An Old Man's Walk Through Faith
Through my over 6 decades on this planet, I thought I had experienced every kind of pain there is and somehow I got through it.
However, watching my wife slowly die right in front of me is a kind of pain that I have never known and I know at some point it will reach another level and I don’t have any clue how I will get through that. Not one.
She keeps saying she is sorry for this but it’s not her fault. None of this is anyone’s fault.
So another day has come and I still have the love of my life which of course is a good thing. It’s been a day of questions and more questions with very few solid answers. I’ve never gone through something like this and in many ways, it’s a very lonely experience. There are so many different thoughts and questions that I must start to take a serious look that I thought I never would.
While speaking with my mother a couple of days ago about my wife’s failing health she asked a question that only mother would ask.
The question was as follows:
Do you have someone who is physically by your side day in and day out to help you and sometimes for you to hold on to in the really tough times? That is a question that a mother who is 300 miles away would even think to ask.
Of course, the answer is no has been for a very long time. To be totally honest about it holding on to door frames and falling to the floor because you are crying so hard you can’t stand up and yet knowing the worst is yet to come. Is not fun by any means. But that is the way it is I suspect that won’t change anytime soon.
So it’s been another day in paradise for me and yet the very worst part is to come. One of 2 things is going to happen. I will be by her side when she takes her last breath or I will find her after she has taken her last breath. Either way, she will be gone. Then that will be another day of paradise for her and in the end that is what this is all about anyway.
Over the last 48 to 72 hours the love of my life is starting to struggle more and more. The reality of this hits every second harder and harder. Just when I think I can’t cry any harder I seem to be able to pass that mark time after time. That is with her still being here, but the harsh reality is that the end may be close. These are the times that you put aside any differences with family members. Those things don’t matter at this point. Her daughter is traveling this week and we hope she makes it until she returns. Regardless I have a phone call in my future that will be the hardest I have ever made and that is to tell her daughter that her mother is gone.
Personally, I am in pure survival mode. I do whatever it takes to get me through one more second. I do sleep some but when I awake I can’t go back to sleep with my mind racing in so many different directions.
She has said that when something happens to her she wants me to take a trip to the beach! of course that would be a hard thing to do because once she is gone I will be all alone and in ways that hurts even more.
As Valentine’s Day approaches at the end of the week, it will be a special day for my wife and I because it will probably be our last together. Of course, we never know when it will be the “last” of anything. But this is different because of her failing health. Just to think we met through a Christian Singles paper ( long before e-Harmony and the like) in 1996. She thought I was too young for her. ( She is about 10 years older). I was in St. Louis and she was in Nashville. She had a career in Nashville and it just made more sense for me to come to Nashville.
It has been some ride and I would do it all over again in a split second.
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