.