Searching for Normal

I was married for 48 years, one month, and seven days.

On July 22nd, 2019, Susan died after suffering through multiple strokes and seizures. The accrued damage was too much; each small stroke and each seizure did more damage to her frontal lobe, until she was simply unable to continue.

I prepared a personal journal, written in a rather terse form, of what happened to her. I considered sharing that account here, and even went so far as to paste it into this post. When I read it once again, though, I realized that I could not do so. The story of Susan's decline was so disturbing that I would not want those who knew her to read of what she went through. Suffice to say that the combination of strokes and seizures stripped away her cognitive ability, her emotional self-control, her physical dexterity, her independence, her ability to read, to write, to speak in meaningful words--and eventually, her ability to even eat and drink. I thought I was strong enough to read it without breaking down. I was wrong. And I don't want anyone else to remember her that way. That is a nightmarish burden I should carry alone. If there is any solace to be found in that account, it is this: re-reading the 64-day chronicle of her decline, I realize that her death allowed her to escape from all of the suffering torment that her life had become at the end. "Just let me go... Just let me go... Just let me go." Those were her last clearly articulated words, spoken to her surgeon, and to me, the day before I realized I had to honor her wishes and move her to hospice.

Now I struggle to figure out what I should do with myself, to determine how to go on. The most mundane things--cooking a meal, doing laundry, getting out of bed in the morning and getting ready for bed in the evening--no longer seem natural to me. Every little task seems empty because Susan isn't here with me.

I married Susan two months before my eighteenth birthday. I went from my parents' home to our home. I never spent a day alone until Susan died. Now loneliness is my constant companion.

Had I not promised Susan that I would take care of Anna and Mischa, our two beloved cats, I am not certain that I would have survived the first two weeks after Susan's death. I spent long nights struggling with thoughts of rejoining her. The night I came closest to giving in to those thoughts was the night that I found a gift from her--a book she had bought for me at some point but had not been able to give to me. Perhaps it was intended as this year's birthday gift, or a Christmas gift. It was a slender volume, an illustrated edition of Robert Frost's "Stopping By Woods on a Snowy Evening." She knew it was one of my favorite poems. It was if she had wanted to tell me once again that I too still have miles to go before I sleep. That night, she saved me.

I would like to think I am doing better. Nevertheless, there has not been a day thus far when I have not cried. There has not been a day when I have not felt the crushing burden of despair. There has not been a day when I have not missed her. I do not believe that there ever will be such a day. I simply have to find a way to get through each day in spite of the tears, the despair, and the loneliness.

Normal is out there. I just haven't found it yet.