Tomorrow Being Tomorrow...

[HAP]

Dear friends,

I posted this on walkingwithjane.org earlier tonight. But I think I need to share it with you as well. Especially with tomorrow being tomorrow.

I have had enough today. I don't want to write about cancer. I don't want to write about charities and how they spend their money. I don't want to write about the latest research or the latest conference on NET/CS.

I most certainly should--but do not want to--write about the cancer fraud case at Duke that aired on 60 Minutes last night.

I've had enough of the business of cancer. I've had enough of writing every day. I've had enough of reading every day. I've had enough of analyzing and thinking every day.

I want my wife back and I want my life back.

But it isn't going to happen.

Tomorrow is Valentine's Day. It will be fourteen months and four days since my wife died--since she took her last breath in my arms. It will be fifteen months and one day since the last night we slept together in this house.

Today I went to my voice therapy session. Then I went down the road and bought some craft supplies so I could build a decoration for her grave. I finished it just a few minutes ago. She'd like it, I think.

Tonight, after my ACS meeting, I will write her a Valentine's Day card. I will finish her poem. I will place them in a clear plastic bag and seal it.

In the morning I will have breakfast, take the pills that are supposed to help lower my cholesterol and keep my heart healthy. I will pack the card, the poem and the decoration into my car. I will drive to the cemetery. I will place them on her grave.

I will stand there in the cold and talk to the stone. It is a ritual that keeps me sane on these emotional days. It gives me an anchor for my grief. I can cry there and no one will notice or care or ask for an explanation.

Then I will come home. I will do the research, the thinking and analyzing, the writing. I will go out and sell t-shirts and buttons. I will tell people I am doing OK--that I have good days and bad days--that today...is whatever it is.

Part of me doesn't want to do any of this anymore. Part of me wants to curl up in a ball and hide from the world.

But I won't do that. Maybe I am foolish or egotistical for thinking this, but somewhere out there is a young couple--and one of them has this awful disease and does not know it yet. Maybe, just maybe, what I write and what I do will make a difference in their lives. Maybe they will not go through in their 50s what Jane and I went through in ours.

Maybe one of them won't have to make the weekly trek to the cemetery--or the really tough ones on those days that every couple has that are special.

And maybe one of them won't have to sleep in an empty bed that has a spot in it that never quite gets warm the way it once did.

Peace,

Harry

[terp8r]

Oh Harry, I send you warm thoughts of peace and quiet. You are a relentless warrior against that dreaded disease that took your other half. I also am not looking forward to tomorrow. I miss my valentine and always will.. Peace and love, Pam

[Lainey]

I don't want to do the things I have to do most days either,but like every one of us, I plod along hoping it will get better as time passes.

Harry, what you are doing is huge compared to what I am doing. My work against cancer is taking my brother-in-law to the clinics and looking up info for him. I drive my sisters mother-in-law to her appointments with the oncologist, I sit with her as she gets her treatment, and try to find information for her also.I hate the word, the disease and the fact that cures are not forthcoming.

I want my husband back.. but that is not to be. Tomorrow will be twenty-six months and three days since I told Lars I loved him and he squeezed my hand.Shortly after that he took his last breath. Tomorrow I will light his memory candle, send another balloon into the sky and remember the good times.

Will the special days ever get easier? It seems just as I'm on the road to doing better, another "Day" comes along and I'm back to feeling rotten again.

I wish for tomorrow, the day of love, that we all find peace within as we remember our loved ones and what we shared

with them.

Lainey

[melina]

Harry, Pam and Lainey,

We never really gave Valentine's Day much thought, since it's not a big deal in Norway. In fact it only began being mentioned the last few years, mostly with the internet and American tv shows. Every day could be Valentine's Day at my house. Every day I think about him - look toward the remaining ashes, the ones I saved and did not spread at sea.

Still, I understand the day is a reminder. I understand how it must be for those of you living in the commercial state of things, and also, I'm sure, memories of those you love. I also want my husband and my life back. I'm lonely and sad and exhausted. This is not the life I had expected.

I admire all those who are able to gather their strength to fight against what took your wives or husbands. As for me - I fight other battles, but not this one. One day we'll eradicate cancer, but I don't have the strength to do anything about it. It won't bring my husband back. I know that fighting this disease might help to keep some other woman from losing her husband, or children from losing their father. But selfishly, it doesn't really matter to me any longer. We all die, some sooner than others. I've lost a lot of people in my life and have worked to spread awareness of the causes of cancer and suicide.

But now - I just want to forget what took the most important person in the world to me. I don't want to think about it.

Wishing you all a bearable day - with peace and hope.

Melina

[HAP]

Dear Lainey,

What you are doing is far harder than what I am doing. I can sometimes reduce cancer to an abstraction because I don't have to deal with the day-to-day suffering. We need people to carry the burden of caregiver.

Dear Melina,

Look at what you do. You help so many others carry their burdens--help them find an hour they can put them down in. You fight a different battle--but it is in the war against human suffering none-the-less.

Dear Pam,

My friend John Milton once wrote--"They do also serve who only stand and wait." What you wrote has raised my spirits. Thank you for being there. You do more than you know.

Peace,

Harry

[widower]

I'm sorry for all your losses. Harry your post esp hit home hard - I can relate to the weariness and loneliness of the loss and esp this day. Wasn't sure what to do today; if nothing else I planned to toast her with a glass of one of our favorite wines. I hadn't thought about a card and the other things some of you mentioned. Frankly I'm not sure I could write a card; it would be so hard - but maybe I should. It might be hard "in a good way" if you know what I mean (letting it out). Not sure. And as she has no grave (cremated), what do I do with it? I'm reminded of the cards that I later found which she kept. She never seemed to seem or feel this day was a big deal per se so I was surprised; I hadn't made a habit of keeping hers and am hating myself for it, desperately wishing I had them all. And of course it brought all those painful feelings of loss and regret and guilt and oh all the fun stuff back. So mostly I've been thinking about staying busy today and trying to survive it.

Know that what you wrote here mattered. It does help to know I'm not the only one who bears this cross and to be poignantly reminded of it. Best to all of you.

[kayc]

Oh Harry, You just make us love you! Here you are grieving over the loss of your wife, yet you are thinking of others and how to spare them this misfortune. Your selflessness and caring really touches me.

Your wife, I'm sure, is enjoying the decoration and the card you are placing in her memory today. While some of us do not do these outward things, still our loved one is uppermost in our hearts and this day is another day that we miss them with all of our being...this day has ceased to have meaning except it is the day I celebrate my dog's birthday with him so he is my valentine. _

[mfh]

Dear all,

I purposely did not log on today until now because I have just been numb. I got ambushed by Valentine's Day...memories of the celebrations of our love have flooded me all weekend. Bill and I used this day almost like an anniversary. We went out to eat, the heart with diamonds that I wear all the time is just one of the many gifts he gave me on this day, his Valentine Day poems are many, and he always got me chocolates which we sat and at after we got home from dinner. He also got a card from our dog/s over the years and tied it to their collars and sent them to me with the card which was printed in child's print and chewed by the dog on the corner (he put something tasty on the corner so Bentley (or Buffy) would chew it... as a signature. I know it can all sound corny but we loved our life and never stopped cherishing our days and celebrating what we finally finally finally found with each other.

So today I am numb. Numbness is not usually a response I have. I have cried, tried to keep busy, avoided a luncheon at the General Store with a bunch of friends, and am just numb/dazed in spite of tears. I know the tears and numb/daze do not go together but I have no other way to explain how I feel...just ambushed and numb....

How grateful I am for all of you. I am so sorry for the pain that each of you/us is bearing and living with. I wish I could take it all away from everyone but of course...that is impossible.

Peace...someday

Mary

[dave s]

I utterly cannot believe that I am sitting in the same chair, staring at the same computer....as last yr on this same day, wondering what to get Mike on my way home from work....the first Valentines day, that we spent in our home.....

Wow the memories of that day...the quick trip into Walmart, to get something, the call to his sister, who insisted I get anything...and get home.....my thoughts were to plan better for next yr...at this time...went home to find my smiling Mike! And of course the time together meant more, than anything material......but with that being said, the orchid he bought me, that day,is still alive, and still brings a smile.......little did I ever expect that 6 weeks later....everything would start to unravel......so surreal to me.......Dave

[mfh]

Yes, Dave. Bill's last Valentine's Day found him in the hospital....I brought him a white teddy bear (soft) as he had given me so many white Teddy Bears because I mentioned once how I liked one that I saw. It is still here, of course, but sad reminders as i do not think he even knew I ever brought it to him or that it was Valentine's Day or that I was there. He died a few weeks later on March 27....second anniversary approaches.

One holiday opens the door to feelings....let one feeling rise and up they all come....the sad, the happy....

Glad the day is almost over. Starts with the holidays, then Bill's birthday in January, then the long hospital stay as we tried to regulate drugs, then his fast downward spiral, then Valentine's Day, then his death....burial....followed the day after his burial with my 70th birthday...forever linked. We were going to celebrate that birthday in Europe.... instead I stood at his grave.

Mary

[widower]

I'm so sorry Mary. Hopefully at least with much of this in the beginning of the year, the rest of the year can better "leave you alone." Your comment about Europe hit home. We hoped to go to Paris one day and never did. I now have no interest in ever going as I think it would be more painful than anything. She loved it so (had been there before) and in fact before her downward spiral we talked about tying to get there but it was one thing or another and never did. I curse myself for not going years before (numerous times) when she brought it up.