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After a seven-year battle with Acute Lymphocytic Leukemia, I was forced to confront my own worst fear as my husband, high school sweetheart, and best friend passed away on March 17 of this year. The following is my last letter to him, originally posted at cancer. it's not just an astrological sign anymore this spring.
12.4.06
if the internet exists in heaven...Dear Sweetie,
I am so sorry that this happened. I have replayed the events of 17 March over and over in my head--and each time that I trace back through that day, I see another omen that I carelessly dismissed. I see more and more choices that I could have made differently that day. Would you still be alive if I had insisted on further examination at Johns Hopkins on 16 March? Would you still be with me if I had left work early on the seventeenth, or not gone at all? Would you have died a more comfortable death if I had been there when it happened?
The fact of the matter is that you and I were both coming to terms with the cold truth that we probably weren't going to grow old together. After the damn, fucking leukemia came back for the last and final time, there was a sea change in your demeanor...not as if you had given up your fight, but as if you acknowledged death as a possibility and were no longer afraid or angry. The last Saturday of your life, when we were at the mall with my sister and her fiance, we were sitting on the bench and saw that adorable elderly couple clutching each others' hands, slowly shuffling their way through the crowd...I looked at you and said (as I had so many times before) "That's us. That will be us in fifty years." But this time, your response was different. Instead of smiling sweetly and saying, "I can't wait, babe," you gazed off in the distance and said, "I don't know, babe. I'll try." The words terrified me at once, and continue to haunt me...did you know that the end was near?
I miss you so much--as do many others. That goes without saying. But losing a spouse is different than losing an adult son, a brother, or a nephew. You and I were a team, every day and in every way. Every small life event, the errands, driving, sitting at my desk, brings back a floodlight of memories. I miss your physicality, your sense of humor, the way that you used to sing in the shower when you were having a good morning. I miss the hair on your chest and the warmth of your hands. I even miss your snoring--you could snore every night, all night if it meant that you were back with me.
Throughout the transplant and your leukemia treatment, occasionally my mind would slip to that darkest of possibilities. I must confess, the reason why we went out last July and spent $200 (that we didn't really have) at one of DC's best steakhouses for your birthday was that if your twenty-fourth was your last, I wanted it to be a damn memorable and enjoyable one. We talked often about living life to the fullest so that when our time came we could go without regret.
Even though we thought we had prepared for this by filling out our living wills and discussing final wishes a bit, there is nothing that can prepare you for losing the love of your life. I want you to know that. I never thought that I would be "okay" if you passed--but no one tells you that grief will strike you so hard it will quite literally drive you crazy. There are whole large segments of time during the week immediately following your death that I simply have no memory of. I have been in the car, driving about for errands and thought that I was in one town when I was actually in another (this is quite frustrating when one is looking for a particular business). Sometimes when I read, I see words on the page that are not there--a second examination reveals that they were only a trick of the eye, but at first glance words like "Eric," "Oahu," "love," and "cancer" are typewritten onto the page as plain as day. There is also a part of my brain which (quite illogically) believes that you'll be back for me. I haven't been able to shut off your cell phone yet, for fear
