is it you?

I’ve been feeling super low this week. Usually in the mornings. I wake up several times in the night, I don’t feel like getting up in the morning, dishes piled up, bed unmade for days, looking at photographs and wondering to myself was he sick in this picture?, putting things off that need doing, crying, the same song playing through my mind (Michael and I were absolute Yacht Rock lovers so don’t judge), remembering the last time I lay next to him while he was in the hospital with my head on his chest - the sound of his heartbeat deep and loud and strong. Completely missing the man who could finish my sentences for the past 23 years. And something else that keeps running through my mind and adding to the…ick, is the question of whether or not Michael knew that he was as sick as he was; if there came a point when he knew that he was dying. I realize that I’m probably tormenting myself by dwelling on this thought and you might advise me to stop it – that nothing good will come of it and I get it; of course, I don’t think it will solve anything or bring enlightenment to the why of it all - I’m not that far gone. But it’s real and something I’m wrestling with. I recognize that this may all seem like a jumble which it totally is and which it completely feels like in my head and heart.

When Jeff had cancer, we never spoke about him being sick or what his prognosis was going to mean for the future of me and our children. Honestly, I think we avoided it because the reality of what was happening spoke for itself, and we didn’t have the emotional maturity to even utter the words. We kept everything on the surface and business-like. About 8 months in, he was going to a counselor to whom he asked, “Do you think I should ask Annalea if I’m going to make it?” to which the counselor – very wisely, I thought  – responded, “Only if you’re prepared for whatever her answer may be.” And, yes, he asked me; I remember it so clearly. I was folding laundry at our dining room table when the question was spoken, and it was a few minutes before I responded. My mind was filled with everything, medically speaking, that had transpired to that point: metastasized tumors, seizures, feeding tubes, rapid weight loss, surgeries, courses of radiation and rounds of chemotherapy, hospitalizations… I couldn’t see a way out of that, and so I told him, “No.” I lived with so much regret over that small, yet pivotal, conversation for a long time and I remember being so tired of trying to keep it together and put on a brave face and be his cheerleader while watching him waste away; terrified that my one word may have caused him to give up any hope of getting better. Several years later, his cousin (who happens to be a therapist) told me that perhaps my response was the permission he needed to give himself to stop holding on to a fight that he already knew he wasn’t going to win. Maybe that’s so. I did take some relief in considering the possibility.

Fast forward to my marriage to Michael, and him hearing that story more than once and knowing how much it troubled me when the monster of regret would rear its jeering head; neither of us ever imagining that we’d be in a similar situation together. And everything happened so fast from when he was diagnosed to his passing that there was no time to even talk about the possibility of him dying, and yet all the signs were there. Before he went to the hospital for the last time, we were lying in bed, my head on his chest, and I was crying and telling him not to leave me (the closest I came to uttering the possibility of him dying). He just let me cry and stroked my hair and looked at me with love in his eyes and said, “I’m not gonna leave you, baby.” I know that he knew what I was saying, but what I don’t know is if he knew but was just trying to reassure me. I didn’t have the guts to ask, being too fearful to speak out loud what I think we both already knew. I shared this with my friend, Heidi, and she said, “…he hasn’t left you.” She’s right, of course. Michael still lives – and will forever remain – in my heart.

What I do know and believe to be true is God’s promise for His children, “For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the Lord, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.” ~ Jeremiah 29:11. I 100% know that God’s plan for Michael was complete, his purpose as a child of God fulfilled or else he’d still be with us. And while I take comfort in that, it doesn’t make the loss any less difficult or confusing. It reminds me that God’s thoughts and ways are beyond my understanding, Isaiah 55:8-9

I recently came across a beautiful reel on IG that shows a man in a snowy landscape, putting out two stools and holding two cups of coffee. He sits on one of the stools holding his cup and puts the other cup on the other stool. The words on the reel are: “Someone once told me, ‘You may not have gotten to spend the rest of your life with them, but they got to spend the rest of their life with you. And there is beauty in that.’” I absolutely love that and feel so blessed to have been able to walk with Michael to the edge of where I could go before gently passing him on to another set of loving arms.

p.s. I kept a prayer journal during the time that Jeff was ill and each time I wrote in it, I would ask the Lord to heal him. I also asked that if that wasn’t going to be His will for his life, that Jeff would accept Christ before the Lord called him home. Two weeks before he passed away, Jeff asked Jesus into his heart and was baptized at our home by our pastor. Hallelujha!!!