I Was Thinking The Other Day ( About Pain )

My husband will die on Tuesday. That is a really surreal sentence to write. And while I sit here staring at it, it doesn’t become any more real or less surreal.

Through the grace of the medically assisted aid in dying program of Washington state, he will be able to let go of the excruciating pain he’s lived with for 19 years, let go of a body that has and is failing him in new ways every day, let go of the guilt he feels. And I rejoice for him. And I rail at the universe on behalf of my kids and I.

It’s been a long six weeks since he decided. Since we decided. I was driving him to yet another doctor appointment and at a stop light I looked over at him and I knew. And he knew that I knew. And I knew that he knew that I knew.

That day was the beginning of 6 weeks of deep and heavy broken up by occasional laughter. We told our families. We told our kids. Families arrived and left. The kids arrived. We cried alone. We cried together. We checked in with each other constantly. We sat in silence together. The kids smoked weed and talked down by the creek.

I have never been more impressed with who our kids grew up to be..authentic, caring, transparent, resilient, funny, honest, real. They want to take care of me and I want to take care of them. And we’ll play that tug-o-war for a while. And while I can’t stop worrying about them now, I know we’ll come out the other side better.

And on Tuesday, his pain will end. And ours will begin.