Thursday, April 14, 2005

6:00 a.m.

 

Sometimes the way to deal with Linda's death is to either write poetry or to put feelings down in my journal. It is hard to explain what is happening. Being a caregiver for so long has resulted in real psychological problems. They aren’t spiritual in nature. They are simply as a result of what happens when absorbed in something for so long.

 

This is when it is hard as a caregiver to connect with yourself. I do not know where I left myself or when it happened. Taking care of Linda was equivalent to a drug addict who has been hooked on a drug. It is not easy to go cold turkey. Not to be able to take the time to know how this was affecting me is now causing my grief to be very deep. It is not a matter of someone saying that I should get a grip. Only because of being so close to Linda, do I now realize my heart has truly been ripped out and taken.

 

I challenge anyone to see someone they love die such an excruciating death and to simply forget it. The grief I feel cannot be spiritualized away so easily. This is definitely the dark side of the human experience. This is the title I have given to this point and time in my life.

 

To be told that I’ll see Linda later, and that at least she isn’t hurting anymore, is something I already know and I am tired of hearing. This is not something brought into question. Not having her has caused an emptiness I have never felt before. To be married to someone that was everything in life, and to lose someone so beautiful in the way it happened, is something that wounds the human spirit as nothing else can.

 

When I write, it is not just about me. I think often of how many others feel the way I do? To be ripped apart by the greatest enemy of all, called death, is a battle Linda and I fought together and lost. I am not talking about the ultimate victory which will come at the end. I am talking about battle scars that go very deep when dealing with a terminal illness. Linda and I were next to one another during all of our battles together and she was killed by an enemy that is growing bigger by the day. Victims are picked at random and no one is respected.

 

Only now am I realizing how much of myself was lost long ago when totally absorbed in Linda’s battle against cancer. Hospice is helping me to see this. It is painful to face it. So many emotions were experienced than, and now, and not addressed. At least Linda was close by and there was just something about being able to hold her hand. I really miss this. Selfish perhaps when saying this, but Linda was so much a part of me. She made me feel whole. Because I had to put all of my personal emotions on hold, I now feel totally lost. Linda was my queen and princess. She didn’t deserve to die such a hellish death.