It seems that I will be using this blog to describe stages in the grief process.  One minute I seem to be okay and then I rage and sob and call to him not to leave me.  Silly I know, but his presence is everywhere and I miss him so much.  When I came home from the hospital I ran to his pillow and his undershirts just to catch his scent. After he died, I held him for a couple of hours with my nose in the crook of his neck to catch his essence as I had done so many times in our marriage.  I think back at all the things I could have done better, paid more attention to his needs while being so caught up in my career and dogs. Al suffered from one type of cancer or another for twenty years.   He was determined to live for me.  He endured chemo for me.  Once one has cancer, one waits for its reoccurrence despite chemo, surgery, radiation.  If I were to get cancer, I would do nothing because I could not live knowing it could strike again and again.  He did it for me.

He was not a man to accept softness or babying.  I wanted to baby him, but instead I just made sure he was doing what he needed to stay well except for this last chemo when I failed to keep his nutrition where it should be as he would eat little but fruit. I nagged and prodded and threatened but nothing could make him eat; I am told it would not have mattered anyway. He was just losing ground.He knew he was dying; he knew it was time but it was not time for me.  It would never be time for me.

Tonight a friend and I listened to music to be played at his memorial service.  He loved Bach; listening to his favorite pieces without him was almost more than I could bear.  He often said that he could believe in God because of music, especially the genius of Bach.  I listened to the Celtic Women CD’s.  He was so interested in the Celts, read everything he could about them and perfected whole monologues of legend and lore. He was interested in so many things with his fine mind and scientific bent.  He was so brilliant and capable.  I just cannot believe how empty this house is and how empty my heart.

So many memories, so many tears . . .