The Beginning -Revisited

We were so busy living, it was easy enough to ignore all the warning signs. There were so many. Few of us really believe that death could be at our door. So many times, we have all ignored symptoms believing they held no significance. We did just that. Boy, were we wrong. After a nine week battle, I was left the lone survivor on a spring Wednesday between Palm Sunday and MaundyThursday.

VST was attacked by Cholangiocarcinoma, a rare type of cancer that forms in the bile ducts. It was aggressive, lethal, and quick. It stole his energy, strength, resolve, and finally, his brain. In the age of Covid, in my town anyway, medical treatments were being authorized by a panel of docs at the hospital. Each test needed to be approved, wasting valuable days as VST got sicker and sicker. Being the lone caretaker and hospice attendant, I found myself nursing my husband, while trying to wrap my head around the fact that he wouldn’t share another Easter meal with me.

The idea of hospice service is romantic and wonderful. The company we used was made of a group of earth angels, with a few limitations. It was a wonderful place to get all kinds of helpful drugs. Morphine, Lorazapam, Haldol, and others. Marvelous place to get supplies like diapers, wipes, syringes, gloves, and swabs for dry, cracked lips. Because we were living in a remote area, actual physical help wasn’t available. In reality, we didn’t want strangers interrupting our last and most intimate hours together. So, we went through it alone. VST didn’t make it until Easter, but left me shortly before. Bereft, Deprived. Cut off. Dispossessed. Forlorn. Wanting. Stripped. I began my grieving process.

VST died on a Wednesday morning at 10:30. His death certificate states he died at 11:15. It lies. I was there, alone. I was the one that watched him take his last breath and slowly slip away, while our beloved kids were out on some errands. I assure you, it was 10:30. The sounds my body made that morning were shocking to me. Rather like those that a woman might make during the last stages of labor. Primal and shriek-ish. Raw and from a place I didn’t know existed in me. I was so glad the kids were out of the house. Even though it is known that a loved one is going to die, no one is ready for the moment they really do. At least, I wasn’t.

In our small county, with no coroner, the Sheriff was needed to pronounce VST deceased. Moments after his death, I phoned their office to ask if the real Sheriff would come, instead of a deputy. VST had made friends with him over our six year stay, and it would be a huge comfort to me. I was told he was in a meeting, but a deputy would be dispatched. But, in eight minutes, the Sheriff arrived with hugs and a listening ear. He visited VST one last time, and comforted me in my very first hour of grief, for which I was so grateful.

A long list of players filled out my first day as a widow. A hospice nurse to neutralize the drugs. The Sheriff. The Deputy Sheriff. The Mortuary Assistants. The kids. The medical equipment personal. Until finally, evening arrived. The house was quiet. The kids and I were in shock. Our bedroom, where VST had requested his hospital bed be placed only seven days before, was returned to normal without any signs of the nightmare the last week held. Without a trace of him, of us. Just a pretty room with all furniture put back in perfect order.

In the cold void of death, the kids left the next morning, needing to get back to their lives six hours away. I was alone of the first real day of widowhood. Alone at 6,200 feet, on Mt. Davidson, suspended above Virginia City, looking out into the nothingness of my 100 mile view. The vista, once magical and romantic, was now daunting for a wife that had been so intertwined with her other half that she knew not where he stopped and she began.

It came to me that I needed to have an immediate life raft, and so I turned to the consistently comforting thing that had been there through my entire life. Words. I chose three to symbolize the first month.

Food. Shelter. Clothing.

Those words would get me to focus through Month One. For, if I focused on Food. Shelter. Clothing. I wouldn’t die in the cold, starving because I had forgotten to eat and gone out to get the mail naked. I took myself in my own arms and gave prayers for the woman I lost that day. I rocked the remaining shell and held her in the gentlest way, listening to the wails and sobs late into that first night of widowhood.

This is my story. Everyone reading here has a story just as grueling, exasperating, and horrifying. As widows, we enter a wilderness that no one has really explained or mapped for us. Each person sees the landscape differently, and must find a way through that is hers and hers alone. I found that, at first, I kept a daily planner, where I could jot down the simplest things I did. I made sure I completed three tasks a day, writing them down. I rely on that now to remember how strong I was in those early days. You are just as strong.

It is a comfort to know that I didn’t starve in the nighttime cold of Virginia City, while walking hungry and naked to get the mail. It is only by the grace of God that I didn’t, I assure you.