I’ll never forget how it felt, when you were lying in the cardiology unit, the wires and monitors, the dressing over your heart, the vulnerability exposed like a raw wound. Your heart rate spiked— I don’t know exactly what caused it, a call, a text? but I felt the change, it crackled in the air with one cruel nurse almost ready to physically propel me from the room and the nurse hastily hustled me out. When I was invited to come back in, something had changed, your girlfriend had called? Do you know at that point, when they walked me out that they asked me if I really was your wife? How was I supposed to answer? Legally yes, if you had died that morning (and how lucky you were that you didn’t), it would have been me that picked up all the unfinished pieces. The endless paperwork, the bureaucracy, dressing the open sores of grief and sorrow. I hate that I read body language, ignorance would have been so much easier. I hated the nurses for being complicit. I left feeling ashamed that despite my compassion I was being sidelined, discarded. Those twenty years suddenly counting for nothing, nothing at all. Meaningless. I'm older, uglier, I don't get the sympathy vote.
Did you phone her when you thought you might be dying? Did you wish you hadn’t called me? And at any point when you were lying in that hospital did you think how it might have been for me when my father was dying? When I came back from all those attritional visits to see my uncle? When you asked me to pop in and visit your colleagues wife, and I could see, she too was dying ?- Oh, that was the biggest tragedy of them all, given her youth, her humility, and her deep, enduring love for her two young children.
The next day, when I arrived, having checked with you that you wanted me to come, I was accosted again by a staff member. You had two visitors, you shouldn't have so many. For a moment I thought maybe it was her, but no she'd come the day before - after me. Poor ward staff, how often does this happen, how clear were you? After an hour of trying to find a car-parking spot, I didn't care. I was the wrong person to attempt to lecture, I chucked your next-door neighbours out, they are complicit too. I was past caring, the passive aggressive car-park chaos still burning on my retina - everyone's need was as great as the next persons - no prisoners were being taken, it was a miracle there wasn't a four-car pile up, or maybe there was and I sailed past it - eventually channeling my inner-goodwill hunting-vibe.
Did you ever step out of your self-centred zone and wonder in all the mess and pain after my father died whether you’d really done right by me? Or were you too busy, masking the guilt at the relief you felt and relishing the thought of new possibilities? When you discovered me, alone in the chaos of my fathers house, after a brief hospital interlude myself, having noted the washing-up needed doing — did you feel anything other than the fact you were late for a hot-date with your girlfriend? Did you feel one iota of consideration for my needs, or was your “I’ll help you get rid of some of your father’s junk next weekend” sufficient?…Some weekends are a very long time coming aren’t they?
As I left your hospital bedside today you said “I’ve missed you”. Really? Or have you missed the twenty years of comfort and nourishment, as I withered. I don’t know. I’ve given up trying to walk in your shoes, it’s not good for me. It hurts me. At the Hospital today, we talked about families. Yours couldn’t drop me me fast enough, I wasn’t sure about calling your parents, was it my place? I called your sister-in-law, when she remembered who I was, she, at least, was compassionate. Your father called me, a whole twelve months and some…too late, asked me how I was before moving on to you. Another question that was suddenly too hard to answer.
You told me it was my ‘choice’ to leave. I’m not sure self-preservation is a choice, it’s more a visceral need to find high ground, a deep primal cry for help and fear, a lot of fear. I’ve been terrified, every day for the last nineteen months. Every step of that time, I haven’t known what was ahead. You made so many assumptions when I left, and today you said, “we probably need to talk in the New Year”. Talking never seems to have solved anything at this murky end of our relationship. Generally, I listen, you assume, re-fine the narrative that makes you feel more comfortable with yourself, and I go unheard as you listen, but don't hear. Does assuaging your guilt make it better? Even at a moment of life and death, you manage to break my heart. Just when I thought it couldn’t break further. I will never forget these past two days - the profound emotion of someone you love facing death, (THAT is an emotion I’ve experienced before, it still hits hard). The setting aside of blame, hurt, history, to be compassionate and caring in someones time of need, and then the thunderbolt shift, the realisation that you are existing in a liminal space where you have no place, the utter agony of that loneliness compounding ones loneliness. You let me down, I didn’t deserve that. I will not allow you to hurt me any more.
Will I regret writing this? I hope not. Every now and then, I will sit with these words, and as time passes I hope I will be able to edit and re-shape them. May life bring me sweetness to dull the bitter.
Addendum:
The year is not yet done and I have had a final kick in the teeth. And that blow has taught me something that perhaps I knew, intuitively - but if anyone else reads this and can pass it on for the greater good, then please do.
It is this: 'Don't start a new relationship before finishing the old one" it causes untold hurt, deep, deep, pain - to a multitude of people beyond those involved in the immediate relationship. Weakness, immaturity, is no excuse.