Anniversaries

We celebrate birthdays and anniversaries.  We teach children that the anniversary of their birth is a day to celebrate with cake and ice cream and presents.  We celebrate our marriages each year on the anniversary of our weddings.  Celebrations of life - reliving happy memories and cherishing our blessings.

But what about the anniversaries of death and of pain?  They descend upon us with renewed anguish.  They intensify our pain.  A year ago Brian was alive.  He had terminal cancer, but we didn't know it.  We thought he had a bad gall bladder - we thought he would be ok.  Yesterday, today and four months of tomorrows are anniversaries of horror.  Memories of seeing him sick, of losing hope, of a doctor telling me that he was dying.  Memories of what they did to his body - how they cut him open like a fish and stapled him back together like a torn package without fixing the broken parts inside.  Memories of chemo fogging his mind and tormenting his body.  Of procedures that didn't work.  Of a perforated stomach - repaired, only to reperforate in a few days.  Memories of bodily fluids, of drainage tubes.  Of ticking machines and hospital noises.  Memories of darkness and dispair, of loss and anger.  Memories of life slowing slipping away - the fragility of the human body.  Memories of drugs and medications, and over-medications.  Of vomit and bile and urine.

Memories of a wonderful man, being eaten alive from the inside.  A man I loved with all my heart who couldn't get out of bed, who couldn't eat, who couldn't fight the cancer cells that robbed him of his freedom and then his life.  Memories of nights in the dark watching his chest rise and fall.  Of jumping up to make sure he was still breathing.  Memories of offering help and comfort and love.  Help that didn't really help anything, and comfort that couldn't change anything, and love that maybe helped to make the whole business of dying a little less horrific - maybe, but probably not.

Memories of the end, when medications were no longer given to avoid pain, but rather to end pain.  When I had to push the button that I knew would ultimately end his life, and which was the most painful thing and probably the most loving thing I have ever done.  What do we do with those anniversaries?  How do we survive them?  How can I focus on how beautiful Brian was, and how brave, and gracious, and grateful he was until the end, when all I can feel is a pain so searing that I think I may not survive?

There is no cake, no ice cream, no possible way to honor him and to lessen the pain of those memories. No way to survive those anniversaries, but to brace yourself for an onslaught of pain and hurt and hope that we come out the other side relatively whole.

I am just at the beginning of so many of those anniversaries.  Painful anniversaries that occur on New Years, on friend's birthdays, on our wedding anniversary.  Pain that overshadows any celebration of life.

Last year New Years Eve day was spent in the emergency room.  New Years Day spent in bed googling for some hope - hope that was crushed on January 8th.

Tuesday is New Year Eve - a time when we are told to reflect on the wonderful memories of the past year, and resolve to live fully in the coming one.  There wasn't a moment of 2013 that wasn't shadowed with pain and loss, and looking ahead to 2014 is unbearable.  It will be a year in which there are no new memories of Brian.  A year in which he ceases to exist in the world, but lives so strongly in my heart.  A love that can no longer be shared or expressed or enjoyed.  A love so true that it has left a hole too large to be filled.

I don't know how to live with these anniversaries.  I don't know how to manage this pain.