Time to Go

"Just say it," you silently reminded yourself. You knew you'd regret it if you didn't.

As you walk through the halls of the hospital, you think of all the firsts: first date, first kiss, first baby’s cry.

Now, you’re close to adding another first: first time losing a spouse.

Your husband has been in the hospital for months, gradually getting weaker as cancer spread from organ to organ. It was already too late for treatment when they found it: stage four, metastasized beyond the point of chemo, radiation, or surgery.

Since then, you’ve tried everything you could think of to help him: prayer groups, naturopathic treatments, and even a kook who claims his laser can cure cancer.

But you’re growing tired: you and your daughter have spent nearly every waking moment at the hospital: talking to him, feeding him by hand, and listening to him talk, trying to memorize the sound of his voice so you can remember after he’s gone.

You’ve noticed a real decline lately: the stories have become more and more outlandish, from huge lottery wins to secret kitchens to a man being trapped inside the walls of the hospital. No worries about that guy, though: your husband said he grabbed him by the leg and pulled him out just before he was walled in forever. When you asked what happened to that poor man, your husband said he’d gone home.

You say hello to your favourite nurses along the way to your husband’s room, making conversation as if nothing were wrong. All the nurses love you, but then most people do. You’ve been popular your whole life, a side effect of your cheerful disposition. It’s a blessing and a curse, really.

You’ve always managed to show the world a happy face, no matter what: it’s just your personality. Nobody would know you were dying inside.

And as if watching your husband slowly waste away were not enough to deal with, you are also caring for your demanding 90-year-old mother, who you now figure will outlive your husband. At this rate, though, she may outlive you, too.

Your daughter has been suffering from severe depression since her father’s diagnosis—she even spent her 21^st birthday weeping at her father’s bedside—and your son spends all his time at work: he hasn’t been to visit in weeks. Your daughter resents this, as she has been with you every step of the way, and cannot understand her brother’s absence.

You finally make your way to your husband’s bedside. He hasn’t been conscious for several days now, and you notice the swelling in his hands and feet. That wasn’t there last time you saw him.  

You know logically that he is dying, but some small part of you still holds out hope that he will pull through. He’s always been the picture of health: he’s barely even had a cold in the whole time you’ve been together.

You think back to just a few months ago, before his diagnosis.

“Marth, I’m in the pink,” he’d said after a doctor’s appointment. That appointment had found him in excellent health. The back pain started not long after.  

“Well, you’re always hunched over at the computer,” you’d said, and it was true: as a journalist, he spent many hours a day in front of his computer, often hunched over. It made perfect sense that that was causing the back pain.

He’d only been home a few months after years of working away from home when his cancer diagnosis came. Cholangiocarcinoma: an incredibly rare cancer of the bile duct.

You know you need to say the words you came to say, but you cannot bring yourself to say them yet.

Instead, you talk about your day, your children, your precious memories.

You talk until you’ve run out of things to say, but you still have not said those words.

You return to your car, put the key in the ignition, and begin backing out of your parking spot, but something whispers in your ear.

Just say it.

It is at that moment you realize that you no longer have a choice: you must tell him.

You go back into the hospital, walking down the same halls you’ve been walking for the last few months, and reach his bedside once again.

You take his hand for what could be the last time and start talking.

“Phil,” you say, “you’ve been the best father, the best husband, the best partner I could have asked for. But I can’t do this anymore, and I don’t think you can, either. You have to go, sweetheart.”

He stops breathing.

Just for a few seconds, but long enough that you’re convinced he heard you and understood your meaning. His breathing starts again.

You kiss his hand and return to your car, holding back a torrent of tears that has been threatening to overflow all day.

On your way home, you get pulled over by the cops for an expired sticker.

You explain how you’d just come from visiting your dying husband, and that renewing your sticker had not been your highest priority at the time.

In a show of compassion, the cop lets you off with a warning.

You go home and take a long nap.

The next morning, you receive a call from the head nurse.

“Phil’s much worse,” she says.

“Oh, good,” you say.

The nurse pauses.

“I said he’s much worse,” she repeats as if you hadn’t heard it the first time.

“I’m glad,” you say, “because I can’t do this anymore.”

Five minutes later, the nurse calls back and says your husband has passed.

You thank her and tell your daughter.

“I’m so relieved,” she says, and it’s true.

Neither of you sheds a tear at first: you’ve both cried so much, you no longer have tears to spare.

Every so often, though, the grief hits you, and it knocks you to your knees when it does. Your daughter’s depression worsens, and your son spends even more time at work.

Eventually, you enter a new relationship with a widowed man who has two children—a man your husband introduced you to in the hospital—and spend a lot of time caring for the youngest child. It gives you something to live for again.

But nothing could possibly take your husband’s place: after all, you’d been together for over half your lives.

Your husband always wanted to be an organ donor, but cancer has rendered this impossible.

But his eyes are still good: you donate his corneas to two blind women—one of whom had been waiting 25 years for a transplant—and you are happy that a part of him lives on.

New love may come one day, but nothing will ever come close to what you and your husband had.

After all, it’s not every day you marry an angel.