Learning
is largely a voluntary affair. We pursue the things we want to know
and take the steps to learn them. Then there is the stuff we don't
want to know. What I call involuntary learning. What does it feel
like to lose a job? Undergo chemo? Bury a child? Those things that forcibly insert themselves into your life like foreclosure or violent crime. What is that like?
I
found out. It was two-years ago today that I became a widower. It was
the worst day of my life—and that was with the knowledge my
wife's battle with early-onset Alzheimer's only had one outcome.
(Prior
to that, I learned what it was like to be a twenty-four/seven
care-giver. The stress and fitful sleep aside, that was only the second-hardest thing I ever did.)
You see, my wife was the most
luminous soul I had ever met, and to my utter disbelief she liked me. She
thought I was funny and smart and nice. Not counting the six-months
or so we worked together before becoming a couple, we spent something
like twelve-thousand twenty-one days together. For me, she was it.
Naturally,
it wasn't all unicorns and rainbows. No marriage is. For example,
frustrated one day by my bottomless enthusiasm for washing and waxing
cars, she said to me (as only a wife can) “If I put the %$#@!
bathroom on four wheels will you clean it then?”
Yeah,
she could be a pistol. More often, she was the person who couldn't
continue a walk because we'd come across a rabbit who'd been
critically injured by a car and who wouldn't sleep until it was attended to by a veterinarian.
Or
the one who whipped up a pan of double-chocolate brownies while I was
in the backyard one hot summer afternoon, attempting to clear it of
bindweed.
So
yes, taking care of her was a no-brainer. And to my eternal
surprise, it gave me a sense of purpose I had never known. Her
descent was a slow one, which gave me time to adapt to the
latest round of changes. And unlike many Alzheimer's patients, her
personality never altered. There was no acting out, no violence.
We
were largely able to continue our lives as a couple. We continued to make our
weekly trip to Jewel and go to Lincoln Park Zoo and the CSO and just
be together (something which I now understood had an expiration
date).
The
Great Recession had kicked us down a long flight of stairs, to the
point where we lived in my parent's basement. But even that misery contained a silver lining: she was next to me. Things like holding her
hand, kissing her hair and having her in my arms became impossibly
redolent. Decadent, even.
She
was an island of comfort in a sea of shit.
Nothing
changed after the onset. The here and now—having her with me—was
everything.
The
emotional contours of care-giving feature guilt. Exhaustion. Anger.
Hopelessness. Self-doubt. Endless adjustments. Even after my wife had
entered hospice, I reflexively responded to her CNA's remark that I
was a good care-giver with the thought “Then why isn't she getting
better?”
The
cruel reality, newly reinforced, haunted me deep into the night.
Tears and vodka flowed.
Yes,
I was learning.
It
shouldn't have been surprising that my wife, who was probably the
most-intelligent person I had ever known, was still teaching me.
Then,
on a damp, overcast Thursday afternoon, she was gone.
<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
Death
brings with it a whole new understanding of the word 'forever'.
It
answers questions, such as how can survivors hand over ludicrous sums of money
to people they believe can contact their loved ones?
It
makes you wish for incredibly mundane things. Things like sitting next to each other watching TV. Or hearing a giggle—one last time.
Depending
on your spiritual inclination, it may even challenge your notion of
the afterlife. For example, even as a lapsed Lutheran, I refused to believe my wife was just...gone. How could all
she said and thought and felt—all that she was—just be gone?
The
answer, of course, is that it isn't. It's in me.
Lucy?
You were a place.
And
whenever I was with you, I was home.
