“One friend, finding middle ground, said, ‘I know you knew…
I just hoped you were wrong.’
Simon and I couldnt be more different.
After a decade, as others might contemplate retirement, Simon decided to retrain as a boatbuilder.
We relocated to a stunning coastal town.
He studied and then created a business with fellow graduates.
This wasnt entirely new.
A parental war-zone childhood made me fear for my wonderful, careworn mother.
I learned that good goes bad.
Night always follows day.
Sometimes, I forced myself to imagine my mother dying: Things were manageable if they werent terminal.
But cancer soon shattered this truce and she died at 62.
Worrying about her hadnt kept her safe, so it was pointless.
Or … had worrying less allowed her to die?
Having found Simons all-embracing love, I was taking no chances with losing him too.
I needed her incredulity: This was my problem to quell, not Simons to survive.
I remember telling him, I cant believe, with you, one lovely day can follow another.
It was true and new.
I had glimpses of believing I could disentangle loss from love, but only glimpses.
Our shiny life together and my fear were so at odds, I mostly kept how I felt hidden.
I didnt want to oxygenate my anxiety with words.
Simon knew its essence, but not its magnitude.
How could I burden him with feeling I doubted his competence?
Hed managed fine without me for decades.
Then Id hear him stroll back in.
A complex shoulder operation followed.
Soon after, he fell backward while playing tennis.
He always survived, and was showing me, beautifully, how to live.
When the pandemic began, Simon suggested I keep a diary.
April 2020, hes safe and the world is at a standstill.
He was diagnosed in July with stage 4 lung cancer in a non-smoker.
Steroids for the side effects he experienced after that one treatment elicited psychosis.
As that eased, he had a stroke.
During that time he insisted on wearing his favorite pink linen shirt for his palliative nurses visits.
He never admitted the futility of exercises his physical therapist said might help him walk again.
A few days later, he asked for whisky it was his last breakfast.
Simon died on March 3, 2021.
He was 71 years old.
But did I fail him otherwise?
I stopped worrying and my mum died.
Was this the same?
Simons relatives had heart disease and assorted medical emergencies but never cancer.
Id blithely disregarded what was racing through him while I made commitments in my diary to worry less.
Tiny lapses in my arsenal of fear, with mum, with Simon, and those I love disappear.
Floundering in the slipstream of our life together, Ive joined grief communities, forums and online meetings.
Experts concede each experience of grief is unique, but describe well-trodden healing paths.
I discounted exaggerated grief.
… Superstitiously terrified that if I told anyone, it might come true, I kept it secret.
But it was killing me.
In my muddle of loss, I finally felt seen as her tragic words chimed with my thoughts.
Could I have saved Simon by worrying better or harder or smarter?
Did I somehow know hed die an untimely death?
One friend, finding middle ground, said, I know you knew …
I just hoped you were wrong.
Given our time again, I hope Id live it without such turmoil.
But its part of me, and despite it, I was loved by an exceptional man.
But mostly, such unease is stilled now.
I can feel happy its striking and it usually happens when Im doing something Simon.
He makes me a nicer person and a better carpenter.
I regret judging others whove spun like dervishes after loss.
Perpetual motion isnt a sign youre fine keeping going just keeps you going.
I long to be invisible, except when needing company.
I yearn for sleep, and dread hearing and rarely answer How are you?
Any reply feels too complicated.
Hes in each molecule and breath, every ripple, wave and cloud.
I survive because I have him, not despite losing him.
Not obsessively as I did, but in ways that support the dying and those left behind.
Im left behind in a place so beautiful it hurts.
Its like taking a deep breath, but being unable to fill my lungs.
Im not the person I was before Simon.
Maybe my life now is the pale price for such formative love, or perhaps Ill find it again.
I couldnt have conjured up Simon, so all bets are off.
This article originally appeared onHuffPost.
