I loved you in the best way possible

This picture would never have happened had Terry and I not met, these are our offspring, the product of our love. The joys that will last past him. You can't take that away. These beautiful human beings who will and do bring joy to others as they do for me and had for him. It reminds me of a verse from Killing me Softly, the famous song by Roberta Flack, which was Terry and mine's song when we first met.

"And the first time ever I lay with you
I felt your heart so close to mine
And I knew our joy would fill the earth
And last 'till the end of time my love
And it would last 'till the end of time"

It will go on- our love.

You can't see it in this picture but he was sick here. I believe and know it in my heart. This is October 2013. He had lost a lot of weight unexpectedly, I figured it was the daily gym workouts finally paying off. But there were other signs. Previous to this he had gone through a bout of loss of appetite (it rallied at Christmas) he was going to the bathroom more than usual, early pancreatic cancer presents as symptoms of diabetes. I remember getting mad at him for needing so many restroom stops. I remember him telling me about some routine blood work he had done and the results showing elevated sugars. I thought that is weird, told him well is the doc going to monitor it? Then I let it go. I could not put all these pieces together. Not till much later. The horrible stuff that I wrote out and can't share yet.

I wonder do marriages live and die by crisis? By that I mean does marriage either continue or not when the shit starts to hit the fan, and that maybe this is the true thrashing ground for relationships- not love? Terry and I were only one year into our marriage when our first born son died of SIDS. There was a moment, I remember it clear as a bell when we were driving to a friends house, I said something that triggered him and in the middle of the highway, going at quite a clip I might add, he slammed on his brakes and turned the truck around. We had hit a turning point here (literally and figuratively). I hated what he had done but I saw this as his expression of the intense grief he was experiencing. I decided I was not going to let this crisis destroy our love. I was going to hold him closer and work it through. He took off into the woods when we got home, he said to me "I ran and I ran and I ran through the brush until I couldn't run anymore, I was driven to my knees". I realized he was as sad as I was, he just had to express it differently than myself.

I could have decided our differences were too much, then and a few other times in our marriage when the Wendigo paid a visit.  Did that keep us going- not love- those key decisions at those critical times? Oh yes I loved him fiercely but many people love fiercely in their relationships and their marriages are still lost in a crisis. Why? Why not us with all we were tested with? Could it be that marriage is not built on fairy tales, that love at first sight does not sustain us, that soulmates come together from hard work not fate?

This brings me to our differences when it was life and death.  Terry never could tell me everything, even people madly in love keep secrets. I have secrets I can never tell about that time, about what I thought and how I felt. They haunt me, and I bet his haunted him. When Terry got the diagnosis that his cancer was terminal, he said to me, " I really fucked up this time".  I wish I had asked him what he meant, and let him unburden his heart in that moment,  instead I said it's not your fault you got cancer, I remember looking at him in the car and feeling so so sorry for him. I did not want to be feeling this, (for god sake Susan don't pity him, do something, say something!) I wanted to act right in that crisis but couldn't.  In some key areas I did not make the right decisions toward him personally or say the right words in this final crisis. I was just coming out of denial, it happened too soon, I needed more time to put it into words. I could only hold him and cry and tell him I needed him. I couldn't comfort him in his dying the way he may have needed, he could not tell me how he needed to be comforted. I could not hold him closer and work it out in this ultimate crisis. He was too far gone by this time, the toxins affecting his brain. This is where I failed in not seeing sooner. I loved him in the best way I could possibly love him at that time. But I failed in not seeing sooner that he was dying, when we could have talked it through, where I could have said all I wanted to say to him and him to me. It fucking rips my heart out what I didn't say. What he could no longer take in. Perhaps that is why I write, why I have to be public in my writing, using my voice.

I made one last choice to love in this our final crisis of marriage, one last time where I kept the Windigo out. I gave him a good death at home, I had his children there in time, I did not deny he had little time left. Even though I had just got the diagnosis I knew it was a matter of days, I did not deny that sad sad fact. My eyes wide opened, my voice silenced, my guilt enormous - yet it did not cripple me and stop me from acting. I gave him a good death. I did sick well that week.  I loved him in the best way I possibly could then.

I see couples in crisis, some work it through, some not. I can only say don't sit on your fence, don't half love, don't let the crisis decide for you. Decide, then act. It is what relationships grow or end on.