Dying Love

Dear Derek,

Thank you for being by my side always. The nurse has kindly agreed to pass our letters to each other so that we may continue to have our chats. I want nothing more than to be with you properly, holding you, and you holding me…but we make do with what we have. Sorry for the terrible handwriting darling, this ventilator makes it difficult to write properly.

This may seem bizarre, but I'm actually writing this letter to call you out on a few things. I think the hospital restrictions of us not being in the same room, coupled with my being terminally ill really helps!

You have been a wonderful man to me Derek, you know this, I’ve always told you this. You came into what was already a fine life, and made it magical. However, there are things you did that really irked me my dear. For instance, your inability to talk about your feelings! Good grief just say I've annoyed you! I understand that it was hard for you, I get that, I do, but I am your other half. Somehow it never felt as though I got that same half from you back. And I don’t mean forgetting to do the chores I’d ask, I mean telling me what was on your mind. Telling me what hurt you, what bothered you. Because, Derek, my love, now we have no time. You robbed me of the chance to hold you through the darkness as you did for me. Do you know how hurtful that is? Whilst you wrongfully, stupidly, probably thought you were protecting me, you harmed the chance for us to be one.

We had a wild romance, I admit that. Knew each other for a week, dated for a month, married within the year. If that’s not knowing you found your soulmate, I don’t know what else it could possibly be. We had two years of bliss, the best moments of my life. The best. And for that I have you to thank Derek. And I always will. But then I became ill and that changed things. It would. Perhaps I didn’t appreciate you as much as I should have. Perhaps it felt like I was ignorant of how much you were trying, I wasn’t, I promise.

And I was waiting patiently for you to open up to me, and you were, slowly. But I saw you retract back into yourself as soon as I got the diagnosis. More closed than you had ever been. And I didn’t say anything, how could I? You nobly put your feelings to the side and prioritised me, in all ways, as always. And somehow, I know you needed to do that. There is nothing that you haven’t done to support me through this sickness in the past year – except be there in it with me. This happened to us. We should have fought it together. I kick myself for not saying anything sooner…perhaps I caught it from you…for how much we loved each other, I wanted more for us.

So as my dying demand, I implore you to just rant to me. Rant to me about the things that have plagued you. About the things that frustrated you, how I frustrated you! You treated me like a perfect princess and so you were my perfect prince. But that’s not real. I am not perfect, and neither are you for nurturing that belief. And that’s okay.

So, speak!

Love, Lucy

My dearest Lucy,

I am at a loss for words…I had no idea it bothered you so much…I’m so sorry. I thought I was doing the right thing. I just wanted to be the best husband for you, I really did. I hate the idea of doing this now, like this, via letter. I too wish I were holding you. But I have no right to deny you answers. Not now. 

You’re right, I’m not one to speak about myself, I think that was killed out of me a long time ago. And I knew you knew that, you were so patient with me, so understanding and you were slowly resurrecting what was once dead. And then your diagnosis came. It broke me. I finally had something beautiful, and I was about to lose it. I watched you fade before my eyes. You always kept your humour, your smile, but your pain was apparent, everywhere. Death crept up on you and there was nothing that you could do to hide that.

It’s very hard to talk about my feelings. I would see your pain and just push mine to one side. How could I ever have a thought for myself when you needed me? I’m not blaming you for that, but it did create something sad, heavy, in our relationship. Something that wasn’t there before.

What frustrated me? Everything. At the start of us, I was frustrated at your infinite patience. You were so wonderful that I dared not tarnish you with my thoughts, my past. How could I do that in the presence of such purity? I was frustrated by our neighbours. They were so lazy, never wheeling out the bins for bin collection day. I hated that. But I would do it instead every week and smiled at them when I saw them, just to be civil – the perfect neighbour as well as the perfect husband.

I was extremely frustrated that your dad seemed to disprove of me. He clearly thought I wasn’t good enough for you, and he was right, I wasn’t. But I didn’t want anyone to know that aside from myself. If only I knew, then I could pretend that I was just insecure – rightly so. So, every family gathering, I dreaded. It filled me with anxiety and self-loathing. I will admit that I began to resent your father after some time (I hope that’s okay to say, I know how much you love him). But seeing him was like realising my worst fears and insecurities.

And then you got ill…

I was frustrated that I couldn’t stop it. Perhaps…perhaps I grew tired of it at times, in some senses…

Where I once was someone you chose, I became someone you needed. We couldn’t practice our love the way we used to. Things you would have done to reassure me otherwise were limited. And I mean the small things like hugs and kisses, they were never and could never be the same as before. And any loving gesture began to feel like gratitude. Because I did things, you were grateful for them. It was hard to know what was you loving me and what was you minding me. That sounds so horrible. And I know that’s my own illness eating at me, instilling doubt, fear. But that’s simply how I felt. And I hated that I felt that, that I was so insecure. But I also knew it wasn’t true. I knew you loved me. I just wanted the Lucy I could love fully and her me. I just wanted us; you did nothing wrong. You were dying, how could I ever ask for proof of love? It’s ridiculous.

I’m sorry it took so long to get this to you, I really struggled to find the words. Afraid of saying something wrong, afraid of saying too much.

I love you.

Love, Derek

Derek,

You’re a fool.

I cannot tell you the number of times that I shook my head and sighed at the things you said. And you know that's difficult to do right now. Absolute fool.

But I understand. I do. It breaks my heart you felt those things, but I understand that you did.

Let’s start simple. You had every right to feel that way. Before you are my husband, the love of my life, you are a human being. A human being with thoughts and feelings that have every right to think and feel as they do. And before I was unwell, I was, am your wife. So, you should be telling me those things no matter what. In sickness and in health also means that you let me love you despite being sick, not that you love me more because I am.

If you had told me that my infinite patience frustrated you, I would have told you to get over it. If you had said the neighbours were pissing you off, I would have suggested we pranked them together. Put boiled eggs through their letterbox maybe? See how they like it. If you told me my father was a prickly unreasonable man, I would have agreed. You can say that. It’s something I already know. I could have spoken with him, we could have visited him less, I could have visited him alone at times. There are alternatives Derek. Just because something has been done, does not mean it is a precedent which has been set. We must adapt and it’s easy to do so when you love someone. You know, you’ve done it for me.

It can’t have been easy, watching me die. I know I wouldn’t have handled it well if the roles were reversed. But that’s the thing, you never needed to put on a brave face. It’s a shit situation and we are allowed to feel and be shitty about it. If you had screamed when you had to help me to the toilet for the umpteenth time I would have understood. Relieved in fact. If you had burst into tears when I couldn’t eat for days, I would have cried with you. Love is weakness as well as strength. You assumed flaws where there were none.

You could never have tarnished me with your thoughts and your past, because they crafted you and I chose you and I always will. But you did tarnish what we had with the absence of your honesty. And I am telling you this now because it is so important Derek. When I’m gone, please don’t make the same mistake. When you find someone new, share yourself. That’s what it really means to practice love. You owe it to me as much as you do to yourself.

Love, Lucy

Dear Lucy,

I’m sorry the paper is soddened. I am honestly beside myself with grief. I am grieving you; I am grieving what we had, I am grieving what could have been and I am grieving what would have been. It’s one thing to break up with someone or to have been betrayed by a loved one. But that was not us. We would have had a long and beautiful life together. We would have had children, a beautiful home, a thriving family. Do you know how hard that is? How deeply that breaks my heart? I have grieved our children in my mind every day since the day we left that hospital appointment. Eva, Aria and Noah. I have grieved the four-bedroom house with a garden for Lancelot the dog. I have grieved the countless grandchildren we would have had. I have grieved the graduations, the holidays, the anniversaries, the birthdays, the shopping trips, the career successes, the dates, all of it. Everything. I miss, yes miss, because I have already lived it all so much already that they are memories carved into my soul. I miss the failures too. I miss the times where we ruined our dinner, where we had to call the fire brigade, where I spent the night on the couch because I didn’t say you were pretty in time once again. I miss holding you as you cried, I miss keeping you safe when your parents died. I missed it and yet I miss it immeasurably.

My sweet darling, I am so sorry that I kept a part of me from you. I’m sorry you missed that opportunity to show me the depths of your love for me. I cannot bear to think about how much that is because you have already given me so much. How could you love me more? I will never know that now and I can’t bear the thought of that. I did keep parts of myself from you. But when you became ill, my mind broke Lucy. I couldn’t bear to say anything because then I would say everything and then I wouldn’t be living anymore. And I can’t, I couldn’t when you needed me. When I needed to stay alive for your death. It’s world shattering knowing that your partner is going to die, by a date, imminently. The only way I could survive was to remove any thought of myself. You ask what was on my mind during that time? Grief. Constantly. Not to talk about the grief that will take hold of me when you actually die. I would never kill myself Lucy, because I know you would be heartbroken by that. But I am certain that I will naturally die soon after you. And all I hope and pray for is that I will find you in the afterlife. I really truly hope that with all my heart.

Loving you always,

Derek

My sweet darling,

I love you. Thank you so much for everything. I have never been so grateful to be alive than during the short, but wonderful three years we spent together. I love you so much. I am so sorry for us. There is so much I want to say to you, but I can’t. I love you and see you soon, I’ll tell you then.



My beautiful, ang–