The night before my son passed away, my husband stayed with him in the hospital and I was at home. That night, my husband contacted me to come early the following morning…it had not been a good night.
I arrived and sent my husband home to get some rest. My son’s condition had gotten worse, things were happening that we did not understand. Multiple tests started happening, multiple specialists started coming in and out of the room. Everyone did their checks but no one told me anything.
I spent most of that day lying next to my son. I morphed my body around his, his beautiful head full of hair lay against my chest, his skin against mine, my hands stroking his legs, holding his hand, kissing him whenever I could… Little did I know it was going to be the last time.
Late in the afternoon, the head of the ICU came in and asked me to call my husband in for a meeting and so I did. He answered within seconds and we both agreed it cannot be good news. He didn’t come into the hospital straight away, he took some time which I understood was time to get ready for what was becoming the inevitable.
And so we had the conversation and understood our worst fears becoming reality, something I wouldn’t even wish upon my worst enemy – there was nothing more they could do.
My husband was destroyed, I know he was. His mini me was gone. But what did he do? He stood strong and did everything… he kissed his son farewell, he brought him home for one final night, he arranged his funeral for the very next day, he got him a beautiful spot in a beautiful cemetery, he prepared him for his forever-after bed, he lay him in his forever-after room with his own hands and as he closed the door to that room indefinitely, he left a part of himself in that room forever.
My husband went back to work 2 days after and threw himself into his work – he said he wanted to make his son proud as he watched over him from heaven. But as you can imagine, it isn’t possible to keep that intensity up for long and after a couple of months, his body said no more and crashed.
In the beginning he didn’t need to worry about me, because my family stuck around. And that was fine for me too, I didn’t want him to worry about me and so I let him ‘deal’ with our circumstances as he wished. From my side, I said to my family that they can’t protect me forever. One day I will have to be alone again, and I’d rather deal with that sooner than later. So when it was just us two, we found a good balance of supporting each other.
The way our ‘support’ worked was unconscious. When my husband knew I was having a ‘bad’ (‘bad’ meaning excruciatingly difficult) day, he forgot his grief and his pain and tried to make me feel better. Similarly, if I knew he was having a bad day, then my pain and suffering would subside and my focus and priority would be him. I know what you’re thinking, how sweet and wonderful. And my husband was sweet and wonderful…but my husband is different now, and so am I.
Neither of us are who we were before the death of our son. I know no-one stays the same as you evolve in life, but I believe your essence remains the same. Our essence was our beautiful baby boy. We buried our essence and since then, we are hollow shells. On the surface you would think we are the same, but underneath we are not and this is where we have found ourselves today.
Today, I am not sure we can be there for each other the way we are needed. How can you be a pillar of support and strength, when your own foundation has crumbled? How can you help pick someone else up when you, yourself, have fallen?
I love my husband in ways I cannot describe, he is still sweet and considerate and by-and-large just a wonderful man. You’d have your work cut out if I asked you to find a better man. But can I be who he needs me to be? I’m not so sure.