The weird, weird thing about devastating loss is that life actually goes on. When you're faced with a tragedy, a loss so huge that you have no idea how you can live through it, somehow, the world keeps turning, the seconds keep ticking. – James Patterson (Angel)
“Why have I not recovered from my grief? It has been 9 months since my husband’s diagnosis,” I asked my grief therapist.
My husband had so many positive cancer milestones, I should have been happy. He completed chemotherapy and managed to survive a massive blood clot. He was doing well with radiation and wasn’t as tired or sick anymore. Soon, he would start a new chemotherapy drug that might help improve his survival. Every year there might be a new drug to help fight the cancer and extend his life.
I should have felt happy, relieved, or at least less anxious and sad over time. I didn’t see much improvement in myself or that I had made substantial progress in my grief process over the last few months. I felt pathetic.
“Nine months is nothing,” said my therapist with a particular emphasis on the last word.
“In a way, your struggle to recover from your grief is interfering with your grieving process. A necessary part of grieving is finding yourself in the middle of hell and then needing to go through hell to get out. There is no magic ‘exit’ button,” she said.
The idea that I couldn’t simply choose to move forward, enjoy the time that I have with my husband and be present in our life was maddening. What if his cancer came back in a few months? And I had spent this precious time crying and grieving instead of enjoying my time with him? This thought made me angry at myself.
“Yes, but what can I do to make this easier on myself? I want to be more present for him and my girls,” I said feeling the pain building in my chest that I had come to recognize as my grief monster.
“Start by looking at how your husband is approaching the situation,” she said.
My husband and I are very different, I thought. I have no idea how he is coping with this diagnosis. He looks so normal now and I am such a mess. While he appeared to be enjoying life despite cancer, I was struggling with the reality that cancer was likely to rip the fabric of our lives apart.
My husband and I were on the same page with his cancer for only a few weeks after his diagnosis. He and I both were in shock and grieved deeply.
I remembered walking into his home office to find him sitting in his desk chair, partly in the dark, and crying. He was wiping his eyes with a tissue. His mouth was partly open, and face contorted in pain. When he saw me, I could see that he didn’t want me to see him like that.
His computer screen was open to a word document. I guessed the contents right away. It was a a book of life advice that he wanted to leave for our girls, in case he wasn’t there for the big milestones in their lives. He was writing down the advice that he would give them about choosing a life partner, a career, and finding happiness. At some point in this process, the reality of the situation became overwhelming.
This was how I felt every day. I hated his cancer. But while he found a way to move on, I did not. I was stuck in anger and rejection of the idea that he had advanced cancer. I felt lost in the idea that he might not be around for many more years. The reality seemed impossibly heavy.
About six weeks after his diagnosis, he seemed to turn the corner toward recovery. We were walking the dog around the neighborhood and in the middle of an unrelated conversation, he interrupted me.
“I can’t change the cancer,” he said. “All I can do is follow doctor’s orders and do the best I can. In the meantime, I am going to enjoy myself and try not to worry about it.” His voice sounded stressed, but the tone was as firm as I had ever heard from him. I
Not going to worry about it? My fears were overwhelming. It was difficult to get through the day without worrying how I would go on without him. My grief was complex, ocean deep, multi-faceted, rooted in the past and the future, ever changing, and hard as hell to pin down. I was terrified and anxious, but also angry and defeated. No single word could have described me.
Yet here he was feeling at peace. The pivot from grief to acceptance and embrace of his time remaining came so quickly that I couldn’t keep up. I wasn’t ready to accept his cancer and forgive the world for this injustice. Nor would I be ready for the better part of a year.
Whether there were other moments when he succumbed again to tears, I couldn’t say. I never saw him cry about his cancer again. From that point forward, his mood steadily improved as he poured his energy into our family and especially, the girls.
In the mornings, he and the girls would take the dog for a walk around the neighborhood before leaving for school. They taught the dog to play a game of hide and seek that began with the dog on leash barking as two of them ran away to hide behind bushes and parked cars. Then, the dog was released from the leash, and she would peel away searching for the lost family members. When she found my husband – often behind a parked car – she would jump high in the air with joy, nipping at his jacket. And he would roar with laughter.
His laughter began deep in his belly and filled his chest, while he tried to prevent the exuberant animal from ripping a hole in his jacket. It sounded a lot like a roar. The happy roar of a human being playing a game with his daughters and his dog. The laugh was so full and predictable, I could close my eyes and replay it in my head with images of the dog jumping for joy.
How was I supposed to be normal? The statistics hadn’t changed. The extent and spread of his cancer hadn’t changed. His future, my future and the girls’ futures were very uncertain. I just couldn’t accept the injustice of his cancer for our family.
“I never asked for this. It was NOT PART OF MY PLAN,” I cried to the grief therapist. “I can’t accept this the way that he has. We are very different.” A mini sob stuck in my throat and my eyes blazed with anger.
I rejected the idea that I had to accept this scourge of a disease that had stricken my husband with lightning. I rejected the idea of accepting and embracing the cancer. Cancer was the enemy, and I wasn’t letting it in.
The only thing that I had accepted was the presence of the grief monster, which continued to live in my chest and make it hard to breathe. I didn’t think that I would ever take a breath without thinking about my grief, ever again.
“Your husband’s philosophy is something that you could consciously adopt, if and when you feel ready,” my grief therapist said. “Living life to the fullest, staying in the moment, and enjoying yourself is also an option for you,” she said but this time with a spark in her voice that sounded almost like a playful challenge.
I was stunned. To me, his cancer was a brick wall that stood in the way of our lives and our future. The idea of scaling the wall and deciding that it would become a detail in our lives felt mind blowing. Living life to the fullest? Staying in the moment? That would be nice, I thought. If it were only that easy.
While I was rejecting this idea, a part of me began considering what it might look like to change my perspective on this bloody cancer. Her words jarred something deep inside that made me consider the idea, mostly out of desperation to relieve the pain.
Perhaps, I could change my outlook on cancer and its impact on our lives. My husband had done so. Maybe I could too.