When Brian received his cancer diagnosis, he knew right away that it was terminal. They told him 8-12 months without chemo, two years with chemo. After much deliberation, he opted for chemo. It didn't extend his life. It didn't buy him more quality time. He died three and a half months later having never come back home from his surgery. But chemo is a topic for another post.
Brian was so smart and so introspective, and he processed his mortality quickly and privately. He also thought a lot about me, and how his death would effect my life. Often throughout his illness he spoke of how his dying was so much harder on me than it was on him. I find it hard to believe that that could be true, but I hope it is. I know how hard it has been for me, and I would like to think that it was easier for him, but I can't imagine that it was.
Brian and I had a rare and beautiful relationship. We had that kind of love that others dream about - a perfect non-demanding love that was always easy, always joyful, always true. So early on in his illness when he told me that he wanted me to love and to allow myself to fall in love again, I told him no and shut down the discussion.
Before he died he told me that he wanted me to live. He wanted me to be happy, to embrace life, and to live it for both of us. That was a hard thing to hear. After he died, I wanted to shrivel up and die myself. Suicide was attractive, but it was never an option as I promised him that I would live. And so I have, but loving again - that didn't seem possible. I always knew that what we had was special, and that I could never have that love again. What I didn't know, that Brian did, was that I couldn't go on living without love.
My life changed, and in many ways started, when Brian came into it. The love we shared made life beautiful. So when Brian wanted me to love again, he really wanted me to live. He knew that without love, my life wouldn't be worth living, so he didn't just give me permission to love again, he asked me to love again. He asked me to embrace life and live it fully, and he knew that without love I couldn't.
Now with some time and perspective, I am reminded of how smart Brian was, and just how completely he loved me. He was right - life without love can't be fully embraced. Without love, trust, and touch, life is stark and frightening.
About six months after Brian died, I just wanted someone to touch me - to validate that I was still alive by letting me feel a warm and tender touch. Brian and I were very physical - we always held hands, hugged, and kissed. When he died, I missed him so much in my life. I missed him in my bed. I missed his voice. I missed everything, but I didn't realize how much I missed his touch. I'm not talking about sex - I'm talking about the simple life affirming joy of a loving touch of a hand. I felt alone, ugly, undesirable, and half dead. I just needed to feel. I wasn't looking for love. I wasn't interested in sex. I craved being touched. I wanted someone to hold my hand, to hug me in more than just that chaste "poor-widow" way that people hugged me. I needed to feel connection with life, and that was gone.
Eight months after Brian died, I became good friends with a man whose wife was diagnosed with cancer about the same time Brian was. She died three months after Brian. We met in a bereavement group, and being in such similar places in our grief we formed an fast connection. I remember the first night we talked, we were both so broken. I cried for Brian, he cried for his wife. We just sat and cried together. And then, much to my horror, I asked if I could touch him. Under any other circumstances that would have been terrible, but he looked at me and he understood exactly what I meant. And so we held hands and we both cried for our respective loved ones. As deep as my grief was, as much as I was ready to give up my life, as pained and broken as I was; holding hands with him was the first life affirming moment I had after Brian's death.
We are still very good friends. We still talk about our losses, but we also talk about our lives. We've held hands, we've hugged, we've helped each other with emotional and practical matters, and on an emotional level an intimate relationship. So many of my friends have decided that we also have a secret intimate physical relationship. It makes me laugh. We've never kissed. We've never flirted with the idea. That is not in our future. He is very dear to me because together we navigated through some of the worst parts of our grief. By listening, by understanding, and by holding my hand, he helped me to look away from death and back towards life.
So when I look forward towards life, I know that to embrace it I have to embrace love. I understand what Brian wanted for me, and I want it for myself. I can't live without love. I don't know how anyone could. Allowing myself to love, is allowing myself to live. To love, trust and touch another affirms that life is worth living. Allowing myself to love is not turning away from Brian, it's honoring his wish for me to have a full life.
I'm still figuring this life thing out. I still have fears. I still miss Brian every day. But I will let myself love completely. I will never compare another person to Brian - he was one of kind, as we all are. I will never try to replace that relationship or hold it as a benchmark for others. But I will allow myself to love, and share, and touch, and live because I need that as much as I need the air that I breathe.
I am not just able to love. I live to love, or maybe I love to live, or maybe its all the same thing.
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