I may have survived the transplant process, but sadly, the same can’t be said for my marriage.
After almost 14 years as husband and wife and 20 years together, Paul has decided it’s time to go – he can no longer be part of this ‘world of illness’. It’s been seven years and three rounds of a hellish cancer roller coaster, a ride that he never asked to take. You can’t blame him really.
Paul dropped the bombshell about three weeks ago and I’ve been trying to get over the shock since. After a morning of me throwing up violently, he finally broke and suggested that if I want to ‘run away to become a monk with the time I had left, then he wouldn’t stop me.’ I was admitted to hospital that afternoon and later that evening came the explosion and shrapnel wounds…
My central line was hooked up to a variety of supportive therapies; fluid, pain relief etc. I lay in my hospital bed while we Skyped, and not long into the conversation Paul blurted out ‘it’s all getting too hard and if we split up then we can each just do what we want………..’ No judgement here about being so brutally open and honest – the timing on the other hand was dreadful. I guess there’s no ‘good’ time to drop something like this though.
So, I freely admit to asking for some additional pain relief in an effort to try and wipe me out from the nightmare unfolding around me. The big difference between the patient and everyone else is that others can choose to opt out – those of us with the disease can’t. Don’t try to tell me you understand.
Encore Performances 
G’day Kate. Blast from the Jeffcott St past here, your old neighbour, Ken Morris.
Saw this because Dean Gould, who is a lifetime friend, and to whose first son I am godfather, posted it on FB. I wish I knew the reason for, or even had a decent working theory about, why the world includes such suffering, and in particular why it happens to good kind creative people who have only ever added value to life. And I sure have no platitudes to offer, including any imagined version of knowing how you feel.
If I could have wished for you to have one thing, it would have been the miracle of peace of mind from knowing that you are loved. Now even that has a sad veil over it. I talk to Dave pretty regularly, like every few weeks, and always ask about you. And for however much it helps I know that right there, in your brother, is a beautiful man who adores his sick sister and hates that she suffers. I know because, unlike many men, he has the gift of being able to say so…at least to me. And there are others I know. Not that that changes the torture of repeated senseless pain and sickness.
But it adds at least this tiny thought, bought at horrible cost; that the pain in your life becomes part of our story. Not because we feel it, but because we bear witness to it. And in bearing witness we are forever changed. We are softened and made more open to love. We are made more fierce in our commitment to change the things we can…the injustices, loneliness and violence around us. We are chastened in our superficial attitudes and for the stupid shallow ways we misorganise the pantheons of what is import in our lives. We catch a glimpse, through your eyes, of who we might be if we were you; building, just a little, our strength for dealing with immensely lesser things. And just as we see where some of the boundaries of pain, loss, fear, anger, bitter sadness and confusion, lie; we also see in sharper relief, through your telling of your story, the miracles of dignity, deep humanity, sheer bloody-mindedness, beauty, and courage.
I’m getting close to the risk of sounding like I’m saying that your suffering is for our benefit. Not for a second. That would be compounding cruelty with senselessness.
But that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t promise you not to waste this part of your life. So I do, Kate…I promise to try not to waste it. And I will not be alone.
I send you what feels like the feeble gift of my own love. And I honour every single moment of your journey, including the hope that, however it is to be, there is an end to all your pain close by. Whatever that is, Kate…may it bring you love and peace beyond anything you or I could imagine.
If it means you journeying beyond…dying….there I said it, we’ll all be along to whatever that is in a minute or two, your time. And if it means you being well again, in my case it will be harder to find an excuse not to catch up.
You’re awesome. Literally.
Much love, beautiful woman.
Ken
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