I heard from Kirsten today. Rusty hasn't long. He's in hospice, falling to pieces. I saw him Sunday. He didn't see me though his eyes were open. I saw a man who had lost 150 pounds in under four months.
I feel bad, but it's so much worse for Kirsten. Her husband of twenty-six years is going away before her eyes and all she can do is watch, and say reassuring things. In her shoes, I'd want to die. I've wanted to die after a loss, but my losses never compared to this. I wonder what is running through her mind. It's all there at the end. There's the memories of first meetings, first kiss, the day he asked, and the day she put on her wedding dress and said "I do". There were the years weekends as the track with friends while Rusty raced his GT lite, Toyota Corolla. Nights at the hockey games, the dinners out and day after day of one goal: making a life together.
When you marry and you say 'I do' no one ever thinks of this day. That's far in the future, and it's in an inevitable part of the bargain when. you do 'til death do us part'. Death comes, you part, and it's done. But before that there are the years, the sleepless nights, the sharing, becoming closer to one human being than you ever dared imagine. The pain and the joy, the hard work, it all comes down to this, Rusty in his bed and Kirsten watching. She's there because Rusty went all in, put in the time, did the work, was strong when she was weak, and let her see when he was weak. Marriage isn't a ceremony, it's an investment. Of putting in the time to build a relationship worth sitting through the painful end.
Kirsten aches. I know it, i feel it in every text, she aches in ways i can't imagine. But I'm pretty darned certain she wouldn't have it any other way. More years, sure. Finding out about his heart disease or cancer earlier, of couse she'd change that. That would give them more years, more time, more investment. But she needs to be here, because that was part of the bargain when she slipped her ring on his finger.