When does it let up?
by Diane
(Houston, Tx, USA)
In February 2005 my sweet Ian walked up the steps to our house, paused and said, "My hip hurts." That's when our world fell apart.
I met him in, of all things, a gay bar on July 25, 1991 and we were hardly apart from that moment on. He loved me with such intensity and I always felt bad that I wasn't capable of that kind of burning intensity, but in my quieter way I loved him with everything I had.
He was wonderful, funny, beautiful, brilliant and he loved me. He would get all melty-eyed when he looked at me. And I'd get all squishy inside because he looked at me that way. He was my whole world.
Stage 4 prostate cancer, they said. We can treat it but we can't cure it, they said. Eighteen months, they said. Well, they were wrong. Eighteen months turned into two years and two years became three. Three years of every kind of humiliating, painful hell the medical community could dish out, and he never complained. Not a peep. He never felt sorry for himself. But the war ended on March 20, 2009, just shy of four years from the date of his diagnosis.
I thought I was prepared. I knew he was ready because he signed the papers and admitted himself into hospice. He never spoke a sentence to me again, just single words and then only sounds; and nine days later he was gone.
I wanted to be there when he died. I wanted to hold him and tell him how much he was loved. I wanted to kiss him goodbye. I wanted to comfort him. But he slipped quietly away while I slept and now I'm all alone.
He wasn't supposed to go away. He's supposed to be here. With me. Pictures are just pieces of paper that show me what I lost. Condolence cards? What hypocrisy. All they do is remind me that he's gone. You're sorry? Save it. It brings no comfort only more pain.
Don't feed me the bullshit about how God needed another angel. How could God need him more than I do? All that's left is pain and more pain.
