Haunted

This has been a rather uneventful week,thankfully. Dad has behaved. Kyle confronted him at the dinner table on Tuesday night when Dad tried to make a comment about how much wine he was drinking. He had bought some little tumbler with liquid measurements going up the side. He said something to the effect that he didn't want Kyle to complain about how much wine he drinks. Ah, but the problem with Kyle wasn't about how MUCH wine he drinks but about WHEN he drinks that wine. Kyle told him not to bait him. I think that shocked Dad. He's so used to making little digs that draw no response that he doesn't know how to flat-out talk about conflict. He hasn't said a thing unkind to Kyle since then. Maybe that's what we should do: call him on it.

Bill has been in the hospital for several days now. They thought the radiation seeds he had had caused a blood vessel or an artery to somehow leak. Is that possible? I hear that when arteries have a leak they squirt all over. Bill would be dead of internal bleeding by now if it had been an artery. He had a procedure of some sort in the middle of the week but it didn't stop the bleeding. He's been in the hospital for at least 5 days and who knows how much longer he'll be there? He has an older woman who lost her husband to cancer about six months ago. She drove him to the hospital. If he's her lover, that's fine with me. Lucky her. On some levels, especially the sex one. All I would add is to tell her to hang on to her credit cards. Tightly.

My friend's husband died. I met her in the cancer support group and enjoy her so much. At the time I met her, she thought his cancer was in remission, under control. A couple of months later his CT scan showed metastatic cancer in the lungs. She and he got married in October so that when he passed she would have some say in what happens to him. Money wasn't an issue; they don't have any. She's been unemployed for over a year and he hadn't been able to work for the past couple of years. The memorial service will be at the same place where they got married, at Wednesday Vespers, just like their wedding. It was touching. They got married at a Catholic Worker where they had met and fallen in love. Now they will say goodbye there. I was very moved by the way she let people know what was going on. She said, on Facebook, 'for those of you who know me, we are now reaching the end of a long journey and are getting ready to transition'. And last Sunday he passed. I have been so sad for her, thinking about how she had waited until she was forty-five to get married and then have him pass within five months. It seems almost cruel. She never wanted children; she has a pacemaker without which her heart would only beat about twice a minute. She wears them out and they have to be replaced. She's on her third one now. She never would have been able to bear a child. She married late because she never found the right person. And she had been a beauty queen when she was a young woman. I admire the strong sense of self she has. Imagine, never feeling compelled to marry.

Now, though, I am haunted by the thought of Bill being alone in the final days of his life. I look back at the last nine months and think, "What the hell happened?" How did this twenty-two year marriage implode like it did? I honestly thought that if I had asked Bill to protect me from gambling, especially in light of how much support I had given him throughout not only this recent cancer but through all the crazy things he had done and had been done to him over these years. that he would have gladly done something. I really, really thought I had enough brownie points. And he doesn't even remember the conversation where he told me he wanted a divorce. HE DOESN'T REMEMBER! As many would say, "He has a disease. He's a damaged person." Others say, "He made his choice. It's completely his fault. He has no one to blame but himself." Tonight one of my best friends said, "Don't you DARE waste one second feeling sorry for him. If you ever start feeling that way just call me on my cell. He made his choice. It is NOT your fault. Not ANY of it." But it doesn't stop me from being sad that he will be alone during his final days. It haunts me.