Sasee Magazine

I am a lucky person for I have been loved well. I’ve got someone who thinks I am divine in all my imperfect being.

Where my eyes and mind see my shortcomings, he sees my strengths. Where I see a face with jowls that hang like curtain valances from my jaw line, skin that can be red and blotchy, and a neck whose skin can, in bad light, appear as though it were the pleats of an air filter, my husband sees beauty.

On those days when I question my abilities, he tells me I could have run any company in the world. That my abilities far outreach his, and that I could have been a better Oprah than Oprah.

Of course, this is also the same man who thinks I am a wretched dishwasher loader. I am sure he has his list of things that I do that drive him up the bend, but he keeps that list to himself.

But this piece isn’t really to act like a bragger about love. It is about the inevitable. Death.

I have always feared my husband’s death. Three and a half years ago my fears were put to test. Cancer. The big “C” snuck into our household and into my husband’s colon – stage III cancer to be precise. Tough chemotherapy and radiation were our companions. We traveled this journey together, neither of us in the driver’s seat.

We got a reprieve. But within that reprieve, for which we are grateful, the ever-present prospect of recurrence is always there. It begins to inch towards the surface a month and a half before checkups. By the time the tests are here, we have worked ourselves into a nervous state. It is only recently that I haven’t worried that every cough my husband has is a sign that the cancer has returned and spread to his lungs.

But what we have been given with this reprieve is an opportunity to not only live and treasure life, even in its most daunting moments, but also to think about the inevitable fact, that both of us will die. We were not born together, and we will not (most likely) die together.

There is no antidote for death. I can’t say I have found a way to protect my heart from loss. And I can’t say that if, and when, we are told that a life-ending disease is upon my husband, that I won’t react with immense sorrow, but because I have had this opportunity to grow and understand life and love, I do know how I will approach this.

Through nearly 37 years of marriage we have faced every challenge together. And we know we have been very blessed. And, in order for me to be able to cope with death, I have told my husband that if the time comes where either of is told our reservations in the great beyond have been made, our role will be to not fall to pieces, but to try our best to give the other the best care and send off as we can.

Although the process might be trying, sad and heart wrenching, we must be the midwife in death. Tears? Yes. But burying our head in the ground and begrudging futures that were our dreams will not be allowed. We must approach our ends with thanksgiving for a love that has been good and enduring.

My husband doesn’t like to discuss death (not that I do, either), but I found it necessary to say what I felt. That has been the gift of a life-threatening disease, that words and actions have been altered to make our lives and love more significant.

It is only looking at death through the life and love that we have shared that has enabled me to transcend from the unrelenting fear of my husband’s death to an experience, that if I am called upon to handle it, I can.

Patrick Swayze and his wife did all of us a service recently by talking about his illness and the inevitability of his death. It is obvious that they have loved each other well. Their love didn’t take away nor hide fear and sadness, but in the light of the darkness they are making their way through this often rocky road of life and death.

Perhaps grace is a good word to use to give insight into how to walk with a loved one to the great beyond. Within that grace we shall find strength, courage and even laughter, to witness the death of a person and the birth of an angel.