When the impossible becomes reality

She had a terminal illness, metastatic breast cancer. But she responded well to chemo, and there's so much exciting research, and, well, we weren't like other people. We were special. We both believed that we could keep her alive until the cure. On July 19, 2011, we were proven wrong. Her heart stopped, and mine shattered.

We were together for 15 and a half years. We'd known each other for 21 and a half years. We wanted to spend the rest of our lives together -- she got to spend the rest of her life with me, but I apparently won't be so lucky.

We had a plan. We had lots of plans. Dying was not in the plan. Nor was the pain she suffered the last few months of her life - not the pain, nor the nausea, nor the weakness of the last few weeks. And the pain that I've somehow survived (so far) since her death definitely wasn't in the plan.

The first several weeks, I survived only by convincing myself that she would return. I knew it was impossible, but since her death was impossible, too. . . I staggered under the weight of grief, and I was surprised by how physical the pain of her absence was. When I had open-heart surgery a few years ago, it felt like someone had strapped a sharp-edged metal plate to my chest. This felt similar, but in addition to the weight and the pain, there was also a cavity, an emptiness, an internal void. Empty heaviness -- perhaps it would be closest to describe it as a biological black hole.

Now, after her memorial last week, as we approach the ten-week mark since her death, I've started to feel a shift. I'm beginning to be more willing to envision a future, even one that doesn't include her. I'm becoming more confident that I can carry her with me, that she will not fade for me. I've taken comfort from text in About Grief, by Marasco and Shuff. They reassure me that our names appear together in the book of the universe and that somewhere it is written that she was mine, I was hers, our love was (and remains) powerful, remarkable, and true. Death cannot change that. As I told Sandy while she was dying, "Love doesn't stop."

Turns out, that's true. For a woman who's "gone," she's been with me a great deal. My love for her hasn't stopped, and I feel her love for me continuing strongly. As I'm beginning to piece together the shattered remnants of my heart, of my being, I'm putting my relationship with Sandy - and the part of her that she gave me - at the core.