The countdown is on. I can feel "it" coming. The memories from 5 years ago are creeping in, like a dark fog swirling around my legs trying to trip me and take me down. The problem is... it's working. I'm moody and short tempered. I cry at pretty much anything. I'm trying to hold it together, but those memories, the bad ones, are creeping in.
5 years ago was the "beginning of the end" for us. I know that a lot of people saw the end coming loooooong before we did. In fact, at one point someone very close to me said "When Brian dies..." and I corrected him and said "if"... he then said "No honey, it's when at this point". He said it as gently as he could, but even then I didn't believe it. I wasn't ready to give up on hope. I knew if I did that Brian would too, and then it really WOULD be "when".
About 5 years ago Brian fell in our room (I'm sure that in a few short days a "memory" will pop up on Facebook and remind me of the exact date, but at this point I don't remember it, which might be a good thing) he was taken to the hospital in an ambulance... and he never came home again. THAT was OUR beginning of the end. I don't know if I've ever written about that day, the day he fell, the day that is haunting me at the moment. We kept a lot of what was going on at that time very private. Brian's cancer had spread to his brain, and the brain tumors were causing problems, including the loss of the use of his left side. He had a hard time walking, so we finally got a wheelchair for him. The morning he fell he had gotten up and made his way to the bathroom. Shortly after he realized he had to go again. I went and got the wheelchair for him. I told him I would take him to the bathroom and come get him when he was done. He was mad. He was frustrated. He grabbed the arm of that wheelchair and FLUNG himself at it. He missed, and instead he hit the wall, HARD and then the floor. Two things happened at that moment. First, he had a brain bleed, second, he fractured his neck... (come to find out later that he had a tumor in his neck vertebra that had weakened the bone)... and he was in instant, horrible pain. The fear in that moment was unreal. I wasn't ready for him to be gone in an instant. I wasn't ready for him to be gone at all.
It was early morning, the kids were all home. I don't even remember who came over to watch them that day. In the hospital, once he had a room, we were told that if the brain bleed didn't stop he wouldn't make it through the night. There was nothing they could do to stop it, it either stopped on it's own or he died. The bleeding stopped... but, the decline from that moment was hard. 7 weeks. He was in the hospital for 3 weeks, improved to the point where he was transferred to a rehab facility, was there a couple of weeks... had another (worse) brain bleed... went back to the hospital... and then... Hospice. 7 weeks. I don't even know how I made it through those 7 weeks. Our kids were all over the place. I never knew where they would be or who I could ask to take them. I was never home, or so it seemed.
The memory of the day he fell is one of my hardest, most painful memories. To see his anger and frustration and then to be MAD at him (yeah, I said it!) for not being CAREFUL. For not just standing up, getting in the wheelchair and letting me help him. That day haunts me... the "what if" for that moment will forever be in my mind. Would he still be here? No. But would his final weeks have been less painful? His death deferred? Maybe... but I'll never know. That's the black fog swirling around my ankles, the memory of that day. The day that starts the countdown to the day he died... Almost 5. Years. Ago.
Almost 5 years have gone by, yet, I find that my path through widowhood still has some twists, turns and dark forests... I am still very much winding my way through widowhood...
