Page 3 of Love Resurrected
Until she didn’t.
Now the decline is happening so fucking fast and I can’t stop it. In a few days, I’ve watched her go from our new—then—normal, to about gone. Organs began shutting down, one by one. Renal failure set in. Those are the words they used to describe what is happening inside her. Defining the atrocity that is sucking her very life force away. “Renal failure,” the doctor said. “A side effect of terminal cancer.”
Side effect, as though it's something to be ignored. Cured. Incidental by nature. Just an effect. Not a cause.
Because no one knows the cause. Aside from terminal cancer. First, the bloating, as her body began collecting waste instead of expelling it. Then the jaundice when her liver took an indefinite break from working. Her lungs filling with fluids, her breathing labored. The body I have memorized better than my own, that I’ve had my hands on every inch of. That I have loved up close and from afar and has held mine in its heart. That body morphs into something not even remotely resembling my beautiful girl. No longer a person at all. The brilliant, vibrant Katarina Walker.
My Kat.
Slipping away hour by hour. Moment by moment.
Machines bleeping in dissatisfaction with how her vitals respond. Her mouth open like a fish, gaping and trying to take in air. Every breath raspy and forced. Her lips are chapped beyond repair, her insides no longer able to keep anything down. Her brain is gone. I don’t know where it went. I hope it's just tucked away somewhere, hiding out, laying low for safekeeping. I don’t want her aware of how she is in these final moments. But I want her aware of me. I want her to know I’m here, with her, until the very end. I’m never leaving. She’s not alone, she’ll never be alone.
* * *
Tuesday
The hospice nurse recommended I write my feelings down. So I can better accept that Kat is dying. But I’ve accepted she’s dying. All you have to do is look at her to see that. She’s in fucking renal failure, her body filling with its own waste and no way to filter it. Her legs so swollen she can no longer stand. Her brain so befuddled she didn’t know what the laundry basket was this morning.
What happens when she dies? My entire world will be gone, yet life still goes on. People carrying on as though nothing has changed, when absolutely everything in my life is changing and will never be the same. People are living. Working. Laughing. Fucking. Things I can’t bring myself to do. I hate them. Each being still living. Still in a relationship. Still in love. I yell“Why her”out to the universe. Half-expecting a response, even though it’s the oldest question around that has yet to be answered. And not this time either.
Grieving never ends. It’s not a process like they say. That implies a beginning and an ending. Something finite and measurable. Do you ever stop missing someone you love after they die? My mom passed over twenty years ago, and I still miss her. My process with her death isn’t over yet. Kat is my entire goddamn life.
How long should I givethatprocess to finish? Forty years? Fifty, maybe? How about if I just wait until I die? Would that be better?
Grief is all-encompassing. It never ends. Waiting in the corner, the silent killer, ready to consume all that is happy or whole and shred it into something that barely resembles pieces.
All I want to do is write down every experience Kat and I have ever had. Everything from the mundane to the miraculous so I don’t forget.
But experiences have already gone missing.
All I can think about now are platelets and liver numbers, sodium levels and morphine doses.
If I could, I would document every detail of her personality, so it lives on. The light that she brings to my life and to everyone who knows her. And how she is the glue that holds us all together.
When that glue is gone, that’s when everything will unravel.
* * *
Fuck. I'm sad. I'm crying. I'm a little drunk. Sitting by her bedside, nothing but my good friend Jack to keep me company. Or is it Jim? Johnny? Does it matter? Not the best time to write. No one reads it anyway. It’s to help my process. Of grieving and acceptance. That the love of my life is dying.
Because in reality good people die and the shitty people live. It’s just the way it is.
If I don’t write it here, I’ll yell it from the fucking rooftop. Which is what I really want to do. Except this is supposed to be private. Private, so I’m honest and say whatever the fuck I want to. It's just cathartic for me, right? I need catharsis right now, because I don't know how to deal with this otherwise. Sometimes, not often, a smile slips through the mask of misery on her face, her vacuous eyes light with clarity, and I know my Kat is there, deep inside that decaying vessel, trying to break free. I grasp on to that moment and allow it to fuel me through another hour of holding on to hope, as it slowly destroys me.
I miss Kat already and she's not even gone.
* * *
Wednesday
This process is exhausting. Watching her die, saying goodbye, it’s fucking exhausting. I just want it to be over with so I can sleep. So I don’t have to be always wondering when it will happen. Which breath will be her last? Will I have one more moment of coherent Kat before she goes?
And, I don't want her to die at all. I’d rather have this Kat forever than no Kat at all.
I want her to die. I want her to live. I want her to stay like this. I want her to get better. Mostly, I just want to go back in time and meet her sooner, so we have more time together.
* * *
