The Husk

friend: people keep saying "hows she holding up" i wonder what the right answer is to that?

me: i wonder too

me: i just say i dunno ok, what can you say

me: its like when people on cash at the grocery store ask how i am i just say 'fine' then think in my head something f***ed up like 'oh i'm fine, fiance is dead and i ate doritos for breakfast at 5pm'.

friend: i just say "shes amazing" i dont know what thats supost to mean but its that or i tell them your soon to be the husk

...

It's been 8 months since P died, and yes, I am the husk.

Part of me wishes I had this neatly chronicled blog, describing all the terrible details and daily thoughts since he was diagnosed with cancer, in the hopes that I can go back later on and create a book or something useful.

But I don't. I'm in no shape to go through it all now. It will come out when it comes out, and if it doesn't... well is anyone really reading this anyway?

The quick(ish) version:

We met in an online game. He moved across the world to be with me in 2005. It was sheer bliss. We thought about visiting Australia/NZ for Christmas or being responsible and buying a house. That all got squashed.

Summer '08 he was a bit tired. It was celiac disease. It was also cancer—stage IV metastatic melanoma. They cut it out. He was recovering nicely. In November we had a celebration when he was declared cancer free, and the next day he was vomiting. It was in his spinal fluid and thus beginning it's attack on the lining of his brain. Whole brain radiation and chemo in December. He did surprisingly well, but still went blind as it coated his optic nerve.

(I think about those times a lot... his text messages from the hospital filling with typos, a blade of the ceiling fan that he can't see, the colours on the Rubick's cube are all becoming the same.)

He came home. Time passed in spurts of the terrifying, the beautiful, the frantic, filled with long stretches of the depressing. Of listening to audio books. Of optimism out loud, but the stuff of nightmares lurking in both our heads. Of being sleepy because it was always dark.

We bought a cat. Actually she picked him out, so we had to have her.

Considering the state his body was in, he managed a pretty awesome proposal in April. We planned our wedding, hoping to at least be given the chance to have this one last happy thing. Denied. By the end of May his cancer figured out how to beat the chemo and started spreading again. Pressure in his poor head.

His last 6 weeks were absolute hell.

They started off with fixing his headaches, thinking he would be home in a week or so. With mildly amusing hallucinations and surreal nights addressing wedding invitations on the empty bed next to him. They ended in a vegetative state, stopping his fluids, watching his final seizure as his face turned yellow, gasping for breath, confused and scared, no pulse, a few more slow gasps. And silence as I finally accepted that I'd failed.

2009 was the worst year of my life. Nobody should have to say the year they were proposed to, and supposed to get married in was the worst year of their lives.

2010 isn't exactly a picnic. Last year I had hope. As unfounded as it was, I had it. He was there. Now he's not and never will be. That makes this year worse in a way.

And here I am again. Time passing with no purpose.
Here I am, the husk.